cedar
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Posts posted by cedar
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I tried it also, using a link to a Nancy Wilson recording. Unfortunately, the results were quite off. There is another program there called "Melody scanner" which I haven't tried yet, but might be more geared towards simple lead sheets.
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Because I'm lazy and always looking for fastest way to transcribe music -- both my own compositions and obscure jazz tunes - I decided to do a quick search for AI tools for music transcription. One search sent me to Klangio. The website has a number of distinct products that claim to generate sheet music/lead sheets from various sources, including youtube videos, MIDI, MP3.
Has anyone experimented with such AI programs for transcription? Any recommendations?
If any of these types of programs could accurately create just a lead sheet quickly - let alone more advanced transcriptions -- I'd gladly sign up and pay a reasonable fee.
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I read Benson's autobiography a few years ago. It was pretty good.
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A tale of woe.
Over the past 5 years, my music room has suffered a couple of floods. Each time, the water never got more than an inch high - perhaps because the carpet soaked things up. I thought the water only reached the wheels of my beloved Mason and Hamlin grand piano, sparing any real damage. (Other items all could be moved out of the room).
After extensive repairs inside and outside the house over past six months, this week I thought I was finally ready to re-open my room for sessions. Final step was laying down the rug and moving furniture back. While I was out of my house, the large run was laid down, and the workers were cajoled into rolling the piano into place.
I get home, decide to inch the piano into the exact ideal spot - moving it forward ever so slightly.
Within seconds, the front leg suddenly gives, leaving me with this result:
Suddenly, my long-awaited dream of re-opening the room is replaced by the horror and wondering how long before I get to play again. I cannot tell you fast I spiraled into depression.
Luckily, I find piano-repair people who were willing to come over the next morning. Today, they came by, removed the leg and all the wheels. Supposedly, repairs will be complete in a matter of days. So I can breathe again,
In retrospect, it’s possible that the moisture in the room - though never rising more than an inch - was impacting the wood. The wheels are being replaced because there was rust. But I was also told I never should have moved the piano myself - at least not forward - because it put too much stress on the front leg.
Anyway, just wanted to share this saga. Maybe there’s a moral here somewhere.
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Make sure you listen to the whole thing, Dave. Each tune is quite different. Ends with Billy's Bounce (or some bop blues - not sure I remember which one).
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1 hour ago, CyberGene said:
Was that post about one-on-one lessons? Or is it the entire class being late? I haven’t read the original post, I don’t use Facebook.
Scroll up in this thread and you'll see the entire FB post quoted.
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I wasn't going to weigh in, but I can't resist saying that I saw absolutely nothing objectionable about his FB post. He lamented about students being late and unprepared, remarks which hardly seem controversial to me. And I really didn't interpret his comments as suggesting one generation was better than another. He criticized the "culture of everybody getting an A" but that criticism has, indeed, been around for decades at least, and I didn't think he meant to suggest it was only a recent phenomenon. He noted that his "mentors and bosses gave it to him straight" when he was out of line - which is actually an admission that he himself had made the same types of transgressions.
I suppose it's fair to ask what the purpose of the post was. Maybe it was just to vent? Or maybe he assumes his students will read his social media posts, and the post was meant as a way to light a fire under them all? I agree that the best lessons would be taught/communicated individually, but don't have any problem with his message.
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Speaking of great pianists: last night, I caught a set with a pianist I had not seen for a couple of decades, and kind of forget about: Geoff Keezer.
He was part of a group playing Art Blakey material, including Bobby Watson, Peter Washington, Carl Allen, Robin Eubanks, and Brian Lynch. Ironically, I think the last time I may have seen Keezer when he was playing with Blakey, I believe when he was just a teenager or in his early 20s. Back then, my recollection is that he and Benny Green were among the most impressive young pianists of that "generation." I kept up with Benny Green through the years but lost track of Geoff.
Anyway, Geoff was amazing last night, kind of stole the show. And he did it with very original takes on standard Messenger material. Really opened my eyes to some new approaches.
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I always assumed that the term "generation" referred colloquially to a period of about 10-15 years. Just seems to me the way the term is usually used. Under any definition of the term, Herbie can't be considered the same generation as Brad.
