How much talent is necessary to transcribe video game music?

[iratehamster]

I've been checking out the "video game pianist" (Martin Leung) and other sites where people (kids, usually) have posted their own detailed (three simultaneous tones or more) transcriptions of video game music.  I have a lot of questions.  There seems to be two groups of people who can figure these out by ear, kids (usually with perfect pitch) who seem to be doing it effortlessly and everyone else who uses software to laboriously separate and slow down the individual tracks and struggles through the process of figuring out the notes.  How are they (the kids) doing it?  This seems like one of those things that's very easy for some of us and impossible for the rest of us.  Is it?  Is perfect pitch essential to what they're doing?  Can anyone be taught the ability to distinguish three simultaneous tones, or are some people born with the ability to distinguish more simultaneous tones than others?

[leahcim]

If you practise you get better at it.

Listening to music when reading the score helps. e.g moonlight sonata might sound, to someone who has no knowledge of it at all, like your right hand is playing a simple slow melody and the left hand is playing 3 note arpeggios so that's how you might try and transcribe it, perhaps missing the bass notes completely. When you see the score, you see what's really happening and that the right hand is doing some magic to get the arpeggios and the melody. WIth the score and the recording you start to hear all the notes that are playing.

Taking that further, if you hear another piece sans score you should be better at hearing what notes are playing in that one - after lots of practise with it though.

[It also helps the reverse too, i.e reading a score and knowing roughly what the piece sounds like without needing to play it or hear it]

But it's relative, no doubt some can do it much easier and more accurately than others and perfect pitch has got to help. Some will probably think the score idea is pointless, if they can go straight from listening, hearing everything, to the keyboard. If I "think" of a piece that I know and then go to the piano the sound in my head is generally a semitone flat so clearly I don't remember the exact pitches even of pieces that I know what the notes are.

AFAICT you can do it with relative pitch. I've picked out snippets of the demo pieces on my P60. It helps that the notes I play sound exactly the same [and of course that, if you try it with a piece that you can get the score, you can see whether you were right]

The melody is usually easier as well as, initially, the less that is going on the better.

But, the obvious point is that if you can't tell whether the notes you play are the same as the notes you're hearing, then how do you know that the person has transcribed the piece accurately when they do it? There are things you can do with a piece with a knowledge of music theory to put a very similar backing to a melody, that will work. For anyone who is only really registering the melody, and perhaps the rhythm of the backing it will sound much the same - that would be fairly trivial for something with a simple I-IV-V chord progression as well. For someone who plays jazz or improv that's pretty much their game plan so they'll probably look outstanding at the complexity of the stuff they would add to a melody, but it could all be invented compared with the actual piece.

[perfect_pitch]

How are they (the kids) doing it? 

i wish I could say how I do it... but I was born with it, I've just been able to do it my whole life.

But I still believe that practice makes perfect. People learn songs by listening to them several time, and even though they may not have a single clue what notes they are until they play them, they still retain the sound.

[pianistimo]

i'm one of those people that forgets the tone row after 4-5 or 6 pitches if it's a sort of complicated tune.  that's one note at a time.  if they are with basic chords - i think i can figure - but it's the ii, iii, iv, and vii chords that get me.  i am constantly rewinding the tape.

unlike those rote jazz singers that take the melody and jam.  i think people are born with the ability to hear tunes and remember.  didn't mozart hear something in a church one-time and because the church locked the music up afterward - he went home and wrote the whole piece out for his father.  he must have been practiced at that time?  maybe it's something some people practice and others don't.  have to look the story up.
 

[abell88]

didn't mozart hear something in a church one-time and because the church locked the music up afterward - he went home and wrote the whole piece out for his father.  he must have been practiced at that time?  maybe it's something some people practice and others don't.  have to look the story up.

The story as I've heard it is that he was 3 years old, went home and played it perfectly for his father.

[pianistimo]

yes.  there was a violinist that he heard and emulated.

and, also when he was 12 years old - he heard a piece of music (allegri's 'miserere') in italy at the sistine chapel and then went back to his lodgings and wrote THE ENTIRE piece out.

www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/works/allegri/miserere.html

amazing story - and starts halfway down article  "The next famous story..."

[allchopin]

Mad rodent -
As much bad rap as Martin has gotten in the past I think he's doing a pretty good thing.  Transcription doesn't require a perfect ear, let alone video game music, which, with older tracks, typically sound straight sine waves.  Thus the pitches are easier to identify than, say, an orchstral recording.  I think in order to make a truly authentic (as genuine as possible) transcription some slowing down and meticulous analyzation is required, depending on the difficulty of the piece. 

Distinguishing individual pitches is a lot different than hearing a chord and knowing what it is.  The latter is considerably more efficient and often more reliable (safe).  Such skills are gained from just listening to a lot of music and looking at the sheet music with analysis.  Perfect pitch recognition isn't necessary by itself, as anyone can repeat a note and find it on the piano, if given time.  Doing this all efficiently is another question.

[Bob]

You can learn solfege to help transcribing.   You can hear all the notes at once and hear them as a chord -- Then three notes are much easier than trying to hear each individual note.

I've heard of a rare few cases where people have learned perfect pitch but I haven't met anyone who has done this.  Although I don't rule it out.

I don't think listening with pefect pitch is the same as listening to chord function.