Transcribing Songs: The Best Ear Training a Songwriter Can Do

When I was a teenager, I had a somewhat limited knowledge of music theory and how it worked. I think that’s typical for most young people. I played trumpet and a bit of piano, so I could read notes in the treble and bass clef, but I had a very rudimentary understanding of what chords were. I knew that if I heard a C, E and G being played together, I was hearing a C major chord. But that was about it for theoretical knowledge.

I was a member of a band that played down at the Halifax, Nova Scotia waterfront for tourists back in those days. And because the music was mainly for visitors out for a stroll, songs by The Carpenters, Beatles, and a few self-composed tunes were typical of the kind of stuff we were playing.

Does the studying of music theory seem daunting? It shouldn’t be. The “Easy Music Theory” course is a 25-lesson video-based course that shows you everything you need to know about the rudiments of music. Includes easy-to-follow instructions, worksheets, quizzes and answer sheets. And it can all be done without a teacher!

Because the group included trumpet, clarinet, saxophone, etc., (and because we weren’t very good at improvising) we needed music written out on paper. That job fell mostly to me. The process was time consuming. I’d listen to recordings, going moment by moment figuring out the melodies and chords, then writing simple arrangements for us to play.

No doubt my arrangements were pretty weak. But as I worked on transcribing the songs, something was happening to my musical ear that I didn’t really notice at the time. It became easier and easier for me to recognize the chords and melody notes I was hearing.

At first, I’d play the first few beats of a song, plunk out the notes of the melody on a piano until they sounded right, and then wrote them down. I could hear when chords changed, but I had no ability to hear what those changes were.

So I’d listen to each chord change and try to find all the different notes forming those chords. Eventually, I’d figure it out. Once I knew what notes were making up the chords, my low-level of theory told me what the actual chord name was.

It would usually take me several days at first to transcribe one song, but things got easier and faster as I worked. My ear was improving, and actually, so was my knowledge of theory… of how music works.

By the time I auditioned for music school, I still had a fairly rudimentary understanding of music theory. But my ear was much better.

First year ear training at university was easy, and I finished with a mark close to 100. But not because I was an amazing musician — it was because I had done what is arguably the best ear training exercise a musician can do: pick up a pencil and transcribe music.

How to Transcribe Songs

As a singer songwriter, your overall musicianship will benefit immensely by transcribing songs. But if you’re like I was, with only a basic knowledge of theory, how do you transcribe a song? Here are some steps that should work for you, assuming you can read music in treble and bass clef:

1. Play a recording and play along to a song until you can do it with ease.
2. Concentrate first on getting the melody right. Get at least a few bars of the tune down. If you aren’t sure of the rhythms or note durations, take a guess at it at first.
3. For each fragment of melody you transcribe, play it and make sure the pitches are correct. Your ear should be able to tell you that.
4. Now work on the chords. Go back to the beginning of the fragment, and listen carefully to the recording. If you’re not sure what the chord is, loop a short 1-beat-long section, listening carefully to the background and seeing if you can hear the various notes making up the chords. If this is a tricky step, you’ll find a comprehensive chart for simple chords here at the ScottDavies.net website.
5. Keep working forward in the song until you get the entire thing.

You can likely get a song right without transcribing it in this way, but the benefit of writing it down is that it develops your ear. At first, you’ll find that it amounts to a guessing game: you’ll hear a note in the melody, and you’ll go searching for it on your guitar or keyboard until you identify it.

It will seem like a painfully slow process, but each time you correctly identify a note or chord, your musical ear learns something, and it starts to get easier.

I recommend trying to do this once or twice a week as an ear training exercise. Don’t get impatient — it’s not easy. But the benefits to your ear and overall musicianship will be incalculable.

Written by Gary Ewer. Follow Gary on Twitter.

Do you know how to add chords to that melody you just thought up? “How to Harmonize a Melody” shows you how to do exactly that. It shows the secrets of harmonic rhythm, identifying the key of your melody, chord function, and more. It’s part of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 10-eBook Bundle.