What I Do - Transcribing

  1. I listen to guitar music, work out how it's played (by ear), then I write out Standard Musicial Notation and/or Guitar Tablature so that anyone can read it!

You just send me the CD, tape or mp3 file and I transcribe it for you!

The cost is just as per arranging (my meaning), that is, either a FLAT FEE FOR EASY PIECES, or a FLAT RATE FEE FOR DIFFICULT PIECES.

Some musicians - usually classical musicians - have a different meaning for the term: for them, to transcribe means what self-taught musicians call arranging. That is, a piece of music written for one instrument is re-written for another instrument.

But don't worry, if this is what you want I also do arrange pieces for guitar: if you'd like to learn more about this, click HERE.

If you'd like to see some examples of my work, check out the above 'File menu' links above: What I Do   Genres I work in 

Here are a few places you can find examples of my work:-

  • I'm currently working my way through the ENTIRE OUEVRE of Darren Curtis Skanson - a leading performer and composer in the highly competitive North American classical guitar market.

    In fact, this is a work in progress, so not all of Darren's great guitar pieces are available yet, but many are already available HERE, and many, many more will follow.

    The hallmark of this project is attention to detail, and Darren kindly mentions this fact ON THIS PAGE




  • PG Music's VIDEO GUITAR LESSONS

    Yes, PG Music, hitherto best-known for the household name Band-In-A-Box, has now branched out into some full-on Video Guitar Lessons.

    Here, I worked mainly on the full-length pieces, in all the genres presented at the web-page referenced above, and I also worked on countless small riffs and licks.




  • You can also check out a book that's out on IMP; I was contracted to transcribe most of the tracks for the book of a CD by the 'Brit Pop' group Electric Soft Parade.

    It's out on Warner Chappell Music; search the Tab + Vocals section for a book of the CD Holes In The Wall.




  • I also enjoyed transcribing and proof reading most of the examples of music in the Sibelius Software's 'G7 Guide' - a PDF file which is bundled with 'G7' - a great guitar software notation tool.

    Although it was a sweat doing the work of a week in a 48 hours, I think I did quite a good job.

    'G7' is a fantastically priced tool for all you budding transcribers and songwriters out there - check it out (you may just put me out of business ;-)




  • If you arrived here via Brent Stuntzner's fantastic jazz transcriptions pages, you'll know I have transcribed few jazz pieces in my time...check out some of my work on his pages if you haven't been there before.




  • There have been, and continue to be, countless other projects, including a lot of projects with the US jazz guitar supremo Brad Ard.

    To find out more, check out Brad's website above!




  • One last example, and this is really an example of arranging not transcribing, (details about what 'arranging' is can be found HERE.

    This was done partly for friendship, and partly for the sake of his music. That was when I arranged some piano pieces as well as 'piano + flute' pieces for classical guitar[s] for the Belgian composer Alain De Ley. These are published by Lantro Music of Belgium; there are two books "Stringendo, 3 solo pieces for guitar", and "Bagatelle, 2 Guitars".

    Alain is one of the better people I've encountered in the last 42 years, I like his music, and I wish him well (no blushing Alain, if you're reading this!). His website is HERE.




  • There are other examples, but I'm bound by mutual agreement not to mention the 'what where and when'.
  1. I do what's sometimes called music engraving.

Really 'music engraving' is just a jargon term meaning that the engraver turns handwritten musical notation into something that can be published or printed out, (and played back digitally these days).

This is charged at either a FLAT RATE FEE FOR EASY PIECES, or a FLAT RATE FEE FOR DIFFICULT PIECES.

If you need this service, contact me and we'll negotiate.

  1. What I DO NOT do is re-sell existing transcriptions.

Unless you are a publisher, or represent one, I will not reply to e-mails asking for paid un unpaid printouts of existing transcriptions - because this goes against copyright laws. If and when these frequently unjust laws do change I will be glad to oblige.

To clarify this last point so there is no misunderstanding:-

I'm just a hired hand for one-off bespoke transcriptions, basically what my site advertises is my labour (i.e., on new transcriptions) - I normally don't have publishing rights on already transcribed material.

Of course if you are a publisher (or represent one), then I can forward some examples of my work.