We’re delighted to share that Tunescribers was consulted as part of the supplementary research for A Music Transcription Method: Notating Recorded Music by Ear, a new book by Andreas Häberlin published in August 2025.

While the main text of the book was already complete, Häberlin sought additional real-world perspectives from professional transcribers for the online resource materials accompanying the release, and we were proud to be among those invited.

The book itself offers a comprehensive framework for learning how to transcribe recorded music by ear, covering everything from analytical listening and workflow setup to notation decisions and industry applications. It’s a valuable guide for anyone studying or working in arranging, orchestration, or music preparation.

As part of the additional research, several members of our team shared their personal experiences and challenges from years of professional transcription work. Here are just a few of their insights:

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These reflections, along with dozens of others from our international team, offered a glimpse into the day-to-day realities of professional transcription, from mastering complex harmonies and time signatures to navigating software and maintaining healthy listening habits.

At Tunescribers, we’re proud to see music transcription gaining the academic and professional recognition it deserves. Resources like Häberlin’s A Music Transcription Method help bridge the gap between education and industry — something we’re passionate about every day.

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About the Book
A Music Transcription Method: Notating Recorded Music by Ear
By Andreas Häberlin (Routledge, 2025)
Available in print and eBook formats.

• 🔗 Get it from Amazon
• 🔗 Get it from Routledge

Hi there, I’m Sam, and today is my Tunescribers birthday.

On 15 August 2025, it is exactly one year since I officially took over as Owner and Director of Tunescribers. It has been a year of challenges, learning, and incredible music-making, and I am both proud and grateful to still be here, working with so many talented people and serving our wonderful customers.

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How I Got Here

I first joined Tunescribers back in 2017 as a part-time transcriber. At the time, I was a working freelance musician; I would do solo piano arrangements in the quiet moments between students, and work on huge wind band scores while sitting in the passenger seat of the band van, travelling to gigs.

I never imagined that seven years later I would be offered the opportunity to purchase the business and put my own stamp on it. 

Over the past twelve months we have transcribed more than 175 hours of music, covering everything from intimate solo pieces to large ensemble arrangements. Along the way we have also reached some important milestones.

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Our Biggest Milestones This Year

Our First Tunescribers Arranging Competition

Earlier this year, we ran our very first arranging competition. Entrants were given a public domain melody and a creative challenge: to produce a short piano arrangement. The level of talent on display was outstanding, and it was inspiring to see so many creative approaches. You can see the shortlist here.

A Brand New Website

When I took over, our old website was slow, difficult to update, and weighed down by years of technical debt. Over the past year we rethought almost every aspect of it. The result is a faster, cleaner, and far more user-friendly site that better showcases our custom sheet music services.

A Whole New Look

Alongside the website rebuild, we worked on a complete rebrand for Tunescribers. This included a new visual identity and a fresh logo, beautifully designed by the talented Sarah Aanchal.

Our New Browser Extension

Most recently, we launched the Tunescribers browser extension, available for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge. It lets users quickly request quotes for sheet music transcription, arrangement, and backing tracks while browsing the web. It is free to use, and you learn more about it here. If you already use it, please consider leaving us a review in your browser’s add-on store.

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The People Behind the Music

Tunescribers has always been a team effort. From our skilled musicians to our brilliant developers and designers at Rubico, many people contribute to making your sheet music projects a success.

I would especially like to thank:

• Leo Downs and Danisa Alesandroni, our crack QA team, who check over each project in detail and constantly push us towards higher musical standards.
  
• Ignacio Quiroz, our social media wizard, who has grown our channels from almost zero to many thousands of followers in less than a year.
  
• Jimmy Abraham, project lead for the website rebuild, whose careful planning kept everything on track.
  
• Sarah Aanchal, lead designer, for our stunning new logo and brand identity.
  
• Jeff Pepper, founder of Tunescribers, for his continued support and valuable advice throughout the year.
  

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What’s Next for Tunescribers

Our focus for the year ahead is simple: do what we already do, but bigger and better. We want to help more musicians, collaborate on more inspiring projects, and continue to deliver the highest quality custom sheet music services possible.

If we have worked on a project for you over the past year, from a first dance arrangement to a full musical score, we would love to hear about your experience. You can leave us a review on:

• Review Tunescribers on Trustpilot
  
• Review Tunescribers on Google
  
• Review Tunescribers on Facebook
  

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A Thank You and a Gift for You

To celebrate this first year, I have set up a special one-day-only discount, limited to the first 20 orders. Use code SAMSFIRSTYEAR to get 25% off your next sheet music transcription, arrangement, or backing track. This code is valid for only 20 uses, on 15 August 2025.

