Category: testing category

Welcome to our Featured Transcriber series, where we sit down with some of the members of our transcription team and find out a bit more about them. This week, we’ll be speaking to Gatot in Indonesia. Our top transcriber in terms of volume, he’s completed nearly 2000 transcriptions at the time of writing.

Tunescribers

Where most of our team will work on 2-3 songs at a time, you tend to have more like 10-15 going at once! That’s got to take some organisation, walk us through a normal transcription day for you.

Gatot

I divide my working day into sections; for part of the day, I’m actually doing audio editing work, and later in the day I do transcription for Tunescribers. So I keep busy!

As part of my workflow, I really like to use my iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. I do the simpler tasks on iPadOS, and finish up and fine-tune on my laptop later on. I tend to make small chunks out of every project – input some notes here, input some lyrics there – that way I can pick up where I left off any time. The iPad really helps with that!

Tunescribers

You’ve transcribed for just about every instrument under the sun, but what instruments do you play yourself?

Gatot

My main instrument is guitar, but I play synthesiser with an experimental group – soundscapes played in Ableton Live with a MIDI controller. I play some piano, but I’ll never be more than a beginner with keyboard instruments! When I was 11 years old, my sister forced me to learn classical piano for two years But I can’t help it, I group up listening to 90’s alternative rock: Nirvana, Green Day, that sort of thing, so my heart is with the guitar. But the time I spent learning piano really opened my mind towards notation, and it means I know how the piano “works”.

Tunescribers

With the number of jobs that you take on, you’ve completed several hundred more transcriptions than our next busiest team member – do you have any that particularly stick out in your memory?

Gatot

For me, the story behind why we’re doing a transcription is big part of it. There was some work I did a few years ago where I did 2 or 3 songs every week for the same client. I found out later that the client was actually the composer’s wife who was collecting manuscripts of his music after he had passed away. She wanted to preserve the songs. Hearing that got me a bit misty-eyed, and made me feel so grateful to be working on those songs, and helping pay tribute and preserve the legacy of this composer.

This kind of story really makes me want to work, and take every job seriously. There is no simple or complicated work when you think of it like this – we’re always working for a real person, and maybe the song is super meaningful for them.

Tunescribers

That’s really beautiful – it’s always nice to hear that the work we do has real-world impact. Finally then, if you could imagine the perfect transcription job, what would it be?

Gatot

I always wanted to transcribe Chris Cornell – any Chris Cornell song! Soundgarden is my favourite band of all time, and Chris Cornell is my favourite songwriter. So yeah, I think that’s it, that would be my perfect transcription job.

Are you a Chris Cornell fan too and want sheet music for your favourite Soundgarden track? Get in touch for a quote, and use GATOT5 at checkout to get 5% off your order, and specifically request Gatot at the same time!

Welcome to our Featured Transcriber series, where we sit down with some of the members of our transcription team and finding out a bit more about them. This week, we’ll be speaking to Wei in Malaysia. One of our most prolific transcribers with over 1500 transcriptions under his belt, today we learn about how he manages to work so fast…

Tunescribers

So Wei – you have to be the fastest transcriber on our team. You’re an absolute monster! I remember one song in particular – you finished a six minute piano piece in about an hour. You’re going to have to let me in a little bit: how do you work so fast?!

Wei

One thing that helps me is perfect pitch, and I’m quite proficient at using Sibelius. I think that’s the main reason, but often I can predict what is coming next. So when I’m listening to the song, I’m typing it in live, part by part.

Tunescribers

Not in real-time, surely?!

Wei

As close as possible – maybe in 10 second sections. It’s all thanks to my ear training! And actually, my setup is really simple – I just use my laptop and my headphones. I just type out all the notes on the laptop keyboard.

Tunescribers

So you said you had a lot of ear-training when you were young – for those readers who maybe haven’t had much aural training, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Wei

Sure! I started when I was 4 years old, all the way through to college/university. Ear-training is all about musicianship skills; my teacher would play a melody, and I’d have to listen and play it back. I also learned dictation – this is basically transcription. They’d play the melody and I’d have to write it out by hand. Not digital yet! So much more convenient nowadays. The more songs, and the more types of songs that you do this for, the more you start to recognise the patterns.

Tunescribers

One of the things we send you a lot is solo piano music – some of our team are guitarists first, you’re a keyboards kinda guy. Do you play anything else?

Wei

I play quite a few instruments actually. Piano, Electone (that’s a type of electric organ from Yamaha), and I play strings; violin and cello. I also play guitar and percussion – not as good, but I know how they work! Enough to know if a note is playable in a particular way when I’m transcribing for them.

Tunescribers

Wow, that’s a lot! And do you play all of these instruments in bands or orchestras?

Wei

I do a lot of wedding dinners – especially the violin or piano. I’ve also entered into competitions for organ, with Yamaha. It starts at a state level, then national, and finally Japan. I managed to get to the last stage (not quite the final!), which was quite a bit thing for me! What I like about these is you can play any kind of music, and restyle it. I like to play fusion, and jazz – not the really complex stuff! I prefer jazz that’s easy on the ears, bossa nova, that kind of thing.

Tunescribers

Well done on the competition! It sounds like you get to play all sorts of stuff which is cool. When it comes to transcription though, what’s you favourite kind of thing to work on?

Wei

Wow, I’ll have to think about that… There was one I did last year where I had to transcribe all the vocals, and all the instruments; full orchestra plus heavy metal band. But the thing about it was it was damn good in terms of arrangement and mixing; I had no problem listening to that one on repeat!

Apart from that, I quite enjoy transcribing all sorts of styles – things in other languages that I don’t know can be fun. I like the challenge!

Tunescribers

It definitely can be a challenge! We have one fairly regular customer who sends us stuff in Russian, and they’re really good to work with. Not only do they send us the Cyrillic text, they also send us a transliteration in latin script, which really helps, because that’s the bit you don’t necessarily know if you don’t speak the language! In general, it’s always a good idea for customers to send us the lyrics, even if they’re “easy” – it really helps us get the words right.

Are you looking for hard-to-find sheet music in your native language? Get in touch for a quote, and use WEI5 at checkout to get 5% off your order, and specifically request Wei at the same time!