FAQ's
|Guitar Only?| |How Long?| |What Do I Get?| |The Matter of Moola?|| |It Sucks!| |At The Risk of Repeating Myself| |Copyright Issues| |Publishing?| |About Me|Can you transcribe other instruments apart from the guitar?
Yes. I've been known to transcribe sitar and bouzouki based music, as well as arrange wind, brass and keyboard instruments for the guitar, and also transcribe vocal lines.
However, I do not, as a rule, transcribe certain styles, these include: 'tapping', flamenco, and advanced slide.
My strengths include Jazz (Martin Taylor, Frank Evans, Howard Roberts, Adrian Ingram, Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery etc), & Classical (John Williams, Julian Bream etc).
However, I can do almost anything because I love playing the guitar - for instance the 'Brit Pop' project for IMP Publications was fun!
How long will I have to wait for my transcription?
As a rule, most orders will be dealt with swiftly and efficiently. The exact time to process your order however, will be influenced by a number of factors, such as the length or complexity of the music you wish me to deal with, (plus of course the number of my other work commitments):-
Approximate time frames for transcriptions of whole songs (up to four different instruments) are 1 day to 4 weeks.
Easier or shorter tunes, or tracks with fewer instruments will obviously take less time, more complex or longer tracks may take longer. (I deserve a genius award for that last comment...).
Many orders will be completed sooner than anticipated, but as this is labour intensive work, and as I try to offer a high quality service, I prefer to do a slow job rather than a quick one, if given a choice.
Sometimes, I can work almost too quickly for some customers, so if you are enclosing a large order, please let me know if you would like the scores to be 'staggered', i.e., sent out in stages, (to avoid you having to make out too many cheques in one month).
What Exactly will I receive?
(See the 'Order Form 1' form for the options here).
As soon as the score is finished I will send the the score out in whatever format you require:
• Printed.
• A digital file. (You must tell me before I start work if you need a particular format - Igor, Finale or Sibelius).
• Both.
Sometimes (on large scores) sending you the customer a digital file, rather than doing a lot of printing, is cheaper.
• A 'Notes section'. Each personal transcription will be accompanied by a set of notes detailing theory, grey areas, chords, alternative fingerings etc.
Click HERE for a particularly detailed example.
(Most will not be so lengthy - this one was for a full band transcription and was for a long song anyway, i.e., four different instruments all playing for about seven minutes).
Most notes sections will be one or two A4 pages long.
• All postal items are despatched 1st class in a sturdy board backed (unbendable) 'C4' size envelope; any CD-ROMs are within this & inside their own smaller padded bag (á la 'Russian Doll').
If this is not required, please let me know before I send you your score.
• I always provide you with a padded addressed envelope for sending me CD's tapes etc for future
transcriptions.
What if I send you too much money?
Not possible - we agree a flat rate beforehand.
'Copy and paste' or use repeat bars?
“I want the whole song, but it's a long track, is there a way of reducing the time taken to do the job?”.
Yes, I just use computer 'copy and paste' methods where I deem it appropriate, or I use repeat signs, and so on.
What if I don't like what you have sent me?
Your guarantee
I guarantee, within reason, to fix any small defects with the transcription (e.g., fingering transpositions, different chord voicing choices, other 'musical typos') until you are satisfied.
To my knowledge, very few transcribers are willing to offer this, and I have very rarely been taken up on it.
However, I do have one caveat:
I will not continue like this ad infinitum.
If I've 'messed up' good and proper(!), then rather than continue with something that I'm obviously not very good at, I will optionally, at my discretion, return up to 50% of your costs on the already work done.
In approx. ten years of work, this has happened just thrice!
What's more, just look at these testimonials.
What about copyright?
Copyright Issues (UK Law)
The small print! (Because this is an evolving area, the following comments are a guide only).
Strictly speaking, if you draw or print out copyrighted material and sell it for profit, you must by law also publish details of the copyright holder. If you then fail to pay an appropriate fee to the copyright holder, you are potentially liable to a fine - or, in the worst cases a law suit.
However, the good news for students ('you') and teachers ('me'), is that the United Kingdom Copyright Design and Patents Act of 1988 included a 'get out' clause. This was partly intended to address the needs of students and teachers, who, out of necessity sometimes need to utilise copyrighted material in a 'fair use' manner.
This so called 'Fair Deal' clause (clause [v]), said that 'one off' copies of copyrighted material was acceptable, as long as it was not for “multiple copies”, and was not reproduced by means of a photocopier. So as our relationship will broadly be one of 'teacher-pupil', we are both covered.
For those interested in 'legalese', the relevant sections are sections:-29(3)(b), 32, and 36. See also the following sections in the (UK) Music Publishers' Association Code of Fair Practice:- 32 Appendix A, 36 Appendix A.
