Week 1: Let there be Music! 
Welcome to the Main Thread for the first week of "The Transcriptions" practice challenge!
- Make sure you've read the guidelines before replying!
- Watch the kickoff livestream!
Pick a transcription that was originally composed for another instrument, like piano or violin. Don't be afraid to choose a challenging piece or explore works from composers you haven't played before.
Commit to practicing daily and share your progress with the community. Aim to practice every day and post at least two videos per week showcasing your progress. This will help you stay motivated and accountable, and also allow you to share your transcription journey with others. Whether you're tackling a complex piece, refining your skills with a piece you already play, or experimenting with new playing techniques, the community is here to support you and celebrate your achievements.
Share your favorite piece that you would like to see transcribed or your favorite recording of a transcription. This will not only inspire others in the community but also provide a rich resource of ideas for everyone to explore. Plus, it's a great way to celebrate the creativity and artistry involved in adapting music from one instrument to another.
↓ Happy Sharing! ↓
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I love this music and transcriptions by Jorge Caballero. However, he has never published them. When I asked Jorge, said said he never notated them (hard to believe, haha)....
Does anyone know someone with the skill to notate these pieces form watching the videos?
btw, he is performing them using Bream's Hauser from The Met display.
Thanks!!
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Barney Hey Barney, Its a slow meticulous process but can be done by anybody for less then 100.00 dollars. Buy the product Transcribe from seventh-string or use Reaper for free, convert Jorge's YouTube video's to mp3 or mp4 with youtube-dl and load it into Transcribe and play it real slow, while watching the video and listening, figure out the fingerings and what he is playing and write them down or put them into music software like MuseScore or Lilypond. It's very good for ear training.
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Khiem Nguyen Very interesting. Khiem. I could never do that for complex music.
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Khiem Nguyen Thanks for this information Khiem. How do you know Johannes Moller does this?
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Michael Shirk Thanks for the suggestion Michael!
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Barney I am taking private lessons with him, so that is why I know he provides that service.
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Khiem Nguyen Got it! I sent him a message on the Contact page of his Website. Not sure how often he looks at that. Hope he responds. Thanks Khiem!!
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Barney Thanks for sharing these Barney. As Michael says using Transcribe and Musescore is an option. I've done that with some much simpler pieces sucessfully, but it usually takes me weeks if not months! I wouldn't attempt it with these pieces!
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Ron Thanks Ron for your input on this. I was thinking about this and agree, particularly with my limited technical software skills, it would take me forever. Unfortunately, I do not have the time and patience to attempt it successfully.
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Barney you are welcome Barney, hope you will get what you are looking for. Johannes is usually responsive on Facebook Messenger chat, in case it takes too long for his respond to you.
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Khiem Nguyen I'm not on Facebook, so guess I'll need to wait longer. If you happen to see him soon, perhaps you can mention it. I'm worried that the cost may be too expensive....
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Barney ok Barney, I have sent him a message on Facebook to brief him about that you wrote to him.
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Khiem Nguyen Great! Thanks Khiem!
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Going through some old music I found three transcriptions made by Julian Bream of Sonatas by Cimarosa (the pdf versions are now free on line). I particularly like this recording by Drew Henderson of the D minor Sonata. I think the keyboard version was C55. Not sure how much I'll get under my fingers in the next month as I'm away without a guitar for half of it!
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I would love to see and listen to this piece of music transcribed to the classical guitar: Felix Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor, opus 64 - 1st movoment :
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Khiem Nguyen Ít is beautiful, Khiem, though really ambitious. There is a couple of YTs of the theme on guitar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hsq4td51LY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nOU7I7b6-A - well, this probably not exactly what you had in mind.
