transcribing own songs

[atilla]

Hi guys,

First of all, let me say I'm a really big fan of both of Ink's records, and Bobby is probably my favourite metal drummer, I'm a drummer myself, but I'm also a bit of a guitarist, mainly for writing my own songs. The problem is however, whenever I come up with something cool in my head, I find it really difficult to put it into notes, or play it on the guitar. This often ens up with me changing it into something really lame because I can't remember how the actual riff or lick went.

I don't have problems with rythyms (sp?) and time sigs, but more with notes. Can anyone give me some tips or a link to a website were I can learn this?

Thanks alot!

PS: This might not be the right forum for it, but I figured most of you guys in here are pretty advanced guitarists, so I hope you can help me!

 

[Taedium Vitae]

You could try learning to sing/hum the notes whilst you play. For some, that does wonders for learning/being able to tell intervals right away.

 

[sands of the seas]

If you know how to notate rhythm and use time sigs as you have said, and you know how to read/create guitar tabs i'd suggest either guitar pro or power tab.
When it comes down to it the only real difference between the two is that guitar pro allows you to tab out drums and use a bunch of different tracks, power tab doesn't (yet). The full version of GP (usually) costs money, whereas power tab is free.
These programs allow you to tab your work out and play it back in midi form.

 

[Barking Pumpkin]

The best thing is probably to learn to recognize intervals. If you teach yourself that, it will help immensely with being able to know what the notes are doing when you hear something (in your head or elsewhere). Besides that, it's one of the major aspects of improvisation, being able to know where all the intervals are from any point on the guitar. Besides that....^_^.....if you know the intervals, you'll be able to put it in any key.

In a musical sense, learning standard notation would probably help more with learning to transcribe notes than guitar tabs. Because unless you think of the guitar fretboard in terms of notes, standard notation will help you a lot more with your musical progress.

 

[fragility]

What everyone has said is true, hum it, if you have any ability to recreate the sound in your head with your voice, record yourself humming, that way you can take as much time trying to notate it as you like without having to worry about forgetting how it went.

I have also found GP and PT to be very useful tools. I always put everything I write into one of them, saves me soooo much time!

 

[atilla]

Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate it!

Humming the song and recording it is definitely an option, and I'll do that in the future. I have Guitar Pro, and whenever I do come up with a riff, I put it into Guitar Pro.

Secondly, you guys mentioned recognizing intervals. I think that's probably how most guitarists transcribe there songs, so that seems to be the solution. The only question now is: How do I do it? Is there a special technique for it, or how did you guys learn it?

Thanks alot!

 

[Barking Pumpkin]

Well, depending on what kind of sense of pitch you have, it could be easy or hard. It might just be a matter of giving yourself a name to call the pitches you already know. There are some websites that can help you, but I don't know those, so maybe someone else can help you out with that.

It was pretty easy for me. I just went to the piano, played the intervals, named them, sang them, and you'll memorize what they sound like eventually. You want to start out with a simple major chord. For purposes of being simple, keep it in C. That's the key on the left side of a set of two black keys. Start from the middle C, which is in the middle of the keyboard. So a major C chord is that middle C, the key on the right of that set of black keys that the key is to the left of, and the key in between the first and second black keys in a set of three. I don't know what your piano knowledge is, so sorry if you know this. Those three notes are C, E, and G, and that's a major triad. So the two intervals to recognize there are a major third, which is E, and a perfect 5th, which is G. You'll probably recognize them from other things you've heard.

Just an example, and if you don't know anything about piano, you might just want to find an eartraining website or just work with plugging the notes into a computer program and doing the intervals from there. Once you feel comfortable with knowing the intervals of a major triad, it would probably help to transcribe a song that uses those intervals, if you know how to use standard notation. If not, you could figure out the intervals and then try to figure out those intervals on guitar. You could pick a really simple song, like a nusery song or something to start with. A nice guitar song to figure out is "Liberty" by Steve Vai. It's a great song, but the intervals are really easy to figure out, as they're mostly major thirds and perfect fifths.

Sorry if that's over your head, I'm glad to help if you have any more questions about it.

 

[Taedium Vitae]

Well, as I said, humming/singing the notes as you play them. Play random notes on the fretboard. Develop the ability to sing them at the same time as you play them.

I believe some of you might've misunderstood me the first time around.

 

[Barking Pumpkin]

Yeah.....when he talks about eartraining, Steve Vai says that your ultimate goal in eartraining should be to be able to harmonize an improvised guitar solo with your voice.