My process to slow down parts to learn

[krauyama]

Here's my process for learning pop and jazz stuff, and I could use some suggestions.

I really love Elaine Elias's piano playing (and singing).

Let's say I hear a song where I want to learn some of her soloing parts. I go to youtube and find the song. I copy the youtube URL of the song from the browser's address bar and paste it in a site that will convert it to an mp3. I run the convert and in a few seconds I am able to download the mp3 to my hard drive.

- I then open Audacity and load the mp3. Then I scroll around to find the part I want to learn, place loop markers to be able to play just that part. Then I highlight that section, which might be just a few seconds. I then right click in the empty space below the track make a new track. I copy and paste the selected part into the new track. Then I run the Effect > Pitch and Tempo > Change Tempo to slow it down. I then Mute the original track and run that loop and learn what notes are being played by looping it over and over, playing to it.

- If there are multiple sections that require this I can build additional tracks to do those too.

While I can usually slow the notes and loop them enough times to figure out what she is playing with the right hand (and I often can't even come close to what she is really doing - she is great), I have a real hard time hearing the accompanying left hand chords because 1) she is often doing some pretty tricky stuff and 2) the audio quality after the slow down while okay for right hand parts seems kind of muddy for the chords. But I struggle through it and it's still useful.

I'm wondering when Audacity will someday get the type of speed control that can be done the way youtube does it, by simply using Shft + <. I could just use that in youtube except that building loops with looper browser extension isn't as easy because as far as I know you can't see audio wave forms to find those points.

I'm wondering how others approach this type of learning?

 

[Old No7]

If it's on my iPhone (Apple music, my old iTunes playlists), I simply use the Moises app (Premium, to get better instrument separation) which allows me to hit the <-- or --> buttons anywhere in a song to skip back or ahead at will; I can also those mute parts I don't want to hear. Slowing it down is as easy as clicking on the metronome and adjusting the BPM down.

Another advantage of Moises is it automatically detects the chords as it plays, which can be a help (but I aim to use my ears first, to keep them sharp). There's also a lyrics setting to display those as it plays -- found that by accident the other day, but it's there if needed.

If the song is on youtube and not yet "on my phone", I'll play it from the iPhone and record it into my Tascam DP24SD, then play it back being recorded via the Tascam's output (RCA plugs) to my iRig Stream that's connected to my iPhone. That then allows me to play it back on the iPhone at will using Moises.

Moises is a great option for those without a DAW, but your approach seems to work well for you.

Old No7

 

[andyonthepiano]

I use Transcribe! By Seventh String software which allows you to slow stuff down and keep the pitch the same. I paid for it a few years ago and find it to be very good. I even built a 4 button foot switch from an old computer keyboard that allows me to control the functions I wanted.

I believe that there may be other, free software that does the same, but I've never tried them.

I do also use Moises to help identify the chords.

 

[happyrat1]

You can do this on Logic Pro 11 simply by using the Stem Splitter Function on a Wav or an MP3.

Amazingly versatile DAW from Apple for a reasonable price tag.

 

[krauyama]

If it's on my iPhone (Apple music, my old iTunes playlists), I simply use the Moises app (Premium, to get better instrument separation) which allows me to hit the <-- or --> buttons anywhere in a song to skip back or ahead at will; I can also those mute parts I don't want to hear. Slowing it down is as easy as clicking on the metronome and adjusting the BPM down.

Another advantage of Moises is it automatically detects the chords as it plays, which can be a help (but I aim to use my ears first, to keep them sharp). There's also a lyrics setting to display those as it plays -- found that by accident the other day, but it's there if needed.

If the song is on youtube and not yet "on my phone", I'll play it from the iPhone and record it into my Tascam DP24SD, then play it back being recorded via the Tascam's output (RCA plugs) to my iRig Stream that's connected to my iPhone. That then allows me to play it back on the iPhone at will using Moises.

Moises is a great option for those without a DAW, but your approach seems to work well for you.

Old No7

I just checked out the Moises app. I did not know of it. Thanks. In the last year Audacity added a similar AI track separation addin that I just compared with Moises and it sounds about the same. It only works in Windows though and I do my music stuff in IOS so when I've used it I had to do the separation first on the windows laptop and then bring it onto the Mac. Moises works on all platforms, even linux mint where I am typing now. So I think I'll give it a paid try for a month.

