Yesterday I was sent a recording of a simple melody which was written by a former student who asked me to transcribe it.

What is transcribing music?

In music, transcription can mean notating a piece or a sound which was previously unnotated, as, for example, an improvised jazz solo. … Transcription may also mean rewriting a piece of music, either solo or ensemble, for another instrument or other instruments than which it was originally intended. (Wikipedia)

I guess having perfect pitch is good for something!

One interesting job I did decades ago was to transcribe a song by local entertainer Danny Couch. Not only was I to notate the song from a recording—I then had to create a piano accompaniment and make it look like a real piece of sheet music. I was not contacted by the composer—as I recall, I was contracted by the advertising agency who wanted to use the sheet music as a visual in a TV commercial.

I’ll never forget a phone message I got years ago from my mother. It was the night before her 70th (yes, that’s right!) high school reunion. In her voicemail, she sang her school’s Alma Mater and wanted me to transcribe it—convert it to sheet music so it could be sung by the other alumni at the reunion. I still have the file on my computer.

The skill of listening and then notating music was something I had to do as part of the entrance exams when I was in graduate school. The examiner, though, gave me an the musical excerpt from one of Bach’s Schübler chorales which I had played on the organ. He only had to play the excerpt once—and I knew the rest!

Now—the transcription part of my latest task was easy. I printed out some music manuscript paper from the Internet, started listening and notating, using a pencil. I then wanted to punch it into the computer so it would look professional.

To my great dismay, I discovered that my music software program no longer worked on my computer! This particular program originally cost $1,000 (granted, that was in the late 80s) and sent out annual upgrades at a cost of $149. I last upgraded about three years ago and thought I could still use it, but no dice. The fonts were completely wrong and the program was essentially worthless.

To me, this is the most ludicrous part of owning a computer. You buy the hardware and then the software, and as your operating system is updated, your software no longer works with it and you have to pay to upgrade.

Imagine owning a car and then discovering that regular gasoline no longer works to make it run. Maybe this isn’t a good analogy, but it’s still frustrating just the same.

I found a free open source music program which allowed me to complete the job but of course it meant taking the time to watch the video tutorials to learn the program. And of course it couldn’t do everything I wanted—but it had to suffice.

And for all of you who will point out that there are software programs which will transcribe music for you—I say that it still takes the human to decide if the transcription is correct.

Bah computers—can’t live with them and can’t live without ’em!