(If we really were to put Brad in the same conversation as those musicians who were active from 1960s-1980s, I could literally name dozens who I prefer to listen to - but I know that's just personal taste.)
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Watched the film last night. Was disappointed, mostly in the decision to focus on the last portion of his life.
In a way, this criticism might be unfair. Film makers can make whatever movie they want, and there was a story to be told about the last 1/4 of his life. But I think that most people (musicians and non-musicians) would have been much more intrigued to learn about his early or mid-life, particularly when he was actually creating West Side Story, Candide and On the Town. In fact, I would have been very interested to follow his development from his teenage years on. Instead, it felt like 75% of the movie was devoted to his life from the late 1960s on. And the section where his wife got sick, I thought, was maudlin and really dragged.
I should also point out that I am invariably disappointed that biopics of musicians don't spend more time discussing the development of the artists and importance of their achievements. But I realize that may be best left for documentaries, and is not the goal of these movies.
Still, the performances were great and the music outstanding.
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By the way - Surface Pro has a screen size of 13 inches. It's great size for reading one page of sheet music (at least for most jazz charts/lead sheets).
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Another thing I'm looking into is the category of "laptop extenders."
For example: https://www.howtogeek.com/851670/what-is-a-laptop-screen-extender-and-should-you-buy-one/
These are extra monitors that can clip-on to laptops. But I don't know yet how well these things would work with a program like Mobile Sheets Pro.
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11 hours ago, ElmerJFudd said:
I have used a convertible laptop as a sheet music reader with Mobile Sheets software for Windows. The HP Elite book has a resolution of 1920 x 1080. It doesn’t translate a sheet of paper’s ratio very well. It comes out looking like the width is too narrow and the length too great - lots of dead space at the bottom of the screen.
iPad Pro 11” has resolution of 2388x1668, 6.4”x9”. Ratio wise - if it were a piece of paper it would look like 8.5”x12” (ratio conversion).
The iPad Pro 12.9” has a resolution of 2732x2048 which translates a sheet of paper very closely at 7.75”x10.34”. If it were a piece of paper it would look like 8.5”x11.3” (ratio conversion).
Here’s an article on what’s been going on with eink readers.
https://www.tablets-for-musicians.com/best-e-readers/
in a nutshell the ereaders are pricey for what they are, still suffer from image switching lag. If you don’t want to go Apple iPad one might look at Galaxy Tab Ultra. They have a 14.6” display for $720.
I'm going to take a close look at this article. It also so happens that I recently lost a Kindle, which I had used only for reading books. And I was also hoping for my next ereader to be larger.
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Although I've been pretty content using my Microsoft Surface Pro the past couple of years for reading sheet music (via the Mobile Sheets Pro app), I still wish it was a little bigger so I could read 2 pages of music at once more easily. It's also been a while since I've researched new devices.
Anyone have any recommendations for new tablets (i.e., that came out in the past year or so) that have larger screen than the Surface Pro?
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Little off-topic: Herbie recently announced some more tour dates for 2024. Anyone know who is in his current touring band? I couldn't find the info on his website.
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1 hour ago, drawback said:
I like that Gator stand, but have always wondered how stable it is without the legs flared out.
I use the Gator stand and have had never had a stability issue.
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I've listened a few times to this tune, and something about the arrangement kind of turns me off. I don't think my complaint is related to the technology. There's just something about it that leaves me cold. I preferred the demo version. I appreciate the opportunity to hear any output from any of the Beatles, though.
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10 hours ago, Reezekeys said:
I can't hum or sing to Bird's solo on Cherokee. Or Trane's solo on Giant Steps or A Love Supreme. Your handle has the word "jazz" in it – I guess I'm a little confused. 🙂
Does this help?
(PS: I can't tell if JazzPiano88 is baiting you or really believes the solo is "not especially musical")
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"Chameleon" is not only great, but taught me a lesson about humility.
I was 10 when Headhunters came out. Within a few years, I was a straight-ahead snob. Loved Herbie on everything he touched in the 1960s. But didn't give Headhunters or Thrust a real listening for years because I stupidly assumed it was just some commercial nonsense.
