For many centuries, musicians have delighted in music transcriptions (Brahms, Bartok,
Kodaly, Britten). With the development of the ethnomusicology, the music transcription
device also developed, from aural transcription, phonograph, melograph, wax cylinder, tape,
recorder…now we use software
The changes show that people want to present the music transcription as precise as possible,
as objective as possible.
"Automatic transcription provide an insight into some of the extremely subtle elements of
music which we cannot readily distinguish aurally." (p270)
But the fact is we can never provide an objective transcription, expect for some subjective
issues which mentioned in the article, some external factors also will influence the accuracy
of the music transcriptions. Like location, position, temperature... (difficulties of transcribe
music)
Like photograph, even you use a very precise camera, you still cannot present a real person/a
scene perfectly.
Subjective of human hearing:
Although the automatic transcripter, which record the details of sounds, was invented, it is
not consistent with the exact sound human hear due to the subjectivity of human’s
hearing. Compare to automatic transcripers, human tend to change and adjust the sound
1.(physical) Frequency: some dynamic level of specific frequencies are amplified or
decreased, sometimes the intensity and even the wave form also influence the way we
perceive music. In some cases, low and high frequencies need to be amplified. That’s why
the sound recorded by automatic transcripter will be slightly different from how listeners feel.
Age.
2.Adjustment- when first walk in a club the sound level is unbearable, but it becomes not so
loud.
3. (mental)Attention
-1) baby only recognize mother’s voice and ignore other sounds
-2) music listeners ignore the aircraft flying overhead.（concentrate on music not noise)
-3) The repeated music passages will not be monotonous if the listeners’ attention shift
from one music feature to another. (timbres, harmony, melodies...etc )
We concentrate on partial of the music and neglect other sounds, such as noises.
Therefore, it’s almost impossible for human to perceive the “true” sound because our
hearing is subjective and can’t pay attention to all details.
4. Experience:1）Ethnomusicology:
untrained eastern listeners have difficulties to identify vertical
harmony.
All these examples show that human brain, unlike automatic transcripters, tend to interprete
sounds in a different way because some subjective purposes. On the other hand, automatic
transcriber cannot replace aural transcription, but it provides more details that inconceivable
for human. Although we try to apply electronic devices to capture the objective transcription
of the original sound, our hearing is very subjective. Thus,
Question/Thoughts
1. What is the most “objective” transcription? The transcription by the transcripter which
records all the details of the original sound, or the transcription which is closer to human’s
subjective hearing? (In some respects, an automatic transcription can be deceptive because it
does not take into account the adaptablity of human mind. P.268 )
2.-writing down a score using traditional music notation conventions implicitly involves the
conversion of a genre from its native medium to Western traditional values. This may not be a
sufficiently rich language to represent some styles of music (microtonal Indian music for
instance)
3.-"The idea that you can achieve a ‘perfect’ transcription is false, as different people hear
different things"
4.-Music Transcriptions and Music Arrangements? Is this related to descriptive and
prescriptive?
5. Do all the discrepancies caused by subjective human hearing are descriptive transcription?
