transcribing a complex piece for piano
Having a good grasp of chords is a big part of piano transcription, but it’s also important to be able to listen to a melody line and figure out where it’s going. One trick is to listen in a quiet place where you won’t be distracted and play the piece backwards – this will help you hear what is actually happening on the instrument. It is also helpful to have an instrument on hand that you’re comfortable playing, so that you can test out notes or chords on the fly.
For beginners, it’s best to start with a simple piece of music and work your way up to more complicated material. This will help you get used to the process and learn how to transcribe by ear more effectively. Try to find a high-quality version of the song, as this will give you the best possible audio quality and make it easier to listen for subtleties that may be missed in a lower quality recording.
To begin transcribing a complex piece, you’ll need to listen carefully and determine the chord structure of the song. This will usually be done by identifying which bass notes are present in the piece. If the piece is played entirely on a single instrument, like a solo piano, it will be easy to see which bass notes are being hit. For pieces with a bass guitar, or other instrument that doesn’t have an obvious bass note, you can use the same technique of listening for the lowest frequency to figure out what notes are being played.
How do you approach transcribing a complex piece for piano?
Once you have a firm understanding of the chord structure of a piece, it’s time to work on melodies. It’s important to take your time with this and not rush, as it can be very easy to make mistakes that will detract from the accuracy of your transcription. One of the biggest mistakes is over-playing a melody – this can sound harsh and disjointed, making it difficult to resurface in future compositions or improvisations.
A great tip for transcribing fast melodies is to count the beats of each note to determine the rhythmic value. For example, if you hear two quick notes that sound similar to a quarter note, you can easily tell whether they’re eighth notes or sixteenths by counting how many beats fit in each. It’s also a good idea to familiarize yourself with all of the common piano voicings, so that you can recognise them quickly at a glance.
Once you have a strong grasp of the melodies and chords of a piece, you can move on to the more detailed aspects of piano transcription. This will often involve more in-depth analysis of the tempo and rhythm, but it is also helpful to think in terms of a “vertical” approach. This is a term that is used to describe a way of transcribing music that contains a large amount of polyphony or difficult to grasp jazz harmonies, and involves recognizing what type of chord is being played (major, minor, diminished, augmented, etc) and estimating the correct notes to play over the chord in order to approximate a full note-for-note transcription.