Transcribing a Disklavier Performance
2004-06-30 by PianoBench@aol.com
Good morning, everyone.
In a message dated 6/30/04 6:04:57 AM, Shane writes:
I'm trying to find out if there
are programs that will allow me to take music I've recorded on disklavier
and transcribe it through my computer. Any help on this would be greatly
appreciated as this would help me accomplish goals I've been thinking
about for years.
There are many notation programs that will transcribe a saved MIDI file into notation and will also transcribe your playing as you play in real time. Examples are Finale, Sibelius, Overture, and MasterTracks. These programs have all sorts of additional features for editing the notation display.
There are also sequencing programs that will do the same, but sequencers don't usually do as good a job with notation. Their real purpose is to provide you with MIDI editing features to correct or improve the MIDI playback.
There are 4 especially challenging issues when transcribing a piano performance:
(1) Aligning the Notes to the Beats
The simplest way to proceed is to listen to a metronome as you play. That way, your notes more or less align to recognized beats. Finale and Sibelius also have features for letting you play without a metronome reference. Their features work well but take some practice.
If you are trying to transcribe existing recordings that were made without reference to a metronome, you must reclock the pieces. Otherwise, the notation with be an unfixable mess. The reason is that all MIDI files have a built-in tempo. Although you may not have listened to the metronome when you made your recording, the recording was made with reference to a default metronome, and your notes will not align with the established beats.
Some sequencers have a feature for reclocking (although few, if any, call it "reclocking"). The best one is Performer, from Mark of the Unicorn. This Macintosh program has a feature called Adjust Beats. What you do is view your performance in "piano roll" style notation, in which the notes are laid out horizontally on a grid. On the grid you can see vertical lines that show beats and barlines. With the Adjust Beats feature turned on, you can drag the beat lines to the notes to which they apply. This causes the notes to become realigned on the grid.
You might think that realigning on the grid will change the playback of the piece. It doesn't. The reason is that Performer computes a tempo map that captures all of your rhythmic nuances.
Once you have reclocked your piece, you can proceed to the next issue.
(2) Hand Split
Notation programs have to guess which hand played which note and which notes should be notated on which staff. If you are playing into a notation program in real time, you can specify a split point. Unfortunately, a complex piece will not have a single split point that works for the entire piece.
As an alternative, you can edit your performance in a sequencer, again using piano roll view. The technique is simple. Look at the layout of your notes, and then use the mouse to select the notes that belong to either the right- or left-hand part. Cut them and paste them into a separate track.
If you plan to save your Standard MIDI File as Type 0, be sure that you have assigned each hand to separate MIDI channels. (The Disklavier, for example, typically assumes that the left hand has been assigned to channel 1 and right hand to channel 2, so you might want to make the same choice.)
If you save your SMF as Type 1, the hands can be assigned to the same or to different channels. Either way, you can open the SMF in your notation program, and your notation software will be able to assign the separate hand tracks to different staves. From there, you can edit the look of the notation as necessary.
(3) Quantization
When your notation program does its transcription (of either a saved performance or a real time performance), your software needs to know some information about how short the shortest note values should be. For example, if you did not play anything shorter than an eighth note, you should ask your notation program to quantize your playing to the nearest eighth note. That way, you will avoid seeing things like triple dotted 64th notes.
If you want, you can use your sequencer to quantize your playing before sending the performance to your notation program.
NOTE: Quantization does no good if your file was not recorded to a metronome or has not been reclocked. If you quantize a non-clocked file, you will cause your notes to become aligned to beats that make no musical sense.
(4) Multiple Voices on a Staff
This is a tough issue for a notation program. Let's say that your right hand holds one note for the duration of a half note and simultaneously plays two consecutive quarter notes. In proper notation, you should have two voices on the right-hand staff.
In this sort of situation, many programs will shorten your half note to match the quarter note that was played at the same time. In this case, you will have to edit the notation in your notation program. Other programs may try to notate the two voices properly. If they are set up to do that, they may also falsely notate two voices in other places because you slightly overlapped two notes in your recording. Either way, you will probably have some post-transcription editing to do.
