Logic and GarageBand users check this out!

[warnergt]

Here is something that I wanted to share with Logic (Pro or Express) and GarageBand users. I think you will find this to be pretty cool. This project started with this YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_ZwdAK5lI8
called "bass major pentatonic scale lesson Beginner" submitted by MarloweDK.

It's a cool tune and I was interested in know exactly what was going on there so I decided to dissect it. And that's exactly what I did. The end result is a Logic project with video, score and tablature (from MIDI). If you have Logic, download this, unzip it and try it out:
MajorPentatonicScale.zip Logic Project



I realize not everybody has Logic and that GarageBand is nearly as capable so I migrated the project back to GarageBand. You GarageBand users don't get the tablature but you do get the score and video. The movie comes with the project and, if all works correctly, the movie will play when you play the project. If the project is missing the video, just drop it in. So,if you have GarageBand, download this, unzip it and try it out:
MajorPentatonicScaleGB.zip GarageBand Project

Give it a try. Let me know if it does or doesn't work and what you think. It was an experiment for me.

In both cases (Logic and GarageBand projects), you should see the YouTube video of the tune being played and you will hear the live video music in one channel and the syntesized MIDI music in the other. I did this in my attempt to match the live music. You have total control of and insight into this tune now. You can mute one channel or the other, experiment with the MIDI part on your own or learn the tune.

If you think you can improve on my transcription of the notes, go for it. I worked on it pretty long. There comes a time when you have to say "close enough." If you can match it more closely, do it. Send me any improvements you have. I was going to add my own MIDI drumtrack but there just aren't enough hours in the day. I need to get some other things done.

[MarloweDk]

Looks interesting, gotta check that transcription out...;-)

[warnergt]

Hi Marlowe (is it Marlowe?):
Thanks for a great tune. You should know better than anybody how the notes should look. I'm sure there is room for improvement of the transcription. Transcribing is easier said than done.

Unfortunately, my score loses all concept of bars and measures. I just dropped the video into a new project and transcribed. In hindsight, I should have identified the tempo before transcribing and set the project to match. If I can figure out an easy way to convert it, I will.

I did a little more work on the project today adding a MIDI drum track. This allows slowing down the project to learn the tune at a slower speed. However, it requires muting/ignoring the video and live audio as these do not change tempo when I change the project tempo. If there is interest, I'll post the update.

George

[MarloweDk]

The transcription is right on the money, but the notation is a bit odd, in the version i unpacked, Logic displays the music as starting on beat 3 in the pickup bar, in reality the right placement of the beats are: the two first notes played are a sixteenth pickup note ( E ) to 1'st note on bar 1 (root note G)
But you kinda warned us of that:-D
It has some interesting perspectives for teaching

[Yvon]

I downloaded it for garageband.
Thank you!
I will learn the groove sometime this week.

[warnergt]

I've been going through my audio projects and found a little time to revisit this Logic Pro project and make some much needed changes and additions. I think you'll really appreciate this version. Most notably, it includes the following changes:
1) Added MIDI drum track.
You can now change the tempo of the tune without losing the beat. Of course, you will have to mute the audio from the video; this does not change speed if you modify the tempo in Logic.
2) Fixed note durations and tempo to correctly match bars and measures.
Now, it is easier to read the music in score form. You can actually see what's going on now.

I've uploaded the latest version of this project to here:
MajorPentatonicScale2.zip.
You need Apple's Logic Pro 8.0 or Logic Express (?) 8.0 to open this project.