The struggle of Gps learning music and sheetmusic

[Eino]

Has MuseScore helped you sort thing out? Now that you can see how the music sounds as it was played.

[Gps]

Not yet, maybe I should slow things down even more, and look for more options, like smoother scroling.
I have been trying that program a few times.

The biggest problem I am still having is to get the right note length, and the right rest length, into lmms.

I understand all the symbols, but I am still lost on how that sounds, prob because I don't grasp the beats enough yet.
I even wrote above one part 1,2,3,4. ( were three notes are used )
I also struggle, to fully understand, were a note is written between the bars. At first I thought that did not matter, but it does, a lot.

Right now I am working on a part that starts like, CDA, ACG, CDA, ACG. Without the midi file thought, I doubt I would have found the right pattern.
But I do make progress, slowly.

I also look back on parts I already have put into lmms, and then try to hum, along with the sheet music.

[Eino]

I also look back on parts I already have put into lmms, and then try to hum, along with the sheet music.

At the same time, try tapping your fingers, or a pencil to the beat of the music. It may help with your sense of beat, and timing.

[apotterdd]

What's the timing on the sheet music is it 4/4 or something else? I went through that with putting in a piece of sheet music when I needed to learn how to play it at the correct tempo and YouTube wasn't really helping me in that regard. The one I transcribed was in 3/4 time. The only problems I had was with the grace notes (i.e. extra notes added to a piece of music to give it more flair if you're not familiar with it). I also separated the treble clef and bass clef into two separate tracks so I could solo one without hearing the other and vice versa.

If permissible I could upload it under the share tab.

[Gps]

Well its 4/4 but...

Me as somebody with little to none music experience should not have chosen this piece of music.
There is a lot of feel in it, the way its played. That makes things for somebody like me, just starting to learn sheet music, very hard.

To give an example, I made a instrumental version of a hip hop track. I worked about 6 hours on that.
An internet friend of mine has overlayed it with the original, and told me I was 100% spot on.
But although I like hip hop too, from a musical point of view, its very, very simple music.

https://soundcloud.com/user586365033/hiphop

The piece I am working now though, is clearly not created on a pc. I was warned on this boards, that it would be hard.

This is the music vid, and what I try to cover:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCCV2vTrUKc

This is the sheet music I found, which is close, but not 100% the same, and that is causing me problems too.
I also have from the same site an midi file, but that is not 100% the same as the sheet music.
I am not complaining because both are free, but I just lost 20 min being confused, only to come to the conclusion, the midi file has slight differences.

http://musicnoteslib.com/tabs/James__Hi ... 27937.html
Notice all the arcs, dots and rests ?

On the bright site, I doubt I will find a harder track after this to cover.

[apotterdd]

Okay so I thought it was just a straight piano song woops! Looked at the sheet music and there are so many parts I can completely understand the confusion.

Just looking at the first music notation I wouldn't even know how to put those triplets into the piano roll. I know each of them equals one quarter note but since there are only 3 notes but the grid division in the piano roll (four squares per beat) I can't figure that out.

Yep you picked a hard one but I do wish you much luck with it.

[slipstick]

Triplets (3 notes in the length of time that 2 would normally take) are not that bad to get in if you set the Q (quantisation) up to 1/24 or 1/48. In 1/24th a quarter note is 6 squares so each note in the triplet is 2 squares.. A normal 1/8th note is 3 squares. It just takes a bit of getting used to but then I use triplets a lot (it's the blues background I think) .

Steve

[Gps]

Those triplets, if I understand you right are just three notes played at once. (They are prob chords, but that does not matter when you put it in lmms.)
I already had something like that, just by listening to the song. (I did not use three notes though)

Here is a tut of musicbear on chords. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEgx-_h ... e=youtu.be

With a covers I always import an mp3 converted to ogg into lmms.
Then I put in the right notes, from sheet music, and then by listening, I try to get the right note length.

The problem with this method though, with most songs, you will never get your lmms song 100% in sync.

So at one point you will have to discard that ogg file, and pay attention to the relation of the tracks to each other.

I advice other who are starting, to not try to stay in sync with the mp3 (ogg) for the full duration of a song.
Unless you're only covering one piece of a song, you will make things way to hard for yourself.
Concentrate on the 1,2,3,4

[Gps]

Triplets (3 notes in the length of time that 2 would normally take) are not that bad to get in if you set the Q (quantisation) up to 1/24 or 1/48. In 1/24th a quarter note is 6 squares so each note in the triplet is 2 squares.. A normal 1/8th note is 3 squares. It just takes a bit of getting used to but then I use triplets a lot (it's the blues background I think) .

Steve

That's exactly one part were I struggle. I hear a song, and try to copy it in lmms. I am always way off in note length.
But as with most things, just don't give up.
The a,b,c,d,e,f,g part, I can get from sheet music for a while now, although it takes me some time, because I cant do it yet from the top of my head.

I constantly need to check, with a small paper I made, which line is what.

What might amuse you guys.

When I started with lmms and sheet music, I did not even wrote down, the notes.
I looked what the first note was, and then started counting the steps. and then used in lmms, the same number of steps.

Some notes of the midi file go out of scale. But I have made a decision, about the scale.
Its minor, and I mark the scale at D. So if I get notes out of scale, I just correct them.

I do not know for sure if this D minor is right, but as long as I stick to it, my cover will be in tune.
Also 99.9% of the notes fit into d minor, so it prob is.

I have been thinking of making a piece in lmms, no actual song, but just notes.
Just 1, 1/2, 1/4 , 1/8 and 1/16 notes and so on at 120 bpm, just to get a better feel of the notes lengths.

[slipstick]

Knowing the key is one thing that sheet music intended for guitars helps with. It usually has the chord names written over the notes....and if it starts on a D minor chord (written as Dm) and keeps going back to a D minor you can be pretty sure it's in the key of D minor. But the key signature at the start is also useful (the sharps or flats between the clef and the time signature). The catch with the key signature is that you can't tell the difference between e.g. F major and D minor because they both have one flat. E.g. if it has 2 sharps it might be D major or B minor....the guitar chords usually give it away.

You also want to be careful about "correcting" notes into scale. Trust your ears not the theory. Particularly with the sort of complex music that you're fighting with the writers often use a few notes that are not strictly in scale to add interest. Often they're what are called "passing notes" so you have a short out-of-scale note that's immediately followed by an in-scale note. If you work with any blues or jazz songs you'll find these all over the place. Staying strictly in key is just too boring for those guys .

Your idea about the timing sounds good, You want to do it in full bars/measures. So do a measure with 4 quarter notes and then another with 16 sixteenth notes and so on. Then mix them up so you have a measure with say 1 quarter note, 4 eighth notes and 1 more quarter note and see what that sounds like. This time you CAN use your technical brain because you should see that each measure adds up to 1 whole (4/4 = 1 whole note or the equivalent per measure).

Steve