Thank you for reading, and for being part of the Tunescribers journey. Here is to many more years of making music together.

—

Sam from Tunescribers

If you’ve ever played from sheet music and seen something like Cmaj7, F#m, or G7 above the staff, you’ve encountered chord symbols. These little annotations are small in size but huge in function. They tell you the harmonic structure of the music and guide players (especially guitarists, pianists, and arrangers) on what chords to play.

At Tunescribers, chord symbols have always been part of the custom sheet music experience by default. But here’s the thing: many customers didn’t know that!

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Why Chord Symbols Matter

Chord symbols serve a few key purposes:

• They let rhythm section players improvise: Guitarists and pianists can comp without reading every note.
• They help with quick harmonization: If you’re writing a horn arrangement, for example, you can build voicings directly from the chords.
• They simplify music for learners: Beginners can focus on chord shapes rather than notation.
• They’re essential for lead sheets: When the melody and chords are the whole song.

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What We’ve Changed (and Why)

To help clarify things, we’ve added a new question to our order form asking for your chord symbol preference:

✅ Chord text (default)
🎸 Chord text + guitar diagrams
❌ No chord symbols

We were already including chord symbols by default, but many customers didn’t realise this—so we added this question to make the option more visible and give you more control.

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When Should You Use Chord Diagrams?

Guitar chord diagrams are perfect when:

• You’re arranging for beginner or intermediate guitarists
• You’re creating educational materials or songbooks
• You want to make performance easier at a glance—especially for visual learners

They’re not ideal if you’re writing for piano, ensemble, or professional musicians who may find them unnecessary or cluttered.

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What Happens If You Choose “No Chords”?

We’ll omit all chord symbols and diagrams from your sheet music—great for projects where harmony is already notated in full (e.g. orchestral scores or classical arrangements), or where you simply don’t want them.

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Small Change, Big Impact

This minor update makes it easier to:

• Know what you’re getting
• Customize your chart exactly how you want it
• Avoid back-and-forth emails

We’re always working to improve the ordering process, and small tweaks like this are all part of making your custom sheet music as smooth as possible.

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📥 Want Custom Sheet Music Your Way?

Whether you’re a guitarist, composer, teacher, or just someone chasing down that perfect lead sheet—we’ve got you covered.

👉 Place your order now and tell us exactly how you want your chords!

🎉 New! The Tunescribers Quick Quote Browser Extension Is Here

If you’ve ever thought “I wish I could get a sheet music quote instantly for this song I’m listening to” — we’ve got great news.

The Tunescribers Quick Quote extension is now available for Chrome and Firefox, and Microsoft Edge.

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What Is It?

The Quick Quote extension makes it ridiculously easy to request a custom sheet music quote from any song page — right from your browser. Just click the icon and you’ll be taken to our quote form with the URL pre-filled.

Supported platforms: YouTube, Spotify, and SoundCloud.

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How It Works

• Install the extension:
  Follow the links below to get the extension for your browser:

• Click the icon in your browser:
  

  

• You’re taken to our quote form with the link already filled in:
  

  

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Why Use It?

• ✅ Faster quotes – no need to copy/paste
• ✅ Fewer clicks – just one tap from a track to a quote
• ✅ Better accuracy – we grab the exact URL for you

It’s perfect for musicians, teachers, students, and anyone who regularly needs custom sheet music.

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👉 Ready to Try It?

Click below to install the extension in your browser and start your next project faster than ever.

FAQs

Our biggest update ever is here!

We’re excited to unveil the brand new Tunescribers website – rebuilt from the ground up to give you a faster, smoother, and more intuitive experience.

Here’s what’s new:

 

 

🏆 Tunescribers Arranging Competition 2025 – Winners Announced! 🏆

After weeks of listening, deliberating, and celebrating the creativity of arrangers from around the world, we’re thrilled to announce the winners of the Tunescribers Arranging Competition 2025!

🥇 1st Place: Kurt Bestor

Prize: $500 cash and a NotePerformer license

Judges’ comments:

• Martin Keary (Tantacrul): Intriguing opening and very nice ending… very consistent and satisfying
• Ben Rauhala: Stunning to play, stunning to hear. Beautiful without being difficult. Very clearly and expressively notated. Bonus points for the “like a whisper” notation at the end. Loved this!
• Peter Davison: Beautiful. Really very very musical, and just works in its simplest form. Nothing overtly complicated, just very considered and musical
• Joe Beighton: Beautifully simple. Very cohesive, unified and well assembled. I’m a big fan of the harmonisation… unpretentiously stunning arrangement

 

🥈 2nd Place: Dan Wanamaker

Prize: $100 Tunescribers transcription credit and a perpetual Cantai license

Judges’ comments:

• Martin Keary (Tantacrul): Impressive harmonic creativity. Consistent, with a refreshing take on the mood. Very pianistic, very good presentation and engraving.
• Ben Rauhala: Beautiful, particularly in the second half. Doesn’t feel as much like the original song often-times, but I found it lovely.
• Peter Davison: This is very clever… clearly a very skilled musician here. It’s bitonal, but very very well thought out.
• Joe Beighton: A great take on the brief. The harmonisation is really interesting if a little incohesive at times. The furieux section feels a bit out of place, but rhythmically and voicing-wise it’s a brilliant bit of music.

