Transcription and Creativity - Best/easiest Programs

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Romerito

Posts: 47
Joined: Jan. 18 2023

Transcription and Creativity - Best/...

This is the first of 3 falsetas por bulerias from Tomatito and Los Tomate (Nino Miguel, Tomatito, Nino Josele). Unfortunately, music software sucks and the learning curve for each is formidable, especially if you want to make semi-professional quality transcriptions.

This is from a transcribed set that also includes the whole of Nino Josele's Estirpe and a couple of Nino Miguel falsetas Trying to notate fingerings for rajeos is especially difficult.
You would think that Finale would have this figured out after nearly 20 years. Anyway, my workaround is to use the text tool. PIMAX indicates downward strokes while pimax indicates upward. This solves the problem of having to indicate right-hand fingerings and direction arrows, but adds the problem of what to do with single-finger non-rajeo notation. The system would also work for alzapua, but then, to be consistent, all regular thumb strokes would be indicated by a capital "P" and regular fingering strokes for the rest of the hand would be indicated in miniscule.

For people that just want transcriptions, do you follow fingerings, or is it a waste of time for the transcriber to go into so much detail. Do you just want the notes and possibly left hand fingerings and strings, or does more detail help?

Any ideas on other programs or transcription in general are welcome.
I have included the falseta. Let me know what you think.

Also raises the issue of the so-called Etouffe. In mm.32 Tomatito strums that first stroke while muted, the following strum is a p down-stroke that is also slightly muted.
I am changing it to "E" for the first mute down-stroke with either "E" or "I" and then P down.
The problem is that this then becomes "my" transcription solution and requires a key to all the symbols. "Goddammit Finale, get with some guitarists to problem solve for them!!!"

Anyone have a favorite transcription tool or any commentary on the process?

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 13 2024 22:07:32

xirdneH_imiJ

Posts: 1900
Joined: Dec. 2 2006
From: Budapest, now in Southampton

RE: Transcription and Creativity - B... (in reply to Romerito)

I'm the guy behind TabsFlamenco and I've had to face these (and many more) questions over the years. I exclusively use Guitar Pro for transcriptions and it really has nearly everything you need except one or two flamenco specific tools that would be nice to have but ultimately nobody else would ever use them.

You obviously have the option to mark fingerings on both hands using their tool, but both as a transcriber and a consumer I find it a tremendous waste of time, because 1. it places the text in a way that it's difficult to read, 2. it takes a lot more time to input. Therefore I'm a big believer in text input.

Another thing is that I would assume (and I know often that is not the case) is that somebody purchasing a transcription of some complexity at least has a basic knowledge of techniques in flamenco, or at least some common sense. In the 5th measure you mark the a-m-i-p, but realistically what else could it be? If I were to mark all these instances, creating every transcription would take twice-thrice the amount of time, it would also make the tab much harder to read because of all the clutter. My solution is to mark everything where there could be a question mark, typically rasgueados. Even then, I will only mark them once and then you can assume that all similar phrases will be played with the same technique. If not, I'll mark them again.

I also use the up and down arrows fairly often, like a P↓mP rasgueado or an amii↓, etc. I mark regular golpes with an x (even though the newer GP versions already have a golpe in them), the ones above the low bass I mark with xx. The muted strums you mention I either mark with xxxxx over the strings, or I put the chord in brackets, depending if it's a complete mute, or you can make out the notes.

I hope this helps!

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 14 2024 17:23:44

Ricardo

Posts: 14892
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Transcription and Creativity - B... (in reply to Romerito)

GuitarPro, even Rick Beato said it is vastly superior to any other music writting software for score or any instrument you need.

Slow down this video if you want focus on the details and features I am using….I could in theory tweek any thing but get lazy with it.

_____________________________

CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 14 2024 18:22:47

Romerito

Posts: 47
Joined: Jan. 18 2023

RE: Transcription and Creativity - B... (in reply to Romerito)

Thanks guys. I tried GP8 and it does seem superior in most ways. Unfortunately I have about 70 transcriptions of my teacher's material along with individual transcriptions of falsetas from commercial recordings all made in Finale. The midi files can be imported to GP5 and immediately turned to notation. However, triplets turn to two dotted 8ths and an 8th (a la tangos). And individual voices get rendered as a single voice.

Switching to GP for future transcription seems like the way to go, but not sure what to do with all the material already in finale.

Does GP accommodate Roman numeral (Below), standard/jazz chord (above), and other forms of analysis. That's one thing I did not try in the free trial (which just ended).

@Ricardo: Video is blurry and you cannot see dynamics, etc. I purchased your solea prior to one of our conversations but at the time I did not like the GP5 layout. Plus, transcription for playing and transcription for analysis and theoretical explication require different kinds of scoring. I am not sure about GP5 in that area (advanced analysis tools, including chord diagrams).

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 14 2024 21:26:49