This attitude was reinforced when middle school and high school classmates called Chameleon at jam sessions (without ever playing hip middle section). Just seemed to me kind of a boring funk tune.
It wasn't until after college that I bothered to listen to the original version, and was then blown away by the Rhodes solo. Couldn't believe how many years of enjoyable listening I missed because I had been such a snob.
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11 minutes ago, SMcD said:
I believe every generation has believed, by and large, that music peaked with their coming-of-age.
Not my experience.
I'm born in 1963 (and always understood "boomers" ended in 1964). In college, all of my friends (who listened to rock) thought that the best music occurred 1965-1975.
My kids (born in 1994 and 1997) believe that the best music came out a generation before them.
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I enjoyed this guest essay in today's NYT.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/23/opinion/teach-music-better.html
I realize that many people many not be able to access the story, so I'll quote the sections that I found interesting:
QuoteEducators lament that, as with other courses, band can frequently fall prey to “teaching to the test” — in this case, teaching to the holiday concert. A class that by definition is meant to be a creative endeavor winds up emphasizing rigid reading and rote memorization, in service of a single performance. We need to abandon that approach and bring play back into the classroom by instructing students how to hear a melody on the radio and learn to play it back by ear, and encouraging students to write their own simple songs using a few chords. (The dirty secret of pop music, as Ed Sheeran has explained, is that most chart-topping songs can be played by using only four chords: G, C, D and E minor.) So start with just one chord, a funky beat and let it rip — and, voilà, you’re making music.
QuoteIt’s often been repeated that “music is a language,” yet we’re reluctant to teach it that way. When we learn a language, we don’t simply memorize phrases or spend all day reading — we practice the language together, sharing, speaking, stumbling but ultimately finding ways to connect. This should happen in music class, too. Music should be a common pursuit: Ask any dad rock weekend band or church ensemble how it experiences music, and the performers are likely to tell you it’s not a chore but a way of building community.
QuoteMost important, we need to let kids be terrible. In fact, we should encourage it. They’ll be plenty terrible on their own — at first. But too often kids associate music in school with a difficult undertaking they can’t hope to master, which leads them to give up. Music does not have to be, and in fact, shouldn’t be, about the pursuit of perfection. And the great musicians have plenty of lessons to teach students about the usefulness of failure.
QuoteMiles Davis couldn’t hit the high notes his hero Dizzy Gillespie did, so what did he do? He found a new mellow, cool way to speak the language of jazz. Billie Holiday’s range was just over one octave — very limited for a professional singer — but that didn’t stop her from creating the definitive versions of so many American classics. Tell students these stories and watch them get excited to fail. We should let them do that, over and over again. That’s the only way they’ll learn what sounds awful but also what goes well together, what they like and what kind of music they want to make.
QuoteWe also teach language through immersion, so let’s focus on creating an immersive experience in the language of music. Kids learn best when they’re part of communities filled with people of all skill levels for them to play along with, listen to music with, mess up with and just be silly with. Parents, this means you. Don’t let instrument instruction simply be something you nag your kids to endure. Music was never meant to be a lonely vigil. Play together. Make noise together. Find joy together. Take out an instrument and learn a song that you and your child both love
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I experimented with StaffPad when it was first released. Thought it was a very cool program, but my handwriting is so atrocious it really wasn't the best program for me.
But if we are at the stage where I can play an acoustic piano, and have it transcribe everything accurately, then that's a game changer and I'd give it another try.
AI tools for music transcription?
in The Keyboard Corner
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Uh, no. I'm not a budding student who needs to "learn the 12 keys." I've transcribed countless tunes and, while there are occasions where I'm still happy to do it because the precision is necessary, more often it's a nuisance, especially when time is of the essence.
And it's not the LISTENING or ANALYZING part I find tedious; it's the actual physical act of entering info into programs like Finale. In fact, as I mentioned before, part of the appeal of these types of programs is the promise of transcribing my OWN compositions.
I could hand-write some transcriptions faster, but my penmanship is lousy. So I'll gladly use any shortcut for transcribing that is available.