On music transcription
The classical guitar has a relatively small repertoire, surely compared to most other instruments. That’s why a considerable amount of the music we play consists of transcriptions. Luckily, the guitar is perfectly suited to play the most different styles and a lot of music written for another instrumentarium works very well on guitar. Even some music that would appear to be inplayable in first instance can eventually be transcribed for guitar in a successful way. The foremost reason for this is that the guitar can successfully suggest something while not having to realise it de facto on the instrument; it can imply something that is in fact not playable.
Great guitar composers like e.g. Joaquín Rodrigo understand and make use of this very valuable characteristic of the guitar.
But the question remains: What is a good transcription?
I think a good transcription is one that doesn’t sound like a transcription; it has to sound like the piece is originally written for the instrument.
In another article (Is music a language?) I argue that music is indeed a special kind of language and I love to see an analogy between musical transcriptions and Wolfgang Goethe’s (the great German philosopher and poet) idea of what is a good translation in literature. Goethe claims that there are three levels of translation:
The first being a literate word by word rendering of the original. This is a very basic way of translating, to be compared to some translation programs to be found on the internet!
The second consists of a rendering of the text in such a way that the result is a very smooth text, perfectly adapted to the new language, but therefore taking the original text not too seriously when it comes to its real content.
The third and most honorable level Goethe describes is a translation that displays a natural fluency in the new language but at the same time captures the essential meaning of the original text without being a literate rendering.
Each of these stadia can be represented perfectly by a musical counterpart and I believe that this third level is also true for a good musical transcription.
The most difficult thing is to find this balance between respecting the guitar’s capabilities and respecting the original music. In some cases, I feel it is necessary to change the original text a little bit, to create a better rendering on the guitar without violating the original intention.
Even some basic indications on the score, like tempo and dynamic signs, might be altered in a good transcription. This is – and this is something I want to stress – because another instrumentarium means also another basic character and temperament of a piece. This might require different tempi, different dynamics…
In any case I am convinced that it is mostly the best thing to make your own transcription, unless you really like the transcription of someone else. When you make it your own, you can make much more personal decisions that will eventually result in a more convincing transcription.
Ofcourse a transcription should always be written with the original score and not with an already existing (and perhaps bad!) transcription.
The classical guitar has a relatively small repertoire, surely compared to most other instruments. That’s why a considerable amount of the music we play consists of transcriptions. Luckily, the guitar is perfectly suited to play the most different styles and a lot of music written for another instrumentarium works very well on guitar. Even some music that would appear to be inplayable in first instance can eventually be transcribed for guitar in a successful way. The foremost reason for this is that the guitar can successfully suggest something while not having to realise it de facto on the instrument; it can imply something that is in fact not playable.
Great guitar composers like e.g. Joaquín Rodrigo understand and make use of this very valuable characteristic of the guitar.
But the question remains: What is a good transcription?
I think a good transcription is one that doesn’t sound like a transcription; it has to sound like the piece is originally written for the instrument.
In another article (Is music a language?) I argue that music is indeed a special kind of language and I love to see an analogy between musical transcriptions and Wolfgang Goethe’s (the great German philosopher and poet) idea of what is a good translation in literature. Goethe claims that there are three levels of translation:
The first being a literate word by word rendering of the original. This is a very basic way of translating, to be compared to some translation programs to be found on the internet!
The second consists of a rendering of the text in such a way that the result is a very smooth text, perfectly adapted to the new language, but therefore taking the original text not too seriously when it comes to its real content.
The third and most honorable level Goethe describes is a translation that displays a natural fluency in the new language but at the same time captures the essential meaning of the original text without being a literate rendering.
Each of these stadia can be represented perfectly by a musical counterpart and I believe that this third level is also true for a good musical transcription.
The most difficult thing is to find this balance between respecting the guitar’s capabilities and respecting the original music. In some cases, I feel it is necessary to change the original text a little bit, to create a better rendering on the guitar without violating the original intention.
Even some basic indications on the score, like tempo and dynamic signs, might be altered in a good transcription. This is – and this is something I want to stress – because another instrumentarium means also another basic character and temperament of a piece. This might require different tempi, different dynamics…
In any case I am convinced that it is mostly the best thing to make your own transcription, unless you really like the transcription of someone else. When you make it your own, you can make much more personal decisions that will eventually result in a more convincing transcription.
Ofcourse a transcription should always be written with the original score and not with an already existing (and perhaps bad!) transcription.