Copying Written Tablature to Soundslice Concept for your own use of course

Teacher's Lounge
#1

This was a concept I have been kind of trying to think if there might be some benefit to it.

So it goes as follows,

Take your tablature book, and basically just copy it rote measure by measure into soundslice (transcription software of your choice). Now sure you don’t want to just share this cause it in some ways is not genuinely your transcription. But this is for practice purposes only.

So as you go measure by measure stop, just play each part before proceeding to add the next part, phrase, fill, riff. lick, whatever, and just learn as you copy it. The reason I feel it might can help is because if you decide to use a different technical approach you can develop your path as you step through it.

Do any of you do this kind of concept?

I see it help develop a very firm grasp of the softwares hotkeys so if you do start transcribing you will be very proficient at whichever software notation you decide to use.

#2

I don’t do this but I can see benefits if you felt like putting in the time. I’ve heard stories from “way back in the day” when copyists or engravers would learn a great deal by essentially doing this same thing. If they were on the clock they probably didn’t have the time to actually play the stuff but that would clearly be even better than the exposure itself.

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#3

I don’t really do it either, it has just been this thing floating in my brain for the past few weeks.

The two main benefits being you can approach the material engineering your technical approach to the more complex phrases, and learning the transcription software’s hotkeys. However maybe the playing along phrase by phrase could also be highly beneficial as well. Of course it might also help spot the finer compositional styles or details in those players by just thoroughly going through it bit by bit.

#4

I did this with a bunch of EJ licks when I was first starting this whole USX thing. Mostly Desert Rose and ACL lines. I did it more recently with a ton of USX exercises but I haven’t looked at it since lol

I tried the import function with an ACL tabbed version but trying to edit to usable was awful.

#5

My problem is that far too often, the tab is wrong. The pitches may be (reasonably) accurate, but where on the neck, slide vs bend vs picked/legato……not so much.

If the goal is to understand how the artist actually played a part - tabs alone will not do it. It’s a jumping off point. I’m usually combing YouTube for live footage and looking how others have copied something.

If it’s songs we’re talking about….in my mind, Songsterr.com is far a better option for tab ‘playing’. There again, the tabs are frequently wrong.

I use Anytune and loop the actual audio instead. All the nuance is maintained.

#6

of course not, i agree, video would be the better option.

and this was also something that could be beneficial spotting and correcting tablature errors.

#7

I would have thought that with all the stuff we know now (thanks to CtC) that would be largely moot since we could sort of “process of elimination” things. Knowing what’s possible/probable helps a great deal. Especially if we know things like if the player is generally USX vs DSX. However, I’ve not had great success with this (at least for Eric Johnson) because what I’ll often come up with is still about 3 viable ways to play the various parts. Which ultimately just ends up confusing me even more lol!

There’s times where I’ve transcribed stuff actually having video and still, I’d get moderately corrected by @Riffdiculous on little places I missed. I’m starting to think I may just be hopeless (mentally damaged) haha! At least I’m enjoying myself though.

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#8

You are far from mentally damaged bud, only I can solely belong to this club! :smiley:

#9

True, but that’s a separate purpose from learning/practicing.

#10

This is how I found a lot of the mistakes in those awful “official” Metallica and Megadeth transcription books back in my early days of playing. Sitting there and transcribing them into Guitar Pro 4.

@joebegly the other facet of CtC is learning you can reorganize things to work better for your picking style. If you are a strict USX or DSX player you can modify a particular run to fit your picking style. It was something that really disintegrated my OCD of trying to play stuff 100% accurate to the original player.

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#11

Totally. Within the last 6 months I’ve really had a change of heart. I tended to put my favorite solos (or better said, “runs in these solos”) on a pedestal. There’s really no need though. Half the time when I’d find live footage they’d either slightly eff up or play a different phrase entirely. Seems I care about these runs more than they do lol

So now I try to get the main target notes and otherwise adapt to what is most natural for me. Pretty liberating!

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