Chapter 5 Introduction

In this chapter, you’ll be learning how to take dictation. This is also called transcription or transcribing a musical example. Transcription involves three basic steps: listening carefully to the musical example, writing down what you hear as completely as possible, and then singing it back to yourself to check for accuracy. In the preceding chapters, you’ve practiced parts of each of these steps. You’ve had opportunities to listen, then write, write while listening, and also how to write a melody and sing it back to yourself. In this chapter, we’re going to begin to combine those skills.

In the sections below, you’re going to get to practice how to write down what you hear as completely as possible. In chapter 1, you notated basic contour and pulse. In this chapter, you’ll be notating what you hear using the music notation you learned in chapter 2. You’ll also be pulling upon your abilities to use solfege, read rhythms, and conduct. Taking dictation is a challenging skill .The purpose of this chapter is for you to build connections between your hearing skills and your writing skills, as well as your ability to check your work for errors. Work through each example slowly and ask for help when you need it.

Chapter 5 Challenge – Sharing your music with other musicians

Transcription is an exciting skill to develop. While it can help you hear and notate existing music, it is also the foundation for writing down music that you imagine. In the professional world, it’s likely you’ll need some kind of musical notation or recording to share your music with other musicians. Being able to write down the music you imagine will make that process much quicker and easier to do. A common example would be coming up with the melody and lyrics for a chorus while out for a walk and then coming home to notate your creation on paper or using music notation software.

Chapter 5 Goals

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

• Notate rhythms on and off the beat in simple and compound meters from dictation
• Notate ascending and descending perfect, major and minor melodic intervals in bass and treble clef from dictation
• Identify root position triads as major, minor, augmented, and diminished from dictation

Chapter 5 Vocabulary

Taking dictation/transcription – dictation is the process of hearing music and then writing it down. Taking dictation often refers to the formal process in a music classroom where an instructor will sing or play a melody and students write down the pitches and rhythms. Transcription often refers to the process of hearing music with one or more parts and then creating a score. In formal music education contexts, the person taking dictation or transcribing music is often not allowed access to a piano or other instrument or technology to assist them. Your instructor may be open to providing additional supports during the learning process.

Section 5.1 – Taking notes while listening

Transcription is the process of hearing a musical example and converting it to music notation. Instead of listening for enjoyment, or to form a critical response, or to learn the piece, you’ll be listening with a specific, technical goal: generating a musical score that corresponds to what you’ve heard.

If you have an emotional response to the music, this can be distracting. If you form an opinion about the quality of the performance or the recording, this can also be a distraction. Start by acknowledging these distractions. Then, try and bring your focus to the task at hand.

Before you practice writing rhythms or intervals, you’re going to practice taking notes while listening. You will start broadly by writing about what instruments you’re hearing and their timbre, how many instruments you’re hearing, if they are playing together or separately, and the overall genre or form of the piece. Then, you’ll practice making an assessment of the tempo and tonality of the piece. Knowing the tempo will help you determine the beat and the meter. You’ll need to know the meter in order to notate rhythms accurately. Knowing the tonality will help you determine the key, whether the piece is major or minor or something else. You’ll need to know the key before being able to notate the intervals of the melody.

Since we’ve been using the moveable do form of solfege, you don’t need to try and guess the exact key. For example, if you hear a musical example and transcribe it in the key of C major, that’s sufficient. Even if the actual example was played in the key of E major. You can transpose it after the fact, if required. There are some musicians and non-musicians who can determine the exact pitch of a musical sound, to varying degrees of accuracy. This ability, known as possessing absolute pitch is also commonly called “having perfect pitch”. Most people and most musicians do not possess this ability and it is not a requirement for transcribing music, nor performing or composing music. If you do possess absolute pitch or think you possess absolute pitch, consider letting your instructor know. It can have a large impact how you transcribe and sight-sing.

Example 5.1.1

Listen to a musical excerpt assigned by your instructor. Listen to the recording four times.

1. The first time, take note of the instruments, timbre, and dynamics.
2. The second time, draw a sketch of the melodic contour.
3. The third time, mark the beat and sketch out the rhythms.
4. The fourth time, read through what you’ve written and compare it to what you’re hearing. Make any changes as needed.

Section 5.2 – Using conducting to notate meter

Conducting to music can help you determine the meter and help you organize rhythms around the beat. Sometimes, you won’t know exactly which meter an example is in. In those cases, try writing the rhythms in a few different meters. Instead of erasing your work or waiting to start until you’re sure, trying to work smoothly and steadily, gathering information and notating as you go. Oftentimes a “mistake” from an earlier transcription will help point you towards the correct notation. If you erase it, it won’t be there for you to review. There’s no expectation that what you write the first time will be perfect. The goal is to practice focusing your listening and analyzing what you’re hearing.

Using examples provided by your instructor, find the pulse using your feet or hands to tap along. Then, try conducting in duple, triple, and quadruple patterns. Ask yourself which pattern makes the most amount of sense over the music. Sometimes it can be ambiguous. That’s not uncommon. Be patient while you work and focus on developing your listening skills, instead of making a perfect guess.