 

🥉 3rd Place: Fred Grigg

Prize: $50 Tunescribers transcription credit and a perpetual Graphical MIDI Tools license

Judges’ comments:

• Martin Keary (Tantacrul): Rhythmically strong. A player could have fun with this and really make it shine.
• Ben Rauhala: Star quality in spades. A bold, well-notated re-interpretation. While not the most sight-readable of all difficulty-wise, it’s written out clearly to be achievable with practice.
• Joe Beighton: It’s exciting to hear such a different take… a brilliant piece and exciting to listen to/play.

 

🎖 Honourable Mentions

• Georgia Seddon
• David Perkins

 

🗳 Audience Favourite: David Perkins

Prize: A professionally recorded piano performance video of the arrangement (subject to playability)

 

🙏 Thank You!

A huge thank you to all of the talented entrants who made this competition so special. We were blown away by your creativity, skill, and musicality.

Thank you to our esteemed panel of judges – Martin Keary (Tantacrul), Ben Rauhala, Peter Davison, and Joe Beighton – for lending their expertise and thoughtful feedback.

And of course, thank you to our generous sponsors – NotePerformer, Cantai, and Graphical MIDI Tools – for supporting new music and making these prizes possible!

We can’t wait to do this again – see you next time!

 

Vote for Your Favorite Arrangement!

The judges have selected their shortlist, and now the power is in your hands! The Audience Favourite prize will be awarded to the shortlisted entry that receives the most public votes.

How to Vote

🔹 Watch the entries: We’ve created a YouTube playlist featuring all shortlisted arrangements. You can listen to them all here.

🔹 Cast your vote: To vote, you must both like the post featuring your chosen arrangement and comment “vote” on it. Both actions are required for your vote to count.

🔹 One vote per person per platform: You can vote once on each platform (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok).

Where to Vote

📺 YouTube Playlist: Watch and listen here

📷 Instagram: Watch and listen here

📘 Facebook: Watch and listen here

🎵 TikTok: Watch and listen here

Free Sheet Music and Exclusive Discount Code for Voters!

As a thank-you for participating, everyone who votes will receive a free piano arrangement of “Moonlight Serenade” by Glenn Miller. Your free song will be sent to you via DM. We’ll also send you an exclusive discount code to use on any of our custom music services. If you don’t receive these within 48 hours of your vote, please email us at info@tunescribers.com.

Voting Deadline

Make sure to cast your vote by April 13, 2025. The winner will be announced on April 14, 2025.

Stay Updated

Follow us on social media for the latest updates:

📷 Instagram: @tunescribers

▶ YouTube: @tunescribers

🎵 TikTok: @tunescribers

📘 Facebook: Tunescribers

Let’s celebrate the creativity of our talented arrangers—happy voting! 🎹🎶

🎉 Announcing the Shortlist for the Tunescribers Arranging Competition 2025! 🎉

We were blown away by the creativity and talent in this year’s competition. After much deliberation, our judges have selected the following eight entries for the shortlist (listed in no particular order):

• Dominic Baldwin
• Georgia Seddon
• Fred Grigg
• John Houston
• Dan Wanamaker
• Kurt Bestor
• David Perkins
• MoAli Voshagh

Congratulations to all! If you didn’t make the shortlist, don’t be discouraged—judging was tough, and it all comes down to individual tastes on the day. Every entry had something special, and we encourage you to keep arranging!

🏅 Social Media Badges 🏅

We’ve created badges for you to share on social media! If you made the shortlist, find your personalized badge below. If you didn’t quite make it this time, we’ve also created a badge to celebrate your participation.

🎼 Meet the Judges for the Tunescribers Arranging Competition

The Tunescribers Arranging Competition is in full swing, and we’re excited to introduce our expert judging panel! With backgrounds spanning Broadway, film, video games, and cutting-edge music technology, our judges bring a wealth of experience to the table. But before we get into their impressive bios, here’s a quick rundown of how the judging process will work.

