Transcribing Solos: Comparing My Transcription to Someone Else's

[rhysonsax]

I have posted previously on the forum a wonderful ballad performance on bass sax by Scott Robinson with pianist Emmet Cohen of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes". I listened to it again recently and decided to transcribe Scott's first chorus (basically the head but played in an individual style).

I just completed my transcription, but haven't properly checked it or added in the chords. It was quite challenging at times to hear the pitches on the bass saxophone, but Scott is a great player with fine intonation and timing on this tricky instrument.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered this morning that the solo has already been transcribed and posted on YouTube a year ago by someone else. It's interesting to see where our transcriptions are similar and where they differ.

View: https://youtu.be/NexKN8rMJk4?si=XM1RgV3Ae4b5HId1


Rhys

 

[Pete Effamy]

I would take another look at your work Rhys. There are bits that both look and sound wrong - like the lick coming out of 1st line into 2nd line. A few places.

 

[rhysonsax]

I would take another look at your work Rhys. There are bits that both look and sound wrong - like the lick coming out of 1st line into 2nd line. A few places.

Yes, I'm definitely going to review and update it. But I'm glad I did it this far before seeing the other one.

There are also stylistic choices about how detailed to get when writing down a turn or a gliss or very rapid runs up and down or notating the rhythm when the performer has held back just a tad or how much detail to include about articulation. I guess it depends on why one is writing a solo out in notation.

One thing that is interesting to do is to try to align the original audio with playback of the transcription from Sibelius and listen for differences. But that alignment is difficult because the tempo of the original is usually changing a little. There is probably some clever way of taking timestamps from my Transcribe ! software into Sibelius but I haven't discovered it yet.

Rhys

 

[rhysonsax]

I have reviewed and updated my transcription, paying particular attention to the comments from @Pete Effamy and areas where the YouTube transcription differs from my first version. I also added chord symbols.

I discovered that Sibelius has the ability to compare two different versions of the same score or two different scores and list / highlight the differences between them. So now I know that my updates for V2 consist of:

• Bar 15 pitches and rhythm changed (grace note F added before G)
• Bar 17 one note changed, same rhythm (second note Gb corrected to Ab)
• Bar 19 pitches and rhythm changed (minim Ab changed to two Ab notes)
• Bar 22 one note changed, same rhythm (low Bb changed to B natural)
• Bar 26 pitches and rhythm changed (run down to G changed to run down to low D and low C changed to low Bb)
• Bar 31 two notes changed (G-A changed to F-G)

Stylistically I think that my transcription is a bit "fussy" in terms of transcribing rhythms compared with the YouTube transcription which seems to sometimes go for "close enough" or "what he should have played". So the YouTube transcription is a bit easier to read, if that's what you are after.

Rhys