{"id":31851,"date":"2025-10-19T12:48:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T16:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/?p=31851"},"modified":"2025-10-19T12:48:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T16:48:07","slug":"advanced-pop-transcription-at-mid-semester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/2025\/advanced-pop-transcription-at-mid-semester\/","title":{"rendered":"Advanced Pop Transcription at mid-semester"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been teaching at NYU for eleven years. For most of that time, I taught music tech and pop songwriting to music education majors. Recently, the music theory program did a hard pivot from the traditional Eurocentric sequence I went through as a grad student, and they started offering a diverse range of classes on pop and non-Western music. This change was driven by the chair, Sarah Louden<\/a>, who put a heroic amount of work into it. It meant that I was suddenly qualified to teach music theory. At the same time, the music ed program entered a crisis that it hasn\u2019t yet recovered from, so now I\u2019m finding myself mostly teaching theory and aural skills.<\/p>\n

I have taught theory before and am confident about it, but I had some imposter syndrome going into aural skills teaching because I had a terrible time with those classes myself and am generally not a strong music reader. However, the pop classes are more about aural analysis of recordings and improvisation, and those are areas where I am rock solid. I even started working on a pop aural skills textbook with my colleague\u00a0Samantha Bassler<\/a>, and our proposal is currently working its way through the review process, so, fingers crossed.<\/p>\n

This semester, I\u2019ve been teaching my first advanced class, Aural Skills III: Advanced Popular Music Transcription. The class was created by fellow pop scholar\u00a0Kevin Laskey<\/a>. I have been using the broad strokes of his approach and some of his assignments, while shifting the repertoire more toward my own areas of expertise and interest.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s how the structure works. Each week, the students do a transcription project. Most of those involve traditional Western notation, but some of them use alternative methods of analysis and visualization. During class time, we talk through examples of the style, genre or analysis technique in question. These discussions frequently lead off into related areas: technology, the music business, broader cultural politics, and meta-level ideas about pedagogy. This last topic is important to me. Studying pop music in a formal setting is a new idea, and we are very much all figuring out how to do it in real time. So I like involving the students in thinking about why we\u2019re doing what we\u2019re doing and whether it\u2019s effective. They don\u2019t always know, but they frequently have useful feedback that I wouldn\u2019t want to wait to read in the class evaluations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are the projects we have done so far.<\/p>\n

Musical Space and Structure Graph<\/strong><\/p>\n

Choose a recording with at least four distinct musical and\/or vocal layers and create a musical structure graph. List each song section with its start time and length in measures. For each section, list each audible vocal part, instrumental track, or other sonic element. Describe the sound and timbre of each layer as specifically as possible, including any audible processing and effects. Also describe its location in perceived musical space (far\/near, left\/right.) You can do this as a text document, a spreadsheet, or whatever other format makes sense.<\/em><\/p>\n

Most students did this in word processors, but some made elegant color-coded spreadsheets, and a couple created annotated DAW sessions.<\/p>\n

David Bowie Lead Sheet<\/strong><\/p>\n

Imagine that you are Gus Dudgeon, and you are preparing to produce David Bowie\u2019s new song, \u201cSpace Oddity.\u201d You must create a lead sheet for the session guitarist and bassist. On one sheet of letter-sized paper, show the form, chords, essential rhythms, and any other relevant performance instructions.<\/em><\/p>\n

I was expecting a bunch of mostly identical chord charts, but some folks went above and beyond, and included basslines, strumming patterns, and general notes about vibe. It\u2019s definitely a challenge to fit this information onto one page! We talked about the pros and cons of using repeats and jumps versus just listing every measure of the tune, and what information is essential to put on the page. We also had a guest lecture by\u00a0Tom Zlabinger<\/a>, who talked about the lead sheet format he uses with his student ensembles when they learn rock and pop songs. He modified the basic Ultimate Guitar format to show harmonic rhythm by aligning chords and lyrics visually on the page, which is an excellent idea.<\/p>\n

Watermelon Men<\/strong><\/p>\n

Notate the heads (main melodies) to the following versions of \u201cWatermelon Man\u201d:<\/em><\/p>\n