Hi everyone. So, I'm pretty new to TL, basically just another member of the SC2 beta wave. Having lurked on a few forums dedicated to various topics (politics, games, piano, dogs . .)in the past I've got to say this one takes the cake.
Anyways, to the point: I'm a conservatory-trained classical pianist with a little jazz experience too who is currently working as a piano teacher.
In the course of my teaching I have found myself making arrangements of various pieces, mostly pop songs, for my students. When the music isn't too terrible (Miley Cyrus, anyone?) I've actually found myself enjoying it.
I recently, and belatedly, picked up a copy of Finale, and am just getting the hang of entering my arrangements into it. I am also frustrated at how long it takes me to learn pieces by ear. So I got to thinking - what better way to get some practice at both things, than to offer my services as a transcriber/arranger to the good folks here at TL?
In short:
Post the music you want me to transcribe in this thread, and I'll pick one at a time from the responses (if there are a lot I could even make a poll) and within a few days to a few weeks depending on the complexity/desired difficulty of the arrangement, I'll post a link to the completed sheet music here on TL.
I'm happy to take a stab at any genre. Noise rock (Sonic Youth etc) would be tough but I'll try. Classical music not originally for piano is fine too, although if its longer than a couple of minutes I will condense it to themes only.
You should let me know what difficulty level you want for the arrangement. Most pop songs don't require anything advanced. Some will lose a lot in a very easy version and others won't. If you want a virtuoso arrangement of some video game theme or whatever I'll be happy to try, although it will take awhile.
First person to post with an amusingly impossible task (Xenakis, anyone?) gets a smiley.
As easy as you can make it without compromising too much, your discretion? ^_^
Don't know the song. Metal piques my interest though. Wait, is Iron Maiden considered metal? Whatever.
edit: Listened to it. Could be cool. Seems a little bit on the long side for a piano version. What sections would you consider indispensable? I assume the beginning would have to be in there. Guitar solos?
All Blues, by Miles Davis & Gang
I assume you want the intro + head only? Complete solos are too long/too much work, but I could throw in a few choice licks if you had some way of pointing out to me which ones you wanted. I think this one is in the "Real Book" and some other fake books too, but I won't rule it out yet.
I should mention two additional conditions:
The sheet music (at least in your desired difficulty) should not be available online anywhere else.
You should be prepared, if chosen, to provide a recording of the song if it is not available free online. If it is available free online, it would be great if you could put a link in your post.
My bro would like to you transcribe this piece from 1:18 to the end of the video:
its a pretty simple piece (actually very short, repeating twice); my brother just really wants to play it on piano (he's new to the piano) and wants some sheet music to start off of.
here's a vid of a guy trying to play this on piano:
Thanks! edit: err and as accurate as you could get would be tight my bro found a couple of music sheets, but he claimed that they detracted from the song... iono he's kinda picky for a newbie lol
That one sounds like it would be fun. If you can confirm that no one else has posted sheet music for this online I will do this one for sure.
@ hellokitty
Just watched a couple of this guy's videos. He does a pretty good job with the guitar-piano translation, which is something I'm usually unsatisfied with in my own arrangements. I don't think I want to do any more Taylor Swift right now though - I just recently did a very easy (not as nice/polished as that guy's version) version of "You Belong with Me" for a student. That said, I didn't hate listening to her as much as I thought I would. She seems like a talented songwriter.
To others: keep posting, I will definitely do others too!
I'm pretty excited by the amount of responses here, looks like I'll have plenty to do.
Unfortunately, my computer just completely died. I sent it away for repair, but I'm not expecting to get it back until Monday-Tuesday next week, so I won't be able to do any work on this project until then.
So far, I am for sure going to do the "One Piece" music posted in this thread.
The SNSD, Iron Maiden, and Miles Davis suggestions are all strong possibilities for the future.
The Dionisis is nice music actually, but for some reason I'm just not interested in trying it, sorry.
Aren't there piano lead sheets pretty commonly available for All Blues?
