If you’re new to our Records, Albums, & Musicians section, here’s a short video which explains the importance of regular listening and transcription, and how this is an essential component of our development as musicians:
Transcription & Improvisation Exercises
Participate in weekly transcription exercises and take the first step toward transcribing from your favourite records and albums. Designed for beginner, intermediate, and advanced students, find your comfortable level and dedicate a proportion of your daily practice time to this important skill:
https://community.pianogroove.com/c/improvisation-exercises
These listening assignments teach us how to identify melodies, chords, & common cadences.
- New exercises posted on a weekly basis.
- Click into the threads and work through each exercise
- Try not to look at the notation files until you have spent the time to work on the exercise aurally; using just your ears and the piano.
Once we have developed our ability to analyse and transcribe music aurally, we can then take our musical studies in any direction based on the records, albums, and musicians that we admire.
Transcription Apps & Software
Here’s some information on apps and software to help us to improve our transcription skills. These apps help us to work out a piece of music from a recording, in order to write it out, or play it ourselves, or both.
These apps don’t do the transcribing for us, they are specialised programs optimised for the purpose of transcription with transcription-specific features not found on conventional music players.
Transcribe! App by Seventh String
- speed up and slow down any record
- A/B loop specific section of record
- analyse the harmony and shows roughly what notes are present
- add markers and textual annotations
- offers free 30 day trial
The Amazing Slow Downer App
- speed up and slow down any record
- A/B loop specific section of record
- change the tuning or musical key
Listening & Ear Training
We can work on our aural recognition skills whilst away from the piano.
Harmonomics App
- fantastic app for ear training ‘on-the-move’
- quizes and tests to score and document your progress
- interval training
- perfect pitch/relative pitch training
- exercises for chords, progressions, melodies, & scales
- more information in this thread: Ear Training practice apps