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Transcription and Creativity - Best/easiest Programs
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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Posts: 1926
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.
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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Posts: 15049
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Transcription and Creativity - B... (in reply to Romerito)
I believe, in recent years I have figured out much more that it can do, unfortunately years ago when I made those first scores, I was really only concerned with the tabs and rhythm. Yes you can do a lo with the text box feature, even putting in analytical notes if you need, Roman numerals, chord symbols etc. Also you can change to different layers, etc.
If you had music already in finale, I am not sure why you need to transfer it? What is the goal? If you have say a folder of pdf. it doesn't matter what the original format was. But if you want everything in GP your best bet is to just redo each piece. Trust me, if you just start doing it you get faster and faster, and it will turn out much better than trying to repair the damage of an import.
Watch how fast this guy is transcribing this performance starting at 41:30 on.
Posts: 1926
Joined: Dec. 2 2006
From: Budapest, now in Southampton
RE: Transcription and Creativity - B... (in reply to Stu)
Well, there are a few things. In 8 you can mark a regular golpe, and one with the P which we don't use. You can't do the one we do with the index on the top side. The tone is quite bad for both, but what mostly bothers me is that the volume of the golpe itself is proportional to the amount of notes played - a golpe under a chord will be loud and under a rest it'll be barely audible. In both versions you can mark certain types of rasgueados, but they don't remotely sound what they should like. The tone of the "flamenco" guitar itself is also far off, I use bossa or spinosa since they sound closer to what I want to hear. I love 6 mostly because its UI is something I'm used to and it's fairly easy to use. In 8 it's less than intuitive, some things you can't reach directly, only from the menu or with a complicated shortcut (such as design mode).
Posts: 15049
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Transcription and Creativity - B... (in reply to xirdneH_imiJ)
quote:
ORIGINAL: xirdneH_imiJ
Well, there are a few things. In 8 you can mark a regular golpe, and one with the P which we don't use. You can't do the one we do with the index on the top side. The tone is quite bad for both, but what mostly bothers me is that the volume of the golpe itself is proportional to the amount of notes played - a golpe under a chord will be loud and under a rest it'll be barely audible. In both versions you can mark certain types of rasgueados, but they don't remotely sound what they should like. The tone of the "flamenco" guitar itself is also far off, I use bossa or spinosa since they sound closer to what I want to hear. I love 6 mostly because its UI is something I'm used to and it's fairly easy to use. In 8 it's less than intuitive, some things you can't reach directly, only from the menu or with a complicated shortcut (such as design mode).
Interesting that you are concerned with the midi sounds of the guitar. I always embraced the idea of some very out there sound to hear the same music, like a harpsichord or some synthetic thing, because it reveals more about the music and its accuracy to my ear. I use text for golpe indications such as “PX” or “iX” or “X” depending if it goes with thumb, index, or alone respectively.
Posts: 1926
Joined: Dec. 2 2006
From: Budapest, now in Southampton
RE: Transcription and Creativity - B... (in reply to Ricardo)
I don't mind the midi sound that much, but considering how realistically some of the other (especially electric guitar) tones are done, it annoys me that they can't get acoustic instruments right.
Posts: 1809
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Transcription and Creativity - B... (in reply to Romerito)
quote:
You would think that Finale would have this figured out after nearly 20 years.
[…]
Any ideas on other programs or transcription in general are welcome.
More like 35 years
I got Finale when it first came out, and still use an early version (3.7.2, from 2001) most of the time, since I’m completely familiar with it now (although it had a learning curve like the Matterhorn at first) and it does everything I want except printing in colour, and tablature with time values, for which I use later versions. Another reason is that Mac OS 12 doesn’t seem to support Type 1 fonts (although OS 10 did), and I use those a lot.
As far as notation goes, I use (more or less) that developed by Paco Peña & Diana Sainbury for Toques Flamencos (described on pp. 4–7), which saves a lot of time and effort. The sign for the golpe is included with the Finale fonts.