Yes, probably. There might not be an "easy piano" version though, or one that doesn't require knowledge of chord symbols, if that is what the poster is looking for. I would definitely see what was already available before attempting any of these, as I mentioned before.
I am actually working on the "One Piece" transcription right now. I won't have my computer back until Monday at the earliest though, so I won't be able to enter it into Finale until then. Should be up around Wednesday or so, then I'll choose another.
haha when I saw this thread I instantly remembered this song that I had wanted transcribed for months, as at the time when I first heard it, I spent hours looking for the sheet music but could not find it:
I was just about to request for you to make the transcription, but I decided to search for the sheet music first in case others have transcribed it/posted the original up already, and guess what, the first search found me my long-wanted music =)
OK sorry guys, it took longer to get my computer back than I thought it would, but I have it now and should be uploading a rough draft of the "One Piece" music tonight. "Rough Draft" means there won't be any fingerings or expression marks. Those things probably aren't important to you guys anyway. I just want to add them in so I can learn how to do it. I am 100% sure all of the melody, bass notes, and harmonies are correct, but I am not as sure about the exact chord voicings, so some notes could change in the final edit, but everything really important will be there.
As far as what is coming next, my favorite of the music posted in the thread so far is that last one bbq posted . . I guess I am liking the japanese stuff, which is funny because I really don't care for anime at all.
Also, two technical questions:
I'm totally new to uploading files to share . . can someone recommend a good website for that?
You guys are going to have to download a free viewer from Finale to actually open the file. I was wondering if anybody knows a way I could convert the file to pdf, or jpg, or something so that people downloading don't have to go out and get a separate program to view it.
If you like Japanese piano solos this is pretty nice too:
If anyone is interested pkaboome has the sheet music done already (got his permission to post it): 2shared.com/file/12191287/21068eb6/Elegy
The only problem is that the sheet music isn't 100% accurate, I'm kinda OCD about these things =/, if it doesn't take long would you mind checking it over if it's not too difficult?
you dont hagve to transcribe this unless you really want to, but i just want ur opinion on how you feel this would sound transcribed onto piano:
i have a rough version done by ear, but my piano skills are not that great and neither is my ear, so im missing a lot of pieces. just wondering if its kind of a hard piece to transcribe
Thanks for the responses guys . . . I would still really like to know if anyone knows how to convert finale files to a format that doesn't require any external programs to read. I guess it shouldn't be too hard to find a good file sharing site on my own.
bbq, I will take a look at that music in the next week or so and tell you what I find.
OMin - That kind of music is defined way more by texture than by actual pitches, so the piano version would bear little resemblance to the original. Would it be hard to transcribe the pitches? Not terribly. Would it be hard to transcribe in such a way that the piano version had a similar effect to the original? Yes. It might even be impossible - which isn't to say that you might not end up with a pretty cool piece anyway.
On May 29 2010 09:29 HCastorp wrote: Thanks for the responses guys . . . I would still really like to know if anyone knows how to convert finale files to a format that doesn't require any external programs to read. I guess it shouldn't be too hard to find a good file sharing site on my own.
bbq, I will take a look at that music in the next week or so and tell you what I find.
OMin - That kind of music is defined way more by texture than by actual pitches, so the piano version would bear little resemblance to the original. Would it be hard to transcribe the pitches? Not terribly. Would it be hard to transcribe in such a way that the piano version had a similar effect to the original? Yes. It might even be impossible - which isn't to say that you might not end up with a pretty cool piece anyway.
yeah i was going straight off just getting the pitches down accurately... of course an acoustic piano is gonna sound nothing like distorted guitars, but i want to be able to play it on piano and do the vocals along with it for something new and unique except im havin trouble getting some of the rhythms down cuz i suck at it
but as for capturing a similar effect - im trying to utilize a lot of low bass/booming low octave hits in the left hand to make it sound more heavy and evil.... piano definitely has the ability to sound foreboding, so thats what im going for
Sounds cool. Can you read/write music? I would love to see what you have, if you have notated anything. I might take a stab at it too. This kind of problem (capturing distorted guitar textures) was what I was alluding to in the original post when I mentioned noise-rock - I remember trying to transcribe some Sonic Youth in High School and giving up relatively quickly. Would be cool to return to it now though.
