Advanced Aural Skills:
Popular Music Transcription

* Instructor Note: The Instructor Companion Site includes additional resources, notes, and sample solutions for activities and discussions. 

Course Description

Practice in the critical listening and transcription of popular music. Advanced topics in instrumentation, sound production, rhythm and meter, and harmonic chord schemas. Students learn techniques for transcribing richly layered-material in popular music, including contemporary technologies and industry-standard notational practices. Defined broadly, “popular music” includes pop, rock, hip hop, R&B, blues, rap, disco, indie, metal, jazz, folk, and musical theater and film repertoire. The course will culminate in large transcription & production projects.

Course Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Transcribe multiple simultaneous musical layers in a richly-produced pop track

• Identify common audio processing techniques including reverb, delay, dynamic compression, equalization, and distortion

• Describe the color of sounds, as well as what instruments and recording technologies produce them with a specific vocabulary

• Synthesize transcription with ethnographic interviews in order to analyze how song productions are put together

• Evaluate how harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, timbral, textural, and audio processing details combine with lyrics to convey specific meanings and emotions

• Communicate their observations and analyses of pop productions through western music notation, written responses, informal seminar discussions, and formal aural presentations 

• Use contemporary technologies that can assist with transcription work, including DAWs, tempo-changing algorithms, and spectrograms 

• Build on these listening skills to produce a track based on a preexisting vocal demo

Course Prerequisites

• MPATC-UE 1322 (Aural Skills II: Popular Music) OR MPATC-UE 1321 (Aural Skills II: Tonal Harmony)

Primary Course Materials

• Podcast: Song Exploder (https://songexploder.net)

• Staff paper and pencil at all class meetings

• Headphones with 1/8” jack (not bluetooth)

• Access to a digital audio workstation

• Free DAWs include: Audacity, BandLab, Soundtrap

Additional Course Resources

• Music Notation Software:

• Musescore, Noteflight are good free options

• A personal MIDI keyboard (you can find used portable ones for about $30 from Guitar Center/Craigslist/Facebook Marketplace)

Syllabus

Note to Students: This is a link to a general program copy of the syllabus. Individual instructors may make minor modifications to the syllabus based on different teaching styles, student needs, and the current academic calendar. The syllabus is included here only as a general reference. Please see the syllabus provided by your instructor for the section and semester you are enrolled in.