Here’s an example:
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RE: Transcription and Creativity - B... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
Two questions Paul. First, did you make the arrows as expressions or articulations? I could have sworn I had them in my version (I just upgraded from guitar 2014 to 2023 and some of my articulations and expressions are gone). Second, do you notate all five notes in the flamenco tremelo or use the repeat slashes?
I'll have to look at the Paco Pena. I do know that by using mayuscule pimax for downstrokes and miniscule for upstrokes, I do save some time and space. But, not sure how that would be accepted.
quote:
If you had music already in finale, I am not sure why you need to transfer it? What is the goal? If you have say a folder of pdf. it doesn't matter what the original format was. But if you want everything in GP your best bet is to just redo each piece. Trust me, if you just start doing it you get faster and faster, and it will turn out much better than trying to repair the damage of an import.
GP8 has some functions that seem easier to execute that finale, including the rajeo notation. The tremelo thing is also a pain. Paco's tremelos get really crowded and one thing i DO NOT DO in any of my trancriptions is break up compases: it's four or two measures per line for ease of reading and keeping compas intact. I hate transcriptions that use odd numbers.
quote:
Romerito, I'm sure you're tech savvy enough to have thought of this already... but it's there no way you can export/import your finale tabs into gp8?
Unfortunately, triplets import as two dotted eights and one undotted. So many falsetas are in triplets so you can see how time-consuming that would become to retranscribe them.
Posts: 1809
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Transcription and Creativity - B... (in reply to Romerito)
quote:
Two questions Paul. First, did you make the arrows as expressions or articulations? I could have sworn I had them in my version (I just upgraded from guitar 2014 to 2023 and some of my articulations and expressions are gone).
They’re articulations, from the Petrucci font. The current version of Finale uses Maestro, which it says ‘is more robust than the older Petrucci, and more accurately represents the look of engraved music’. But whether it has all the characters that Petrucci had is another matter. Other fonts I use include Zapf Dingbats for circled string-numbers and Times 10-point for left-hand fingering (but of course Times New Roman would do just as well).
Are you using a Mac or a PC? I could send you my template if you’re using a Mac. Also (since you’ve presumably paid your money down for Finale) I could send you the Petrucci font, if you haven’t got it.
quote:
Second, do you notate all five notes in the flamenco tremolo or use the repeat slashes?
Repeat slashes. But of course, when there’s more than one pitch in the quintuplet (as is not uncommon) I have to write it out.
Posts: 1809
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
RE: Transcription and Creativity - B... (in reply to Romerito)
quote:
one thing i DO NOT DO in any of my trancriptions is break up compases: it's four or two measures per line for ease of reading and keeping compas intact. I hate transcriptions that use odd numbers.
Posts: 15049
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Transcription and Creativity - B... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen
quote:
one thing i DO NOT DO in any of my trancriptions is break up compases: it's four or two measures per line for ease of reading and keeping compas intact. I hate transcriptions that use odd numbers.
I agree entirely.
There is an issue with stuff that is not cuadrao, ie, a compromise has to be made. People that can actually read music probably have no issue with a compás line not perfectly visual in nature. One trick I did with guitar pro was put Siguiriyas in 6/4 meter, with a specific beaming pattern. For me at least, it looks great. I wanted them to do that with Mel Bay but they changed it so that is the standard 3/4-6/8, which I don’t like but I had to “go with the flow” on a lot of things.
In terms of the red notes Solea Paul showed, I have to ask what is with the 32nd note beam blending together? Can’t you fix that? At first glance I thought overly thick 16th notes.
The Paco Peña use of the double sharp sign is no good for me because in some instances a sharp, flat, double sign etc, will appear ABOVE a note as a reminder or option. A practical use in flamenco of the double sharp will be palos in the tono of D# phrygian (Mi bemol), where the F double sharp and C double sharp appear frequently.
When hand writing I adapted a square box (not sure the origin of that, but my friend used it via Edward Freeman, whose score I showed in the Paco Tutorial 9 Siguiriyas last year) for golpe. In the end I have settled on using “X” in guitar pro various ways because it has no other musical meaning other than when muting strings which is pretty obvious, and is easy to apply fast. In fact it is a percussive symbol that makes sense IMO.
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