Transcribing Music and APD

Post Reply New Topic

I love music and music theory so one of my hobbies is transcribing music for analysis or playing myself. However, I also have auditory processing issues that go along with the autism and makes it harder for me to focus on one instrumental part in a song I'm trying to hear. I can hear the melody and bass fine usually, but inner musical voices can get muddled and harder to "isolate" for transcribing by ear.
Has anyone else had issues like this with APD and isolating parts?

This issue is common amongst NTs too.

The middle harmonies can have several instrument voices playing the same tones....this blends their tambre.
Tambre is the sound quality unique to a particular type of instrument.
ex.) u can identify clarinet and trumpet by their tambres easily when played alone.

Timbre is another part of the issue yeah. The different overtones can also sometimes clash for me and lead me to think I'm hearing notes that aren't really there.
None of this is helped by the fact that most of what I try to transcribe is video game music that there is almost never any sheet music for. And it's all midi instruments most of the time.

Are you using finale notation software?

Wow. And I thought my hobbies (playing music, composing, and learning foreign languages) were ill-suited. You are trying to do one of the most difficult things a person with APD could possibly attempt. I don't even have full-blown CAPD and this would drive me insane.

I would try playing the music very, very slowly. There is probably some audio software that lets you separate out different melodic lines, but I don't know whether it would work on video game music.