Accuracy of Transcription- Peace of Mind- Boston

Michael-

Hello! I've gone through a few of your lessons on the more difficult tutorial of "Peace of Mind" by Boston. I'm doing one part our electric version of this song with the rockshare group here in the Phoenix area, so I did not go through the entire 19 lesson tutorial but parts I felt I needed to go over. I would like to commend you on your clear, detailed, slow paced and well thought out guitar lessons plans. All of your lessons do not appear to be hurried, trying to get the lesson over with, thus helping, developing the memory skills of intermediate guitar players like me, much appreciated!! I can say the same for a few other GT Instructors and their lesson plans.

Regarding the transcription of this song and many countless others, it still remains a mystery to me how one comes about say transcribing the guitar parts of songs and to their true accuracy from the original writer, in this case Tom Schulz. I see many transcribed versions of songs I’m trying to learn on sites such as UltimateGuitar.com but feel much of it is plain rubbish and shake my head. I see this song was transcribed by a Stelios Michas, please clear the mystery to me how GT hires people like Stelios and others to do accurate guitar part transcribing. Why are we not able to see in this case what Tom Schulz wrote many years ago? Please advise.

Respectfully,

Tony D.

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Hi Tony! First off, thanks for the kind words.

As far as the transcriptions, here are my thoughts:

Most songwriters write music without transcribing it (exceptions: Classical, maybe jazz and in very rare cases - other genres). They simply come up with it, remember it, and/or record it. That's the extent of it.

In order for us to truly know the accuracy of the guitar parts in "Peace Of Mind", I would have to be sitting in the same room as Tom Scholz, and go through all of the parts with him. That's a pretty unlikely meeting. Furthermore, this many years later, I'd wager he can't even remember the parts 100% - and he wrote them!

So, nowadays, we have tools to zero in and make our transcriptions as accurate as possible. We can slow down audio files, find isolated multitracks, and view live performances on YouTube. Also, I've been playing guitar and songs for decades, and most times I can listen to a recording and have a very good idea what is going on guitarwise.

So, between the resources at our disposal, and my experience and trained ear, I can learn a song with pretty reasonable accuracy. Once I learn it, I break it into all of the parts, and film the lessons. After the videos have been edited, a transcriber, in this case Stelios, will watch the videos and transcribe my peformance of the song.

This is the way GuitarTricks has approached all of the songs in the library. I stand behind GuitarTricks -- you will not find a more accurate, comprehensive website anywhere for guitar transcriptions. Period.

There are plenty of sites offering tabs and "accurate" transcriptions, and my experience is that they are very hit and miss -- mostly miss.

Anyways, hope this sheds some light into the process.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Mike

Michael-

Thank you for sharing the historical and detailed perspective on how transcribing is accomplished for any of these original songs we want to learn. The mystery is pretty much cleared up for me now on how it's done, I was not aware popular most song writers may not have written everything down during their song construction process as well how a professional instructor such as your yourself goes about putting the lesson plans together. So it's my understanding the Transcriber in this case Stelios transcribed what "you" put together for the lesson plan not his own interpretation of the song? If that's the case can anyone legally transcribe then, is there written permission needed from the source, because I see so many people coming up with their own version of many original songs? For instance, take a look at UltimateCGuitar.com and you will see what I mean with all the rubbish out there.

Tony

I'm no lawyer, so I can't be definitive of the legalities, but my understanding is that you only need a written agreement with the publishers if you plan to sell the transcription. GuitarTricks has such agreements with all the publishers and songwriters whose songs are on the site.

Otherwise, you are free to transcribe (and play) any song you like however you choose!

Mike

Mike, thanks for all of your feedback on transcribing songs and how your lessons are put together. I'm learning something new everyday. Yes, the big and important thing is making money on someone else's song, understood! Have a great remainder Memorial Day Weekend!

Tony