Regards,
PianoBench
In a message dated 6/30/04 6:04:57 AM, Shane writes:
I'm trying to find out if there
are programs that will allow me to take music I've recorded on disklavier
and transcribe it through my computer. Any help on this would be greatly
appreciated as this would help me accomplish goals I've been thinking
about for years.
There are many notation programs that will transcribe a saved MIDI file into notation and will also transcribe your playing as you play in real time. Examples are Finale, Sibelius, Overture, and MasterTracks. These programs have all sorts of additional features for editing the notation display.
There are also sequencing programs that will do the same, but sequencers don't usually do as good a job with notation. Their real purpose is to provide you with MIDI editing features to correct or improve the MIDI playback.
There are 4 especially challenging issues when transcribing a piano performance:
(1) Aligning the Notes to the Beats
The simplest way to proceed is to listen to a metronome as you play. That way, your notes more or less align to recognized beats. Finale and Sibelius also have features for letting you play without a metronome reference. Their features work well but take some practice.
If you are trying to transcribe existing recordings that were made without reference to a metronome, you must reclock the pieces. Otherwise, the notation with be an unfixable mess. The reason is that all MIDI files have a built-in tempo. Although you may not have listened to the metronome when you made your recording, the recording was made with reference to a default metronome, and your notes will not align with the established beats.
Some sequencers have a feature for reclocking (although few, if any, call it "reclocking"). The best one is Performer, from Mark of the Unicorn. This Macintosh program has a feature called Adjust Beats. What you do is view your performance in "piano roll" style notation, in which the notes are laid out horizontally on a grid. On the grid you can see vertical lines that show beats and barlines. With the Adjust Beats feature turned on, you can drag the beat lines to the notes to which they apply. This causes the notes to become realigned on the grid.
You might think that realigning on the grid will change the playback of the piece. It doesn't. The reason is that Performer computes a tempo map that captures all of your rhythmic nuances.
Once you have reclocked your piece, you can proceed to the next issue.
(2) Hand Split
Notation programs have to guess which hand played which note and which notes should be notated on which staff. If you are playing into a notation program in real time, you can specify a split point. Unfortunately, a complex piece will not have a single split point that works for the entire piece.
As an alternative, you can edit your performance in a sequencer, again using piano roll view. The technique is simple. Look at the layout of your notes, and then use the mouse to select the notes that belong to either the right- or left-hand part. Cut them and paste them into a separate track.
If you plan to save your Standard MIDI File as Type 0, be sure that you have assigned each hand to separate MIDI channels. (The Disklavier, for example, typically assumes that the left hand has been assigned to channel 1 and right hand to channel 2, so you might want to make the same choice.)
If you save your SMF as Type 1, the hands can be assigned to the same or to different channels. Either way, you can open the SMF in your notation program, and your notation software will be able to assign the separate hand tracks to different staves. From there, you can edit the look of the notation as necessary.
(3) Quantization
When your notation program does its transcription (of either a saved performance or a real time performance), your software needs to know some information about how short the shortest note values should be. For example, if you did not play anything shorter than an eighth note, you should ask your notation program to quantize your playing to the nearest eighth note. That way, you will avoid seeing things like triple dotted 64th notes.
If you want, you can use your sequencer to quantize your playing before sending the performance to your notation program.
NOTE: Quantization does no good if your file was not recorded to a metronome or has not been reclocked. If you quantize a non-clocked file, you will cause your notes to become aligned to beats that make no musical sense.
(4) Multiple Voices on a Staff
This is a tough issue for a notation program. Let's say that your right hand holds one note for the duration of a half note and simultaneously plays two consecutive quarter notes. In proper notation, you should have two voices on the right-hand staff.
In this sort of situation, many programs will shorten your half note to match the quarter note that was played at the same time. In this case, you will have to edit the notation in your notation program. Other programs may try to notate the two voices properly. If they are set up to do that, they may also falsely notate two voices in other places because you slightly overlapped two notes in your recording. Either way, you will probably have some post-transcription editing to do.
Regards,
PianoBench