In all my years of playing and teaching music I have never come across a piece of equipment that is as good as “Transcribe”. Transcribe is a software application for your computer that slows your music down so you can learn quicker. It is not only in the slowing down that it is useful, but has other uses as well.

There is other music slow down software available and I have tried most of them, but I believe this one is the best and easiest to use. Andy Robinson, the guy who invented it, is also a professional guitar player so he knows what type of things we want when we are learning or transcribing music. No matter whether you are just starting out or a professional, this piece of software will make your musical life a whole lot easier. I really wish I had this when I was learning.

Following are a few tips I will share with you – more will be added later.

For learners – I recommend you try this software right now to slow songs down so you can play along with. This will be the main application at this level.

For example, one of the first tasks a student was doing was to strum the chords for Eric Clapton’s song Wonderful Tonight. However, even though it is a slow song, for a learner it can be difficult to keep up with the tempo. I showed her how easy it is to load the song into Transcribe and slow it down to 85-90 percent and she immediately was able to strum along with Eric and his band. There is nothing more motivating than playing along with Eric.

Another way of learning if you have something difficult is to slow it down to maybe 80 percent, then each few days move the tempo up to 81, then 82, 83, etc, until you can play the piece at full tempo.

Many people think that using a program like Transcribe is only for transcribing small sections of a song, but loading the whole song and using it like a trainer is a great way to learn.

No matter what style of music you are learning Transcribe will help you learn it quicker.

To get your FREE 30 day trial click here

For advanced players– The main application will be to transcribe your favourite songs and solos, but there are many other applications for advanced players.

A more advanced student came to me the other day asking if the song Thunderstruck by ACDC is picked or uses hammer/pulls like his music notation says. He thought it sounded like it was picked but wasn’t sure. I already knew the answer, but I wanted him to discover it for himself. I loaded the song into Transcribe, which took about 10 seconds, slowed it down to 50 percent and there was the answer. It is clearly picked and you can hear the pick attacks of the notes very clearly.

Another student wanted to know if he was using the correct technique for a certain lick he was playing. I said I thought he was using the wrong string set – he was playing the lick on strings 1, 2, and 3. After loading it into Transcribe it was easy to hear the lick was played on strings 2, 3, and 4, which made it a lot easier to play. Needless to say both students immediately went home and bought Transcribe for themselves.

At this level most books that you will learn from come with a CD of the music played at full tempo. I recommend that you copy the CD to your computer and slow it down to comfortable level for ease of learning. Again, you learn the piece more quickly and have a lot more fun doing it.

To see Andy's great article on transcribing music click here

No matter what level of guitarist you are, Transcribe will help you learn your music quicker and make it more fun.

To get your FREE 30 day trial click here

I won’t repeat what Andy Robinson already has at his website, but suggest you go there as it is an amazing resource for people who use this type of software.

To visit Andy's Transcribe site click here

The investment of $50US ($60NZ, approx) dollars is a very small figure to pay for something this good. Andy and his team have produced what I think is the most important piece of learning equipment a guitar player can own. It certainly has more bang for your buck than any other equipment I know of, that is why I call it an investment, not a cost.

Happy practising, and have fun using it.
Kevin Downing.

P.S. I have it installed on both my computers and use it everyday with students and for transcribing music myself. It is the recommended application for our school.

P.P.S. In the future I will add other uses and recommendations to this page. If you have anything you would like to share about Transcribe then please email me.

To get your FREE 30 day trial click here