Song/Music Tab request - Glitter Gulch Mine

[MoonBoots]

Hello everyone,

 

I'm a very recent newcomer and have almost learned to play the Keel Row. I would like help in figuring out how to play this song from Banjo-Tooie
 

 

 

A very talented player that covers music of this type, Concertina Joel, has a video on how it would sound played on a concertina.

 

 

Unfortunately on his about page, he states he learns by ear as a piano and accordion player also, and does not write down his music notes.

 

So far I have the very fist part, in Gary Coover style would be
RH 1> LH 5> 5> 5< 5> then LH 5> 5< 5> 4< 4> 5> then RH 1> LH 5> 5> 5< 5> then 5> 5< RH 1< 1>

 

I'm a very slow learner, I've been trying for 90 minutes, I even have trouble with the Gary Coover tab system, I would prefer 6-10 to just be 1b 2b and so on! It's almost like I have a Musical Dyslexia. i have played some very simple stuff on Piano and Bass Guitar before, but i think it was actually just memorization and not real musical ability.

 

I have some of Gary's books and am learning which note is to which button properly, so when I read the letter C I know where it is.

 

I think this tune is within my ability to learn, it would take some time but I think I can do it.

 

Thank you all to this forum, which is filled with years of discussion and wonderful members, as it is an amazing learning tool!

[Eric Lerner]

There's a piano score for this tune here -- 

 

https://musescore.com/user/205967/scores/462061

 

Even simplified to just the melody line, I think this might be pretty challenging for a beginner, much more so than Keel Row.  .  Key changes, clef changes, lots of accidentals.  You might find it more satisfying to work on something simpler for now.  Good luck with it.

[MoonBoots]

Thanks Eric,

 

The piano scores for this piece do look quite difficult, I'm afraid until I've learned enough about music to transpose the piece to Concertina without the octave changes and other difficulties and add a simple accompanymant or harmony like the verion performed in the second video, I might not be able to play this one.

 

Plus I can't read sheet music! Takes me ages just to find a C on staff notation.

 

I managed to play 3 or 4 bars of the melody just from listening to it and trying to copy it but it's very time consuming and I have limited concertina time. I'm at the stage where I am learning just to perform other people's simple music that's already well documented and tabbed out for the instrument, and not experienced enough to take a tune from other instruments and put it together myself.

 

I find it hard to learn and perform a song I've not heard a hundred times before or even might not like very much, so it's difficult to see any progress when just going through concertina books and learning what's written for me as a beginner. There's only so many times I can stand playing twinkle twinkle little star before I start going mad! 😄

 

I wanted to play a fun song I knew like the back of my hand, at least in memory, but I will keep learning other things for now. I might buy some more of Gary's Books to help me!

 

Thank you all.

[Robby]

musictheory.net has several exercises (one on note identification) that may help you.

[Don Taylor]

Have you tried one of the many "slow-downer" programs available? 

 

If not, then they all allow you to slow down a recording without changing the pitch. You can then loop a small section at slow speed while you try to play along until you get it right.

 

[MoonBoots]

Thank you Robby and Don, for sharing extra tools and resources I can use to learn more and more.

musictheory.net looks great, there's a lot of stuff to look over and I think some of it will really help.

 

As for slowing the music down, I do have audacity on my computer and found there is a way to slow down and loop audio files in that, as well as other sources available. I hadn't even considered using audacity to slow down a song but I had the program on my computer for other reasons so it's already there.

 

Some great ideas, thanks a lot!

 

 

 

[Don Taylor]

I have used Audacity occasionally, but not for this application.  I am not sure if it can retain the pitch at the same time as slowing something down.  I will check that out later today, but I think that a dedicated program would work better for you.

 

I use Transcribe! on Windows - it is also available on Mac and Linux - and it has lots of features specifically to help you transcribe music.  It is a paid program, but not very expensive and you get lifetime upgrades.  See: https://www.seventhstring.com/xscribe/overview.html

 

I also use Audiostretch on Android - it is available for Apple devices too.  It is a lot simpler than Transcribe! but has one killer feature that Transcibe! does not have.  If you hold your finger/pen over a spot in the waveform then it plays that note continuously ('scrubbing') and it sounds pretty true to the sound.  I can't imagine how they do this but it works nicely. 

See: https://blog.bandlab.com/what-is-audiostretch-and-how-do-i-use-it/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=17678541314&gclid=CjwKCAiAj8LLBhAkEiwAJjbY7zxU8IdXrL6k_wzQByMaesrnFgP2kIhQ7bjm73UQLqH_LxkYgF_VNxoCIhAQAvD_BwE

 

There are lots of other programs available for this task, see this list:

https://www.seventhstring.com/resources/transcription.html

 

Added later:  I spent a few minutes trying out Audacity and, unless I am missing something, it is pretty clunky and bad sounding at the sorts of things that Transcribe! et. al. do.  Looping a section at normal pitch and tempo worked OK but I could not get it to change tempo for more than a couple of seconds of playback and it sounded pretty bad, even with the high-quality audio option set.