Any thoughts about the advantages/disadvantages of either program? I have to admit I don't know much about them - I just bought finale because that's what my friends use . . . Although I would imagine it hardly makes any difference at all for simple piano scores.
I've never really used finale, I just happened to learn on sibelius, since when I was in school they had some kind of unlimited/really really big license and gave me a copy
On May 29 2010 10:01 HCastorp wrote: Sounds cool. Can you read/write music? I would love to see what you have, if you have notated anything. I might take a stab at it too. This kind of problem (capturing distorted guitar textures) was what I was alluding to in the original post when I mentioned noise-rock - I remember trying to transcribe some Sonic Youth in High School and giving up relatively quickly. Would be cool to return to it now though.
yes i can read write music... i really suck at it though... its probably more accurate to say i can understand what written music is, but am very bad at actualizing it because i have HORRIBLE rhythm... i could make a video, but my playing skills are pretty bad as well so it sounds really rough/not in tempo. hahaha ill see what i can do tho... i dont know about writing it down tho, cuz i dont know how to do that on the computer. plus its a real headache for me dealing with time sigs, especially since the guitar pro tab seems to show that there are a couple spots with momentary time signature changes.
After a short and arduous search on TL i found your blogpost again!
Could you kindly do a transcription of this piece: if possible with vln s'il vous plait (although i could just take it off the top line =p) umm its ok if the middle lines (harmony) are left out cos im a bad piano player (=p
Oh man, now I'm embarrassed that I didn't really follow up most of this thread.
I like the music you just posted. It reminds me of Brahms' Hungarian Dances. You should check those out if you like this.
I think it would actually be relatively easy to transcribe, sounds like mostly 6ths in the right hand and relatively simple harmonies. I think i could take a stab at this in a couple of days. I will probably make a transcription of more or less the complete piano part, unless that is way too hard.
On July 04 2010 02:46 HCastorp wrote: Oh man, now I'm embarrassed that I didn't really follow up most of this thread.
I like the music you just posted. It reminds me of Brahms' Hungarian Dances. You should check those out if you like this.
I think it would actually be relatively easy to transcribe, sounds like mostly 6ths in the right hand and relatively simple harmonies. I think i could take a stab at this in a couple of days. I will probably make a transcription of more or less the complete piano part, unless that is way too hard.
Oh.. i think we played the 5th one to death in orch. did 1 before ages ago =p but sure i'll check them out. The dances i mean =p
Hmmmerrmmrmr on 2nd thought i should be able to get the violin part hahaha its just the piano part, im terrible at chords =(
On July 14 2010 10:54 Flying Duck wrote: Can you transcribe A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton? I've always wanted to learn how to play that song. Thanks.
This is easily found online. There are leaked .pdfs of the official version that you can find on google.
On July 14 2010 10:54 Flying Duck wrote: Can you transcribe A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton? I've always wanted to learn how to play that song. Thanks.
This is easily found online. There are leaked .pdfs of the official version that you can find on google.
Thanks, I'll have a check when I get home later tonight.
On July 14 2010 12:15 Empyrean wrote: Actually, I have a request of my own. Could you transcribe Tommy Flanagan's transcription of Velvet Moon? It's found on his Moodsville album.
What anime is that from?
*rimshot*
A jazz transciption would be really fun, albeit a lot more difficult. If you can somehow get the recording to me or tell me where I can get it free I'll be happy to take a listen to it and I'll let you know if I think I can do it or not.
EPT
my bro found a couple of music sheets, but he claimed that they detracted from the song... iono he's kinda picky for a newbie lol
except im havin trouble getting some of the rhythms down cuz i suck at it
