Sunday, October 26, 2014

The value of transcription tasks

From Jim Buhler via Twitter:

You know another really good thing about transcription (musical or otherwise): it slows down and focuses attention.
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And those benefits accrue even if the transcription is not particularly accurate from a technical standpoint.
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It's one reason I have my non-music students transcribe dialogue, identify shots, list sound effects and describe music in a film scene.
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For one thing they are forced to notice music in a different way and think about its relation in each shot to the whole.
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That task focuses students on details of scene and its construction. That attention makes them consider music's place quite differently.
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Silent film requires surprisingly more visual attention than does most sound film.
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The same is true for foreign films with subtitles, for related but not precisely the same reasons.