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Jack Stewart haha, the second link - the one with the electric guitar is really impressive - though not exactly on the classical guitar area but it is worth checking out. Thanks for shareing Jack. For the first video- the theme arranged by Jason Waldron, I have the score too and I can also play it :) I agree it sounds like very a very ambitious project to transcribe such as massive movement - I do not plan to do it myself at this stage. I would love to see and hear some one else do that on the classical guitar. :)
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Bach Violin Partita No. 2 - Gigue
I have always loved and wanted to do this piece since I first heard it on violin many years ago. I didn't know that you could even do transcriptions back then. My first transcription was actually for the electric guitar, which I know now has been done multiple times.
The piece is written in Dm, however, I noticed the lowest note is only a C#, and the highest note is a high Bb up on the 18th fret. It's doable, I guess, but I wondered what the piece might sound like if it was transposed down to Am, making the highest note a manageable F on the 13th fret.
So I created a version in Am - at least the first half of the piece.
This is a VERY rough run-through of the first half in Am. I am mainly trying to see if it could sound good in this key. I know, when you get things down in the lower registers they tend to sound a little muddy. We shall see. Interested to know what you think.
Also, this is a note-for-note transcription. No harmonies or accompaniment notes as I've seen other transcriptions do. Why make it more complicated than it has to be for cryin' out loud?
One thing I found very interesting - to the point I thought it was a mistake - was that measure 11 is an exact repeat of measure 10. I had to check the original violin score. Sure enough. Strange, huh?
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Steve Pederson Nice work, Steve. I honestly have never done my own transcription. I always start with someone else's, and then adapt it. What a great exercise in musicianship this is to do your own. Obviously a really important first step is establishing the key. A minor seems to work well. I also like the idea of keeping Bach's works for solo violin and solo cello simpler in texture, not adding too many chords or bass notes simply because we can. That said, I do think a few strategically placed bass notes would sound good here.
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Eric Phillips I agree Eric, on adding some sparse bass notes here and there.
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Steve Pederson That's sounding good Steve. I think the key works well for it and it never gets muddy to me. For me, I think the trade-off in not spending a lot of time trying to play over the soundboard makes it worth it.
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Steve Pederson nice start on this Steve
and I agree with you for not adding more than it needs. I personally prefer to use polyphony across voices to create the harmony effect than to add basses to strongly affirming it. -
Steve Pederson Steve, maybe I'm using a different score, but I don't see what you're saying about the range of the original. It looks to me like the lowest note is a 'G' (i.e. the lowest pitch available on the violin) and the highest is a D (tenth position on the E string, as on the guitar). So I think it would work well in the original key. That isn't to say it won't work better transposed to A minor (a very guitar-friendly key!) but doesn't that require tuning the sixth string down to D, since this is now the lowest note? Maybe I'm missing something. Anyhow, I read through the first half as written in the original, and found it sits fairly well on the guitar, although it would not be easy to get it at tempo. (I think it is many respects better suited to electric guitar technique - there are several passages where sweep picking works well - and is in fact called for in the original, except of course it's bowing not picking.)
Here's the score I found:
https://vmirror.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/d/dc/IMSLP01307-BWV1004.pdf
Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting you should do anything differently, just wondering if transposition is really necessary. Btw, I agree with you about omitting any harmonization - there are more than enough notes already! And as Blaise says, the harmony is implied in the music anyways.
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David Krupka This is fascinating David! Thank you for pointing this out. I compared the score that I have, which I got from flutetunes.com (maybe not such a good idea) with the one you shared. They are quite different in places. For example, in measure 9, almost the entire measure is written an octave higher in my score. I will have a closer look at the score you shared and maybe keep it in the original key of D minor.
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Steve Pederson Great start on this challenging piece, Steve. I do think filling out some of the harmony, esp. bass notes, would be beneficial. I am sure that Bach would do this when transcribing to different instruments. BTW, Sanel Radzic has a wonderful YT of this entire Partita.
You do realize after you finish this piece you move on to the Chaconne.
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Steve Pederson great project, Steve.. Quite challenging, but the piece is worth all the efforts…. you really made a good start. And, as Jack wrote, after this one you get to the chaconne….
Personally I’m quite fond of the key of Dm , it balances well the upper and lower tone regions of the guitar and might indeed sound a little brighter than Am.
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