Ordering a transcription from me constitutes your acceptance that you understand and accept these issues, and will abide by the law as well as its spirit.
Other countries have broadly similar legal guidelines, and it is not my intention to break these, or be a party (witting or unwitting) to same.
Can I use your services to publish my own or someone else's material?
An enthusiastic yes to both! But, in the case of material by other artists, you need to obtain permission from the copyright holder - see above for details.
If it's just your work, then you own the copyright anyway - but in the UK you should still contact the Performing Rights Society anyway (you will not be charged anything, and it's in your interests to do so).
Who Are You?
My name is Paul Hunter, I wear glasses and like 'Cheesy Wotsits'.
I've been a guitar player since I was nine years old, and before that I 'transcribed' cars, which is better than stealing them. I trained myself to distinguish the different sounds made by different makes of car. I would sit in a room facing away from the street, wait for a car, then furrow my brows and concentrate really hard (furrowing ones ears being no good) then would race outside to see if I was right. Eventually I was. Slightly weird. Funnily enough, unknown to me at the time, a cousin of mine did the same thing at a similar age.
Then I found a use for my ears: I wanted to learn the guitar and the best way of doing that in those days was learn from existing songs. I learned how to tape things from the radio - first with a microphone next to my mono 'tranny' (you have to be very quiet...) - and later by soldering a couple of wires from a newer stereo radio's speaker to a cannibalised microphone.
Stereo was a revelation, and a great help.
Every spare moment was devoted to the art of listening and playing, I would race home in the dinner hour to learn whatever I had taped the night before, a guitar in my hands whenever possible. Eventually, I got good enough to be able to work out the chord sequences in my head just by listening. But sometimes, during a solo, I'd forget which note to play, and then I knew I'd have to learn to read music, and like many other self-taught guitarists, to begin with all I was interested in were fret numbers on lined paper - much like the ASCII Tab you can find all over the Net.
But eventually even this wasn't enough because I'd occasionally get stuck three-quarters of the way through a tune. For example in the blues standard "Hideaway" there's a section where Eric Clapton plays some crotchet triplets, but these are offset from the start of the bar by an 8th note. Eric might be able to do things like this by ear, but in my case I needed to learn rhythm in a more conventional manner!
So then I knew I'd have to somehow write rhythm information on my Tabs, and that's when I 'invented' "Tab with stems" - like many of us I think! So I bit the bullet, and learned Standard Musical Notation - something I did not invent.
Not only that, but in a Eureka moment that took only eight years to gestate, I worked out that the note C did not always have to be played at fret three, string 5. Finding it at fret eight, string 6 was a defining moment of Illumination and Liberation. Seriously, once you know you're free to work out your own chord shapes and fretting preferences in solos and fingerstyle pieces, you've made an important breakthrough.
Reading Notation allows anyone great freedom to personalise the fretboard and to create ones own performances and arrangements, and, combined with aural skills, concentration and digital dexterity, you can really feel like a half way decent musician.
Well that's a potted history of my potty hobby ("from potty training to volume pots"...)
You may be wanting to hear how much I gig, possibly reasoning that the good transcriber is a gigging one. Well I don't do that much I'm afraid, although I once earned a decent busking in Britain and Europe I have some arthritis related problems which make intense playing all but impossible. Oh yes, I'm terrified of audiences as well. Besides, I'm too busy transcribing - people keep asking me to do work anyway. Btw, are there any young folk reading this? No matter what the problem, the answer is persevere!
Here's a picture of the socially phobic artist at work...
Although I started out as mainly a plectrum guitarist, I have always dabbled with classical guitar playing, to the extent that now this is what I like best.
I initially learned a lot of classical guitar pieces, by ear, on steel stringed instruments and since I have quite small hands, I still feel more comfortable playing a steel stringed guitar rather than nylon. I was astonished to discover that the great South American guitarist and composer Agustín Barrios Mangore also played steel stringed guitars, especially during the earlier part of his career - so I learned his pieces on the right type of guitar after all!
I'm a pretty competent all rounder on the guitar, and have my full set of grades from Trinity College, and having explored most styles of guitar playing in three decades of experience, I can advise on most aspects of classical and plectrum guitar playing. I am flexible enough to play bass and other stringed instruments (when I can borrow them!).
I was a guitar teacher for fifteen years, and was also a member of the British-based “Registry Of Guitar Tutors” since its inception about a decade ago. I rarely teach these days, but do occasionally produce tuitional CD or tapes.
In 1991, at the behest of some Adult Education students, I focused on producing bespoke transcriptions, and have not really had a rest since(!). And so for approximately the last ten years I've been a freelance transcriber.