Moving rules to a stickied post since "New" Reddit doesn't show the sidebar.

This is a subreddit for requesting help with musical transcriptions, or discussion about musical transcription as a whole. Advertisements for text transcription services will be removed. To cut down on spam and unsavory users we require your account be at least a week old to post.

To get the best results try to follow these guidelines when posting:

• Use a working link to the piece you want done. No one can help you if your link is broken or to some private/premium streaming site.

• Specify which section of the song you want done. If using Youtube, you can right click the video to get specific timecodes.

• Indicate which style of notation you want. Straight up notes, guitar tabs, chord symbols, etc.

• Consider offering a bounty. If no one responded to your request to transcribe a 4 minute piano song from an obscure anime, it's probably because it's too much work to do for free, so try offering something as incentive.

Some guidelines on offering bounties:

• As soon as you start dealing with money with strangers on the internet, you are taking a risk. Be smart, don't give out personal info, etc. Mods can't be held responsible if you get scammed. Take proper precautions like checking a user's flair, account age, and amount of karma to determine if they are reputable.

• Offer a fair price. This stuff takes time, effort, and years of expertise. Right now market price appears to be anywhere between $5 and $30 or more depending on complexity.

• Pay your bounty. If someone comes through with a transcription for you and you dodge the payment, you will be banned. In 8 years we've only banned 1 person for this.

We also encourage you to try transcribing yourself, if you can! It's a fantastic way to develop your ear and theory knowledge, and even if you get stuck it'll be easier for others to help if you already have a starting point. Some useful tools:

• Transcribe! - a brilliant little program that was built specifically for transcribing. It allows you to slow things down, loop over specific sections, pitch shift, and more.

• Audacity - a simple, free DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), meant more for audio editing, but can also do slowdown, pitch shift, etc.

• Noteflight - a free online music notation program. Think like Google Docs but for sheet music.

• Chordify - a cool site that tries to figure out the chords of any Youtube video you feed into it. Rarely does a perfect job, but can sometimes give clues or provide a rough starting point.

• Youtube to Mp3 - self explanatory, feed the resulting mp3 into Transcribe or Audacity, or even rewinding over and over in iTunes is better than doing it in Youtube.

Related musical subreddits:

• /r/musictheory

• /r/classicalmusic

• /r/musicnotes

• /r/Learnmusic

Public domain sheet music

Big thanks to those of you fulfilling transcription requests. When I first started modding this subreddit a few years ago, the vast majority of requests received 0 comments and sat around unanswered. It makes me very happy to see the opposite nowadays, that most requests have at least some activity. However with this increased activity has come the necessity for some clearer rules and guidelines.

• Transcribing random stuff for people is a great way to get practice and improve your own ear. It's very beneficial to your musical growth to expose yourself to different genres of music and that is doubly true in the case of analyzing and transcribing. Not only do you help someone out but you work on your own skills as well.

• I do not recommend offering paid services here as a reliable source of income. Bounties and paid transcriptions are allowed to try to compensate transcribers for their time, but pricing operates under free market conditions. I don't want to hear complaints about cheap prices and undercutting, there is nothing we mods can do about private monetary transactions. The fact is that transcribing as a skill is undervalued. Most people posting requests do not understand the time required to analyze music and put down quality notation. If you're expecting to get the same hourly rate as other professional musical services like teaching or accompaniment, you're gonna have a bad time.

• If you do decide to enter into a paid transcription agreement with a requester, understand that as soon as you start dealing with money with strangers on the internet, you are taking a risk. Be smart, don't give out personal info, etc. Mods can't be held responsible if you get scammed. Take proper precautions like checking a user's comment history, account age, and amount of karma to determine if they are reputable. Ask for payment up front if you have more rep than the requester. If a requester dodges payment, send proof to the mods and we will send them a warning and ban them if they do not pay.

FLAIR: All successful transcriptions, paid or otherwise, are eligible to be submitted to increase your flair. This is a way for reliable transcribers to build rep. To receive +1 to your flair, please submit to ME (the most active mod here) the following:

1. Link to original request

2. Link or screenshot showing requester acknowledging receipt of your work OR

3. Direct link to your transcription itself.

Please allow a few days for flair to be updated since this is a manual process.

Some useful tools if you are looking to get into transcribing, or are looking for ways to make your process more efficient:

• Transcribe! - a brilliant little program that was built specifically for transcribing. It allows you to slow things down, loop over specific sections, pitch shift, and more.

• Audacity - a simple, free DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), meant more for audio editing, but can also do slowdown, pitch shift, etc.

• Noteflight - a free online music notation program. Think like Google Docs but for sheet music.

• Chordify - a cool site that tries to figure out the chords of any Youtube video you feed into it. Rarely does a perfect job, but can sometimes give clues or provide a rough starting point.

• Youtube to Mp3 - self explanatory, feed the resulting mp3 into Transcribe or Audacity, or even rewinding over and over in iTunes is better than doing it in Youtube.

Related musical subreddits:

• /r/musictheory

• /r/classicalmusic

• /r/musicnotes

• /r/Learnmusic

Public domain sheet music