BTW the music I am trying to learn right now is:

at 2:25 for a couple measures.

(anybody know an online lessons to learn to play like this)

And back to the track separation, it didn't occur to me before to try the separation on that. Now that I've separated it I can hear that on that separated track there is probably also a guitar also playing a rhythm that I was confusing with the piano. I don't think the AI can further separate that out, but at least I now realize what is going on there, and that will make it easier to hear the piano part.

 

[krauyama]

I use Transcribe! By Seventh String software which allows you to slow stuff down and keep the pitch the same. I paid for it a few years ago and find it to be very good. I even built a 4 button foot switch from an old computer keyboard that allows me to control the functions I wanted.

I believe that there may be other, free software that does the same, but I've never tried them.

I do also use Moises to help identify the chords.

The four button foot switch sounds like a fun project. What's involved?

 

[krauyama]

I just checked out the Moises app. I did not know of it. Thanks. In the last year Audacity added a similar AI track separation addin that I just compared with Moises and it sounds about the same. It only works in Windows though and I do my music stuff in IOS so when I've used it I had to do the separation first on the windows laptop and then bring it onto the Mac. Moises works on all platforms, even linux mint where I am typing now. So I think I'll give it a paid try for a month.

BTW the music I am trying to learn right now is:

at 2:25 for a couple measures.

(anybody know an online lessons to learn to play like this)

And back to the track separation, it didn't occur to me before to try the separation on that. Now that I've separated it I can hear that on that separated track there is probably also a guitar also playing a rhythm that I was confusing with the piano. I don't think the AI can further separate that out, but at least I now realize what is going on there, and that will make it easier to hear the piano part.

I notice that the feature list of the paid version says it does "Isolate more instruments & vocals". The free version made a Voice, Drums, Bass and Other, where it put the piano and guitar. The tonality of the piano is pretty close to the guitar. and I would be amazed if the AI can isolate each of them. Can you check to see if the paid Premium Moises can do that?

 

[seanL122]

This is so cool. The Moises app looks very interesting. Maybe I should buy a new iPad for it...

My methods seem so primative in comparison...

I use the YouTube playback at 75% or 50% feature to record the video from my laptop into my old iPad into Garage Band. Then I set the GB tempo to match the song, and I drag the audio left or right to match up with the measure markers. It is pretty easy to get the backbeat on the 2 and 4 to line up. As the song drifts in tempo, I will split it to re-align it, or simply nudge it back and forth as I go.

This allows me to go measure by measure through the song, and learn or transcribe sections. I love to transcribe whole songs into Musescore. Here are my favorite transcriptions so far:

Billy Preston - Will it go round in Circles: https://musescore.com/user/32760932/scores/5980957
Deep Purple - Space Truckin': https://musescore.com/user/32760932/scores/13750777
O'Bryan's - Soul Train's A Comin': https://musescore.com/user/32760932/scores/14939038
Shocking Blue - Venus: https://musescore.com/user/32760932/scores/13762873
Bananarama - Venus: https://musescore.com/user/32760932/scores/13762951

You can find my other works on the musescore.com site by searching for "Sean L122" and I would be most thankful for any five star ratings. (Kinda pathetic how happy the ratings make me.)

Oh yeah, one more good one:
Pharrell's - Happy: https://musescore.com/user/32760932/scores/6113648
----- -----

One thing that has always ticked me off: the low quality of the "professionally published" music books from Hal Leonard, Alfred, Warner Bros, etc. I frequently look through them at the music store, and wonder why they willfully put out these horrible-sounding renditions of popular songs. Do the artists themselves not care? You would think that an industry dedicated to publishing musical scores would be able to learn to do it right.


Sean L122

 

[krauyama]

I notice that the feature list of the paid version says it does "Isolate more instruments & vocals". The free version made a Voice, Drums, Bass and Other, where it put the piano and guitar. The tonality of the piano is pretty close to the guitar. and I would be amazed if the AI can isolate each of them. Can you check to see if the paid Premium Moises can do that?

