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!
This version was performed by Judy Garland in 1940 in the movie musical Little Nellie Kelly. 
