The Challenges of Transcribing and Arranging

Arranging and transcribing music are wonderful skills for any musician to have at his disposal. However, these are often viewed as advanced skills because of the associated challenges. By understanding exactly what these challenges are, we will be better able to focus our efforts on improving these areas to become a better arranger and/or transcriber.

First, let’s decipher what it means to arrange and transcribe music. ‘Arranging’ is the act of taking an existing piece of music and making it your own. Transcribing, on the other hand,  is the act of listening, and sometimes visually observing, what a musician is playing and notating it into sheet music. 

The first challenge of arranging and transcribing is properly identifying the melody and accompaniment– both rhythm and notes. One should have a good grasp on the time signatures and subdivisions/note values lest s/he run the risk of improperly performing or notating a piece. 

The next challenge for both tasks (but more so for a transcriber) would be to engrave a score to be reader-friendly and musically accurate. In my experience, engraving is an element which is often overlooked by many. The same melody can be written in several ways despite sounding the same– the differences may reflect the beaming of the notes and the enharmonic choices made. For example, the ii-V-I of Bb major would be Cm-F maj-Bb maj instead of Cm-E# maj-Bb maj. While these musically sound the same, the latter is musically inaccurate and would look strange on the score. The need to understand some theory and engraving rules would thus serve as the next hurdle.

One of the biggest challenges of a transcriber is making musical decisions on behalf of the performer. A performer may play with great liberty of tempo (with rubato, for example), or may have made a mistake. In those instances, the transcriber will need to decide at least how the music should be notated, and at most what the performer intended to play. A few factors influence these decisions– musical analysis, experience as a transcriber, understanding of the performer’s preference to perform a certain passage in a particular manner, to name a few. Different transcribers may notate the same passage in different ways based on their experience and interpretation. In Timothy Gondola’s transcription of Amazing Grace by Cory Henry, he briefly changes the time signature from 9/8 to 20/16 and 8/8 to accommodate a difficult passage performed with some liberty to the tempo.

From measure 43 of Timothy Gondola’s transcription of Amazing Grace by Cory Henry.

This is an example of a musical decision which a skilled transcriber may need to make.

The need to make these decisions may also arise if the performer’s audio quality is less than ideal due to loud background noises or poor recording equipment. As some passages may not sound as clear as a result, the transcriber would need to make a decision to decipher what s/he thinks is most accurate and likely. Two transcriptions of the same piece, even by very skilled transcribers, may vary significantly as a result.

These musical decisions, due to audio quality and a performer’s liberty with the piece, are, thus, in my opinion, some of the greatest challenges of transcribing.

The need to make musical decisions is also, in my experience, one of the hardest challenges of arranging. These decisions may stem from a plethora of reasons. Making a piece your own, outdoing your past arrangements, and incorporating as many elements of the original piece as possible for a solo instrument are some of them. An arranger may choose to incorporate elements, such as reharmonization and syncopation, not in the original composition to make it more unique. In Timothy Gondola’s arrangement of O Come All Ye Faithful, some beautiful reharmonizations which were not in the original composition were used. These made the arrangement more enjoyable and ‘fresh’ to listen to, in my opinion.

From measure 29 of Timothy Gondola’s arrangement of O Come All Ye Faithful.

Similarly, a decision may be made to ‘hold back’ in certain passages to allow for some variety in dynamics and some ‘breathing room’ in the arrangement. These decisions may not be very easy or straightforward ones to make and are thus a very challenging aspect of arranging. 

However, these difficult musical decisions are also what makes arranging so wonderful. Each arrangement of the same piece may be unique and wildly different due to the various preferences, inspirations, and arrangement styles of different arrangers. 

In essence, arranging and transcribing are amazing musical skills, but fraught with challenges. Fundamentally, one may need a decent grasp on rhythm and chords to assist in their arranging and transcribing tasks. Beyond that, the necessity to make musical decisions, often based on one’s experience and interpretation, serves as a great challenge for any transcriber and arranger.