transposing from piano to guitar

mattroutley
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Fri Dec 17, 2010 9:06 am

hi all,

i was just wondering if anyone knew of a video on here that could help me get some ideas on transcribing from piano to guitar? i have recently been watching Neil's tutorial on stuff and nonsense and wondered how to go about transcribing for myself...

Thanks guys :)

ps. it was specifically this song that inspired me :)



willem
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Fri Dec 17, 2010 11:05 am

Hi ,,well you can transcribe it by ear,,what i would do is,, i would purchase the the piece on paper and then write it (standaard notation)in a tab program like guitarpro(there are others) and see with what the program comes up with,,not everything what the program say's is logic so you have to make some adaptions( a strech from the third fret to the eight fret is some strech)..


wrench
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Fri Dec 17, 2010 11:26 am

Matt,

I am not the best qualified to answer your question, but I have dabbled in this a little, so I'll share what I think is usable in at least some circumstances. I find the biggest difference in the music is the fact that a pianist often plays multiple bass notes, or chords with the left hand, and the guitarist is limited to a bass note with the right thumb. The pianist's right hand and the guitarist's right fingers are pretty equivalent. A simple conversion might be to start with piano sheet music, and transcribe the treble directly. Then add the root bass note from the bass portion of the piano music. From there, you may need to apply some additional theory/creativity to accommodate playability and harmony. For example, your bass note won't work when it's 12 frets from your melody note. To clean up your transcription, adjust the stems to indicate the appropriate digit (thumb or finger), and the correct stroke (up or down). Some songs I did this to are Bela's Lullaby (by Carter Burrell hybrid and alternate picked - the finished version has some fairly complicated picking), Who Wants to live Forever? (by Brian May fingerstyle version), and What Is A Youth? (by Nino Rota both fingerstyle version and flatpick versions. This is not Hector's version - I think his was the Henry Mancini pop music version, and I transcribed mine from the 1968 movie before Hector's lesson was released).

I did a few others that were really simple conversions, but I've seen many that I couldn't even get close to. I think it's more difficult to convert the work of a skilled pianist because of the simultaneous complexity of both hands. It's kinda fun to try though. I will guess that the Coldplay song is a good place to start because their music doesn't seem very complex. Good luck.

wrench

EDIT: Matt, I just looked at this song, and it looks like it will transcribe very well with a lot of latitude for the player. It doesn't have a complicated bass line on piano, so I think you can transcribe a great piece just from a chord chart. http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/c/coldp ... r2_crd.htm. I played along with the video from this chord chart, and it sounded very close. I think you will have good success.


BigBear
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Sat Dec 18, 2010 7:43 pm

Matt- Maybe I'm missing the point of your question but if you know the notes, say in standard notation, it is quite easy to do what you are descibing using Guitar Pro. You can input in standard notation and output in tablature for guitar. Really simple. And GP is really pretty cheap for what it does. I have my issues with GP but it's perfect for this type of transcription!

Good luck! :cheer:


Chasplaya
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Sat Dec 18, 2010 8:04 pm

If you watch this guy closely its not a bad version.

Chords are G, C, D and Em



mattroutley
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Sun Dec 19, 2010 11:47 am

thanks for the advice and research guys. really helpful. I had no idea that i could convert sheet music to tab on guitar pro which is awesome because i have the sheet music for the piano. I really should look further into what gp is actually capable of!


willem
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Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:47 am

mattroutley wrote:
thanks for the advice and research guys. really helpful. I had no idea that i could convert sheet music to tab on guitar pro which is awesome because i have the sheet music for the piano. I really should look further into what gp is actually capable of!

Het MATT,,DID you purchase Gpro only for put tabs in available?? oke it is great to know you can write yourself some stuff in it,,,it is alot of work but it helps also to get some music theory under your belt...goodluck,,let us know..


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