I decided to buy a year subscription for $28. This morning I had downloaded the linux app image of Moises and tested it on my laptop and expected to go over to my mac and get the mac version to put on my iMac. Imagine my surprise when the Moises site took me to the Apple Appstore and I found out that my computer didn't support the Moises app. It appeared that it was only available for ipads. I then looked a little further and it implied that it could run on desktops but they need to have an M1 chip. My iMac is a little too old.
So I whipped out a quick email to Moises hoping to get my money back. But I got a message saying the office is closed on the weekend.
In the meantime it occurred to me that I should look carefully on the Moises site and instead I selected Web Desktop download. I downloaded a .app and installed it on the pre M1 iMac and it runs fine.
I have since written Moises to say cancel my cancel.

 

[krauyama]

I just checked out the Moises app. I did not know of it. Thanks. In the last year Audacity added a similar AI track separation addin that I just compared with Moises and it sounds about the same. It only works in Windows though and I do my music stuff in IOS so when I've used it I had to do the separation first on the windows laptop and then bring it onto the Mac. Moises works on all platforms, even linux mint where I am typing now. So I think I'll give it a paid try for a month.

BTW the music I am trying to learn right now is:

at 2:25 for a couple measures.

(anybody know an online lessons to learn to play like this)

And back to the track separation, it didn't occur to me before to try the separation on that. Now that I've separated it I can hear that on that separated track there is probably also a guitar also playing a rhythm that I was confusing with the piano. I don't think the AI can further separate that out, but at least I now realize what is going on there, and that will make it easier to hear the piano part.

Opps, in the above text I said "I do my music stuff in iOS". I meant to say "in OSX". (on a Mac)

 

[andyonthepiano]

The four button foot switch sounds like a fun project. What's involved?

I split an old wired keyboard.

There's not much to them except a small circuit that converts the key presses into usb signals. Its basically a matrix with rows and columns. Each key press shorts a row to a column so pressing 'space' for instance may short row 'd' to column '3'.

All I did was find which row/ column needed to be shorted together to get the 4 commands I wanted, which I think were 'space', ',' , 'r' and ';'.

I then wired these to 4 switches like the ones on a guitar pedal board.

Send me a PM if you want more details.

 

[RedEyeC]

Neat slow-down process! I used to have an older version of Audacity - found a great whammy pedal effect plugin and uploaded it to Audacity - I can't remember the name of it - called "Daves _ _" I haven't been able to find that plug-in again to upload onto other audio programs

 

[nakeyer]

I use this one https://seventhstring.com/xscribe/screenshots.html - the best quality for transposing and tempo-changing in audio files.

 

[Gourockian]

Let's say I hear a song where I want to learn some of her soloing parts. I go to youtube and find the song. I copy the youtube URL of the song from the browser's address bar and paste it in a site that will convert it to an mp3. I run the convert and in a few seconds I am able to download the mp3 to my hard drive.

- I then open Audacity and load the mp3. Then I scroll around to find the part I want to learn, place loop markers to be able to play just that part. Then I highlight that section, which might be just a few seconds. I then right click in the empty space below the track make a new track. I copy and paste the selected part into the new track. Then I run the Effect > Pitch and Tempo > Change Tempo to slow it down. I then Mute the original track and run that loop and learn what notes are being played by looping it over and over, playing to it.

Why not record from YT direct in to Audacity to save a couple of steps? You might have to change some of the settings but in my Windows PC, I have the Host set to Windows WASAPI and Recording Device set to Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio) (loopback). If needed you can then export your edited recording to mp3. Just a suggestion.

Al

 

[mwtzzz]

Here's my process for learning pop and jazz stuff, and I could use some suggestions.

Audacity is the tedious, arduous way of doing what you said.

You can do all that in Youtube itself. There is a plugin for youtube called "Transpose" which can slow/speed up the song, transpose key, loop, etc. Right in the browser, you don't have to download the song.

Or VLC media player.

I have a real hard time hearing the accompanying left hand chords

Unfortunately no software will help with this. You just gotta use your ear to try to figure it out, and accept the fact that won't always get it right.

I'm wondering when Audacity will someday get the type of speed control that can be done the way youtube does it, by simply using Shft + <. I could just use that in youtube except that building loops with looper browser extension isn't as easy because as far as I know you can't see audio wave forms to find those points.

Why would you need to see the wave forms in order to determine where to loop it? Just use your ear.

 

[Stampanator]

I use fourscore to do this.