Section 5.3 – Using the beat to notate rhythms

In this section, you’ll learn to use the beat to organize and notate rhythms. Once you know the number of beats and how they are divided, you can start by determining if the rhythms you’re hearing fall on or off the beat. Don’t worry if you can’t place all the rhythms correctly at first. Start with what you’re sure of and then work to solve the rhythms you’re less sure of. Knowing the beat that a rhythm is closest to and whether or not that rhythm falls on or off the beat will take you most of the way towards correctly transcribing a rhythm.

Example 5.3.1

Use the example provided by your instructor.

1. Draw a sketch of the pulse.
2. Notate the rhythms on staff paper or using music notation software with the sound turned off.
3. Finally, clap what you wrote. Does it match what you’re hearing in the example?

Section 5.4 – Using solfege syllables to notate melodies

When transcribing a melody, you can use solfege syllables to help you notate the pitches. In the moveable do system, the solfege syllables stay the same regardless of the key of the music. For example, “do” is always the tonic, or name of the key, in every major key. If you can recognize the sound of “do” to “sol”, you can transcribe the melody in any major key. “Do” to “sol” is C to G in the key of C. “Do” to “sol” is F to C in the key of F. In the key of B, it’s B to F#. If you don’t have absolute or “perfect” pitch, solfege can help you recognize the patterns in a melody and transcribe them to the page. The focus is on getting the relationships between pitches accurate.

To transcribe using solfege, start by singing a major scale that matches the key of the melody you are hearing. That way, you can establish the sound of “do”, the tonic. Once you have a clear idea of what “do” sounds like, determine what note the melody starts on and what note the melody ends on. You can do this by singing do, then singing up (or down) to the first note of the melody. Then sing do and sing up (or down) to the last note. As you listen, sketch the melodic contour that you hear between the first and last notes of the melody

The first and last notes serve as anchors, while the contour serves as a rough guide. Once you have the contour, go back to the start of the melody and try and determine the kind of interval between the first and second note. Is it a unison (same pitch), ascending interval, or descending interval? To notate the second pitch of the melody, sing slowly up or down the scale from the first pitch. Take your time and check yourself by singing “do” again. By going slowly, note-by-note, you can focus on accuracy. If you’re not sure, try writing more than one option and singing both. Remember not to erase your work! As you’re learning to transcribe, it’s not uncommon to have the correct answer at first, then second guess yourself. If you keep both options, you can review them and build your confidence. You may have to listen to each musical example many times, maybe even dozens of times.

Example 5.4.1

Use the musical example provided by your instructor.

Section 5.5 – Using solfege syllables to identify quality for root position triads

One you have the ability to hear and notate intervals, you can practice and develop that ability so that you can hear and notate chords. Melodies are made up of a sequence of notes, each happening one after the other. Chords and harmonies are made up of pairs or groups of notes happening at the same time. When you use solfege to identify notes in a melody, you sing up or down from one note to the next. You can use the same technique to identify notes in a chord.

In this section, you’ll be using solfege to help you identify four triad types: major, minor, augmented, and diminished. As a prerequisite, you’ll need to be very confident in all of the notes in the scale and the solfege for each note. For example, if you’re listening to triads in the key of Eb major, you’ll need to know all the notes in the key of Eb major (Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb, C, D) and the solfege for each note (Eb = do, F = re, G = mi, Ab = fa, Bb = sol, C = la, D = ti). At first, it can seem overwhelming to learn about the sounds and intervals in each triad type. Knowing the scale and solfege will help. In addition, you can use your knowledge of two intervals to help simplify this process: thirds and fifths.

Triads are chords made of three notes. The root note the name of the chord. The third is the note three letter names higher on the staff. The fifth is the note five letter names higher on the staff. Any instrument or voice can play any note and the triad is still the same triad. When the root is the lowest sounding pitch, it’s called a “root position” triad. When the third is the lowest sounding pitch, it’s called a “first inversion” triad. When the fifth is the lowest sounding pitch, it’s called a “second inversion” triad. An Eb major triad has a root note of Eb, a third of G, and a fifth of Bb.

Each of the four triad types (major, minor, augmented, diminished) is made of either a major or minor third and either a diminished, perfect, or augmented fifth. Try singing “do” to “mi”. That’s the sound of a major third. Now try singing “do” to “sol”. That’s the sound of a perfect fifth. If the third of your chord matches the sound of “do” to “mi” and the fifth matches the sound of “do” to “sol”, your chord is a major triad. If you hear something different, your triad is either minor, augmented or diminished.In this section, you’ll only be working with root position triads. That means that in each case, the lowest sounding pitch of the chord is the root. This is going to help simplify the process of identifying the triad type.

Example 5.5.1

Listen to the chord provided by your instructor. First, find and sing the lowest sounding pitch. This is the root of the chord. The letter name has been written on the staff for you. Next, sing a major scale up from the lowest sounding pitch. This will give you the sound of a major third (“do” to “mi”) and a perfect fifth (“do” to “sol”). Listen to the chord again. Try singing the middle sounding pitch or third. Then, sing “do” to “mi”. Do the two pitches match? If so, the interval is a major third. Last, try singing the highest sounding pitch. Then, sing “do” to “sol”. Again, compare what you sang to what you’re hearing. If they match, the interval is a perfect fifth. Finally, write the pitches on the staff.

Major Key Signatures

Transcribing melodies requires knowledge of key signatures. Take a few minutes to review your major key signatures and then try the activity below to review: