5 Helpful Steps To Transcribing Drum Corps Music

Since I often get the “How Did You Do This!?” question whenever I post a new transcription, I thought some fun tips for your own transcriptions would be worth putting together. You might notice that every single one of these tips can be applied to practicing an instrument and generally becoming a better musician. You have to be musically sensitive and driven in your craft if you hope to dig deep into a major work such as a drum corps show and pull out the individual pieces by ear. Before deciding to become a transcriber, you may also want to commit to tightening up your skills as a musician, no matter where you are in terms of talent or experience.

Click here for the playlist leading to my behind the scenes videos for my new transcription: Crown’s 2014 6-part antiphonal high brass feature. It will take a while for all of them to upload, but you’ll see them all in that playlist when they get there. 

1) Pay close attention to detail in everything you do as a musician. Consistency is an important part of musicianship, and it helps to listen in the same ways every day, not just when you want to transcribe a piece of music. If you’re one of those people who sits in an orchestra or band and listens attentively every day to hear parts you haven’t heard before in a rehearsal, it will help you immensely when completing a transcription because you’ve already made a habit of picking individual parts out of the texture.

2) It’s all about the sound. I mentioned this a number of times in the video, but to me, it’s more important that you get the sound you want than it is that you get the “correct” notes. Transcribing involves taking live, organic, acoustical sounds and digitizing them into electronic MIDI sounds. As a composer, we’re always trying to do the opposite… MIDI NEVER gives the sound you’re looking for, so you might need to play around a bit to get as close as you can to the sound you want. I often times use dynamics and articulation to emulate the musical phrasing in the live recording, even if I’m sure those specific dynamics and articulation were not actually used in the original score. Please note that this is also true as a PERFORMER: it’s more important that you get the sound you want for your instrument than it is that you play every single note without any cracks or mistakes.

3) Use all your resources. In one of the reference videos I used, Carolina Crown’s Drum Major can very clearly be seen conducting. You should never have any question of where the beat is because you can see it. Generally speaking when transcribing a drum corps show, if you’re having trouble hearing the parts in full ensemble, you can almost always find rehearsal videos isolating specific instruments, or – in the case of Crown and many other world class finalist corps – you can find a “head cam” or “boob cam” or “go pro” camera highlighting a specific performer. If you have a friend who marched, you can always check his or her specific part with what you have if you desire. You more than enough resources to transcribe any drum corps show.

4) Start simple! If you’re an extremely talented clarinetist who’s never played trumpet before, you’re not going to enter the National Trumpet Competition with a brilliant triple tonguing solo as your first milestone for learning the trumpet. That’s crazy, right? You’ll probably want to start off with long tones in the mid/low range of the instrument and FIND THE SOUND YOU WANT before going any further (see tip #2). It’s the same concept here: If you’ve never done a transcription before in your life, or you’re not familiar with a music notation system such as finale, you’re not going to want to transcribe the entire Carolina Crown 2014 Brass Book. It will be a painful and grueling process, and you probably won’t get the results you’re looking for. If you’re sold on Crown 2014, for example, perhaps start by transcribing the first half of the ballad (starting at the high brass solos) or the final minute of the show (after the 16^th note runs).

5) Be patient!! In both the short term and long term, developing any set of skills takes patience. I transcribed the high brass feature this blog is linked to in about two hours. For someone with little transcribing experience, something like this may easily have taken all week. Again, if you’ve played clarinet for over a decade, you can’t expect to have a decade’s worth of experience under your belt playing trumpet. Developing the skills to transcribe are very similar to playing an instrument. You already have a musical background, so it won’t take you a decade to get good at it, but it might take you a year or more to really get to where you can do an entire transcription in one sitting.

And hopefully, that should get you on the right track! One last thing before I sign out… Be aware that drum corps are separate organizations – they are not owned by DCI or DCA – and just because one drum corps doesn’t mind seeing transcriptions of their music online, doesn’t mean that all corps will be okay with it. If you’re asked to take a video down, respond politely and cordially and take the video down. Also be aware of highly copyrighted music (or music that seems as though it may be highly protected) that drum corps have played on the field. Those organizations had to go through major copyrights licensing and permissions to play that music on the field, and it may not be okay for you to take that piece and do a transcription of it. For example: When the Madison Scouts played Empire State of Mind, was it one of the most glorious moments in the history of drum corps? Absolutely. Should I transcribe Empire State of Mind and throw it up on my YouTube channel? Probably not. You may be able to make a case for fair use, or that you’re making a “cover” of the song the way any up and coming artist would sing a famous song and share it, but it gets pretty dicey here, and I tend to assume that those excuses won’t fly. In most cases, your video could be taken down from youtube and your account – if subject to multiple offenses – may be disabled. But do realize that it is also possible that you may be subject to HUGE fines (especially dealing with a major company) because you’re dealing with copyright infringement, which is a federal offense. Make your life easier – just don’t do it.

As you transcribe drum corps music, you’ll realize how much more amazing these designers and students get every single year. Cherish and admire every moment!

Marcus Grant
Teacher, Composer, Trumpeter
http://www.msgrantmusic.org
http://www.facebook.com/msgrantmusic
http://www.soundcloud.com/msgrantmusic

Previous blog post: Why EVERY Musician Should Join A Chamber Ensemble

Why EVERY Musician Should Join A Chamber Ensemble

I for-shadowed this blog post in my blog about the Fredericksburg Brass Institute. It's something I believe very strongly in speaking about. Music for the majority of musicians in this world is a fantastic catalyst for the promotion and enrichment of communities everywhere, but whether musicians engage themselves as a band/orchestra/choir member or as a featured soloist, their development as a musician and experience of music's positive effects is greatly stunted by a lack of exposure to all elements of being a fully trained musician.

Playing in a large ensemble helps develop a musician's musicality with others, but it helps in many ways to solidify bad habits on the instrument. As a brass or woodwind player in a band or string player in an orchestra, a young and growing musician can learn how to play with others but is often times severely under-challenged with music that only explores a small section of that instrument's range and almost always includes a great deal of counting rests rather than performing music. In some cases, since most composers are not experts on every single instrument in a large ensemble such as these two, one particular instrument might get a part completely atypical of music that this particular instrument is able to practically perform with quality or precision. In a rehearsal, a clarinet player might sit unoccupied for quite a long time while the director refines the low brass sound, and the focus of that clarinetist has dropped from the band and has to be regained when it is time to perform.

Playing as a soloist is greatly conducive to the mastery of an instrument, but it doesn't teach a student how to cooperate musically with others. Sure, it alleviates many of the issues of playing in a band or orchestra; the soloist is generally not counting rests and cannot hide behind other players, and the composer generally knows much more about the instrument and can really show off the instrument's range, style, and other artistic features specific to that instrument. A soloist can never lose focus of what he or she is doing. However, the all-too-important task of learning how to cooperate with others musically speaking, and listening and adjusting to the actions of those around oneself becomes lost. Music is referred to as the universal language, yet speaking to oneself is generally not nearly as riveting as engaging in conversation with a good friend, and let's face it: we learn a LOT opening ourselves to other people's experiences than we do simply going about life on our own island.

Undoubtedly, a member of a large ensemble or a soloist is deprived of many of the essential elements of enhancing one's musicianship. But we can't have the best of both worlds, can we?

Yes, we absolutely can.

In a CHAMBER ENSEMBLE, one can enjoy exploring the fantastic challenges that come with a solo piece while engaging musically in a conversation with those around oneself. Chamber musicians don't have to worry about not being engaged in rehearsal, and they have to stay focused and committed throughout the entire experience - they can't hide behind another player or sit out on the job because it has a huge impact on the musicians around them. The balance between personal mastery of the instrument and perfecting the art of being an effective team player forces the chamber ensemble musician to master both the art of playing the instrument as well as the art of playing musically with others.

One of music's greatest aspects is that it forces people to be reflective and cooperative with one another. Chamber ensembles greatly enhance these aspects in an intimate setting that those not familiar with performing in one could greatly benefit from. Where I grew up, chamber ensembles in the public school setting are almost completely nonexistent, which means tens of thousands of students are never challenged to apply both technical mastery and musical sensitivity to their craft as one. What a shame. If you're a student or teacher reading this, I greatly encourage the exploration of chamber ensembles and their fantastic benefits to both young and seasoned musicians.

If you need a perfect example of the fantastic advantages to placing a focus on chamber ensemble skills, check out anything from the Baylor School Of Music - anything.

Marcus Grant
Teacher, Composer, Trumpeter
http://www.msgrantmusic.org
http://www.facebook.com/msgrantmusic
http://www.soundcloud.com/msgrantmusic

Previous blog post: Winning Is Not As Glamorous As You Think

Winning is Not as Glamorous as You Think

This has been on my mind, and it needs to be shared. I will brief this blog post by saying that evidence and examples are 100% based on BOA and DCI. However, non-advocates of the marching arts can still relate to the over-arching content and concept being explained in this topic:

There are a number of people in any given competitive activity who make it their life goal to win; it seems to be a common thought that if one could just win at something, that life would be a complete joy and endless success story. For those who actually succeed in this purely on the motivation to win, the realization that "winning" is not what we all perceive it to be can be a catastrophic culture shock. Be careful out there: It's the personal growth as a human being or with which ever organization you are a part of that lasts, not the prizes or the accolades or the trophies or the recognition.

Because it's often the center of my focus during the summer and fall, I'm going to use marching band and drum corps examples here, but these examples are certainly transferable to ANY competitive situation. At the time I'm writing this, Carolina Crown Drum and Bugle Corps scored 2nd place in brass at two of their most recent drum corps competitions. A group of fans are shocked and even offended by this, as the corps has been known in recent years for their incredible brass performers and teachers, and the show they are performing this year is arguably the most demanding of any show in the history of drum corps. The expectation is that they win, and as a result, the celebration when they DO win is greatly lessened, and the resentment when they DON'T win is exponentially increased. Sad.

In 2011, DCI fans almost unanimously agreed that the Blue Devils were having a rough and "off" season, and were experiencing lots of trouble. The Blue Devils placed 2nd place in the WORLD in 2011, but since the expectation is that they spend most of their season undefeated and come out with a championship title at the end of the year, it was perceived that the corps was "out of it" that year. Amazing.

Perhaps we should think twice about the importance of winning a competition, yes? It's a moving target, with different judges with different perspectives, different venues with different acoustics, and different competitors. The result will inevitably be different every time in ways that you could never predict.

Be very careful about the importance you place on competition. If you allow competitive success to define the assessment of your experiences, not only are you empowering other people (judges, fans, and fellow competitors) with the ability to make or break all that you've aspired to be, but even if you manage to find that success, it's only for a brief amount of time, and now you've such an expectation that cannot be satisfied any way except by the pressure to win again, and again, and again, because all of a sudden, if you place second.....

Intrinsic motivation to be a better person, on the other hand, will always give you the opportunity to experience success on your own terms, no matter what happens around you. No judge, competition, or score can take that away from you. Try it sometime?

Marcus Grant
Teacher, Composer, Trumpeter
http://www.msgrantmusic.org
http://www.facebook.com/msgrantmusic
http://www.soundcloud.com/msgrantmusic

Previous blog post: Why You Should Attend The Next Fredericksburg Brass Institute