Transcribe It – Quick Tip

Find more Quick Tips and lessons by Vi Wickam and other teachers at https://www.myTalentForge.com.

[The song I play at the beginning of this Quick Tip is called Durang’s Hornpipe. You can listen to it here.]

Hi everybody, Vi Wickam here with another Quick Tip of the Week.

This Quick Tip is a great way to figure out what’s going on in somebody else’s fiddle playing. Especially somebody who you look up to.

That way is to transcribe their music.

When you transcribe a piece of music, it really makes you figure out where those notes lie.

So, if I’m just listening to a tune and I learn it by ear, and something’s not quite perfect, I may not notice it because I just go on.

But when I’m transcribing a tune, I really make sure that each note is correct and that what happened when I play it in Finale, or if you use a different program- that program…

When I hear when I play it in the program matches what I’m hearing when I listen to it from the recording that I’m transcribing from.

So if you want to really get a deeper understanding of maybe the bowing patterns, or the rhythms, or the notes that are being played by somebody you look up to- transcribe it.

Get into that nitty gritty and figure it out. Because making that transcription is a great tool to take your understanding of that music to the next level.

So this doesn’t give you technical skill to play, necessarily, but it gets your mind there. And as GI Joe said, knowing is half the battle!

That’s your Quick Tip of the Week! I hope you have a wonderful one. I’ll see you next week!