Edited January 21 by Don Taylor

[alex_holden]

15 hours ago, Don Taylor said:

Added later:  I spent a few minutes trying out Audacity and, unless I am missing something, it is pretty clunky and bad sounding at the sorts of things that Transcribe! et. al. do.  Looping a section at normal pitch and tempo worked OK but I could not get it to change tempo for more than a couple of seconds of playback and it sounded pretty bad, even with the high-quality audio option set.

 

To change the tempo of a full track you do Select->All then Effect->Change Tempo... Enter the percentage change or the old and new beats per minute and then click Apply. To me it sounds pretty good if I tick the "Use high quality stretching" box (it's a bit distorted without it). I've never tried any of the dedicated tools.

[Don Taylor]

8 hours ago, alex_holden said:

To change the tempo of a full track you do Select->All then Effect->Change Tempo... Enter the percentage change or the old and new beats per minute and then click Apply. To me it sounds pretty good if I tick the "Use high quality stretching" box (it's a bit distorted without it). I've never tried any of the dedicated tools.

Yes, that is what I tried and I did use high quality stretching.  It sounded better but still somewhat distorted.  

 

Added later: 

 

I just realised that what I did was a little different to what Alex describes.  I selected an area for looping first and then tried to alter the tempo on the looped section only.  When I tried to play the loop the sound was distorted and it did not play the complete loop.  In contrast, Alex slows down the full track and then selects an area to loop.

 

This is the way that I use the other apps: select a section to loop and alter the tempo on that section alone.  This works just fine in Transcribe! and AudioStretch.  I want to practice a short bit and then bring it back to full tempo to play with the rest of the tune.  

 

 

Edited January 22 by Don Taylor

[alex_holden]

15 hours ago, Don Taylor said:

I just realised that what I did was a little different to what Alex describes.  I selected an area for looping first and then tried to alter the tempo on the looped section only.  When I tried to play the loop the sound was distorted and it did not play the complete loop.  In contrast, Alex slows down the full track and then selects an area to loop.

 

This is the way that I use the other apps: select a section to loop and alter the tempo on that section alone.  This works just fine in Transcribe! and AudioStretch.  I want to practice a short bit and then bring it back to full tempo to play with the rest of the tune.  

 

In that case, zoom in and drag to select the section you want to practice, do Effect->Change Tempo... as before, then do Effect->Repeat to insert multiple copies of the selected region.

 

(Incidentally Audacity also has a feature called "audio loops" that never totally made sense to me so I would ignore that feature and just use the repeat effect.)

Edited January 23 by alex_holden

[Don Taylor]

Thanks Alex, but I think that I will stick with Audiostretch for learning by ear and Transcribe! for transcribing a score.

 

For anyone else that uses Audiostretch, I just discovered a really handy undocumented feature:  

 

If you double-click/press the tempo control then Audiostretch switches to autoscrub mode where it plays whatever note is under the cursor continuously, if you double-click the control again then it returns to playing at your previously selected tempo.

 

Also, if you have adjusted the tempo then a long click/press on the tempo control returns it to playing at normal tempo.

[MoonBoots]

All really valuable information from everyone thanks, I appreciate it! Ideally I wanted to learn how to play the version from the second video which does a great job of taking a song that has multiple instruments and octaves and sort of brings them together as if it was made for the concertina, which is very impressive to do. When I'm looking at the sheet music for piano and other instruments I just don't know how to transform that into Concertina with the accompaniment so I guess I'm just not musically gifted.

 

To tell the truth I haven't been able to play my concertina since the 14th anyway, I've been very busy and there's been some family grievances and sadness, so all in all I really just wanted to learn a goofy, joyful tune and have some fun for a little while!

 

I'm giving up on this and maybe one day in the future I'll be able to return to it if I somehow develop the skill needed. Also I can check out all these links here whenever I need to, so we got some good out of it all.

 

[Robby]

Hey MoonBoots. Absolutely nobody is musically gifted. It takes a lot of work & time to build the musical brain & muscles. If you find something you want to transcribe, don't write all the notes. Keep it simple, write two at a time (or even just one). If you keep at it, you will develop a better understanding of your instrument, and more complex arrangements will come naturally. I can also recommend playing a few scales in octaves. Eventually, you can add thirds and sixths to your scale practice. Five minutes of play/practice 5-6 days a week is better than an two hours once a week. It's a slow process, but I promise you are capable.

 

My condolences for your grievances. Sadness can be paralyzing. Music brings a lot of joy to our lives, and I found that sitting down to play just one note makes my day better. I tell myself to "do what makes me happy, even when I don't want to." I'm not trying to give life advice (I hold no authority on the topic), just speaking about my personal experience.

 

You will not magically develop the skill to play/read/understand complex music. You have to train it. Keep playing music, and it will come. I have my eye on pieces I am not yet ready for, but I show up to practice every day so I can play them one day.

 

Finally, I read the statement from your original post: "i have played some very simple stuff on Piano and Bass Guitar before, but i think it was actually just memorization and not real musical ability." That's not true, playing music is musical ability.

 

I hope this helps.

[MoonBoots]

Thank you, Robby, Very encouraging, and others with the same sentiments and well wishes. There's a lot of life in me yet and there is lots of time for improvement in the future.

 

Cheers, everyone.

[Alan Day]

As a different idea try my tutor (link on Don Taylor's message above).

Free down load - I will talk you through it. Do not rush through it, the first part I practiced for hours.

Al