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🔎 How the Judging Works

All entries will first be reviewed by the Tunescribers team to create a shortlist of the most outstanding arrangements. From there, our esteemed panel of judges will carefully evaluate the finalists, considering creativity, musicality, and craftsmanship to determine the winners.

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🎶 Martin Keary / Tantacrul

Martin Keary is a composer who studied under Gordon McPherson at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

As the Head of Software at Muse Group, Martin plays a crucial role in overseeing and mentoring the teams responsible for the company’s diverse range of products, including MuseScore Studio, Audio.com, Audacity, and MuseSounds.

Outside of his professional responsibilities, Martin runs a YouTube channel called ‘Tantacrul’, where he shares his thoughts on music, technology, philosophy, and design. It is a space where he can blend his personal interests with his professional expertise, engaging with a community that shares his enthusiasm for creativity and innovation.

Follow Martin:
IG/YouTube: @tantacrul

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🎭 Ben Rauhala

Benjamin Rauhala is one of the Broadway community’s most trusted music directors and collaborators. He is the Music Supervisor, co-creator, and ‘Fairy Godfairy’ of Disney Princess – The Concert, touring over 100 cities in North America throughout 2022, and internationally in 2023. He helped conceive and arrange the opening and closing numbers of the 2022 Tony Awards for Academy Award winner Ariana DeBose.

Rauhala has toured the world since 2014 as the music director for Jeremy Jordan, the Tony-nominated star of Broadway’s Newsies and TV’s Supergirl, and in 2020, he was named ‘Best Musical Director’ at the Broadway World Cabaret Awards.

Follow Ben:
IG/TikTok: @brauhala

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🎮 Peter Michael Davison

Peter Michael Davison is a versatile and multitalented composer, orchestrator, and conductor with a diverse portfolio of award-winning international projects. He orchestrated and conducted the acclaimed PS4 epic, Horizon Zero Dawn (2017). Peter returned as conductor and orchestrator for the sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, and the downloadable content, Burning Shores.

In 2022, he composed the original score for Warped Kart Racers (Family Guy IP), a new flagship release animated game for Apple Arcade. Peter composed additional music and orchestrated on the Illumination/Universal feature animation Migration for John Powell. Peter is part of Danny Elfman’s orchestration team for his concert repertoire.

Follow Peter:
IG: @petermichaeldavison

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🎭 Joe Beighton

Joe is an Olivier Award and Grammy Award-nominated Musical Supervisor, Orchestrator, Arranger, and Music Producer. He began his career Music Supervising and creating the vocal arrangements for the Tony Award-winning score of Six The Musical.

Since working on Six, he has been devoted to developing more new musical theatre. He is Musical Supervisor, Orchestrator, and Vocal Arranger for 42 Balloons (The Lowry), Babies (The Other Palace), and Hot Mess (Birmingham Hippodrome).

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🎵 Ready to Compete?

With a panel of judges this talented and diverse, this is your chance to have your work heard by industry-leading professionals! Whether you’re an experienced arranger or just getting started, we encourage you to enter and put your skills to the test.

Deadline: March 1st, 2025

🔗 Enter now: www.tunescribers.com/competition

Good luck, and happy arranging! 🎼

🎉 Share & Save—Join the Competition for Half Price! 🎶

Want to enter the Tunescribers Arranging Competition 2025 for 50% off? It’s easy! Just post about the competition on social media, and we’ll cut your entry fee in half.

Already entered? No problem—we’ll refund 50% of your fee if you complete the steps below!

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💰 How to Get Your Discount

1. 1️⃣Post publicly on your favorite social media platform (Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky, TikTok, etc.*).
2. 2️⃣Include our competition image:
   
   I’m Entering the Tunescribers Arranging Competition 2025
3. 3️⃣Copy and paste this text into your post:

📢 Calling all musicians! Tunescribers is hosting an Arranging Competition, and I’m taking part! 🎶

Create a solo piano arrangement in response to a unique prompt, and compete for cash prizes, software licenses, and publication opportunities. Entries close March 1st—who’s in?

🔗 Enter now: www.tunescribers.com/competition

#TunescribersCompetition @tunescribers

4. 4️⃣Tag @Tunescribers and use the hashtag #TunescribersCompetition.
5. 5️⃣Send proof to info@tunescribers.com with a screenshot and a public link to your post.

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📢 Important Details

💡 Feel free to personalize your caption—but you must include:

• The competition image
• @Tunescribers (if applicable on your chosen platform*)
• The hashtag #TunescribersCompetition

📅 Deadline: Posts must be made before March 1st, 2025 to qualify!

🎼 Enter now: www.tunescribers.com/competition

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*Tunescribers is not on Twitter/X. To redeem this offer by sharing on that platform, the image, text, and hashtag will be sufficient.