Hello everyone ,
sorry i'm really a noob i'm starting to have music lessons now and i've seen many times guys here and in the sheet music requests section talking about transcription of musics. So, I would like to know what it really means to transcribe music, and how to do it ?
Thanx a lot :D

PS: I suppose this is the righ place to post this right ? XD

Correct ^_^

There are two different ways of transcribing a piece of music:

1) Listening to the piece on CD/mp3 over and over again to get the melodies/harmonies straight from the recording. This is tough if there's lots of voice overs going over the top of the music or there are multiple parts. You need to have a good ear for music and good musical theory to be able to fill the gaps in the parts by guessing the chords etc.

2) Getting a midi of the song off the Internet and opening it in a program such as Noteworthy Composer or Finale and getting the notes from there. Often the midi exportation into notation can be really screwed up so you have to listen to the original recording and the midi file to separate the parts out properly. This is much easier than transcribing directly from the original recording as the notes are there, even if they are buggered up.

There's also transposition, which is different to transcription - transposition involves taking an already notated piece and moving every note up or down a certain number of semitones or tones to make it playable for an instrument that doesn't play notes at concert pitch (as in, concert pitch is where C on the instrument = C on the piano, but some instruments might play a C which sounds like a Bb on the piano, thus a piece written in concert pitch so it sounds correct on the piano will have to be tranposed to make it sound correct on the Bb instrument.)

Hope that was helpful :) I'm not that great at transcribing but josh, Sondagger, hell_extremedawg or one of the other transcribing gurus will be able to provide more info!

Wow thankx a lot man ! :D

The way I do it is the first way.

Its a bit long and tedious, but that's the only way I know how. Plus its a good way for me to fit i a little theory in my life. Everyone needs a little theory.

I think it depends on how you want to approach it. Some transcriptions are very straightforward, while others are more exploratory(ie, theme and variation pieces). Also keep in mind of what instruments you want to transcribe it for, so you can transpose the original material to fit their range (or to perhaps to put it in keys which are simpler to play in).

Here (http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?showtopic=3264) is an example of a transcription I'm currently working on. This is an example of a "moderately deviating" transcription; the general structure is almost exactly the same as the original, but it's transposed a bit for easier playing for the ensemble. Most of the score melody I copied down from the piano score (excepting the little intro part which was omitted), but the harmony is somewhat different- I've tried to portray with mostly broken chords because of the absolute of the limited polphony (it's for woodwind quartet). And to make it more interesting to play, I've added many little "flourishes" of notes here and there, and also constantly shifted the melodic lines between the instruments. But that also may make it somewhat harder to play, so if I can find simpler alternatives that are also reasonably interesting, I'll probably replace those parts accordingly.

Anyways, I'm not really an expert on transcribing either (that piece is probably my first serious transcription :doh:), but I believe these general guidelines are accurate: think about a what you want to achieve with the transcription(how ambitious you want to be in your scope); try to find a balance for the instrumentation in keeping it interesting, but also reasonably playable; and lastly, if possible, try to someone to play it and ask for their opinion on how well it was built (particullary for those instruments you are not too familiar with). Hope this helps.