I was wondering if anybody on here would be willing to help me get a tune out on paper. My problem is that I cannot play by ear, so listening to the CD and writing it down on paper is one thing I cannot do. The CD in question is “Through The Highlands” and the song I am trying to notate is track #11, which is a song called “Highlands”. If anybody has this CD, or is willing to help, I have a file that I can send to you in Windows Media Player format. Any format of notation will work, be it ABC, BMW, BWW, gif, etc. Thanks in advance for your help.
Hi Spanish,
If you email me a wma of it, I’ll give it a bash. Hope it’s not too complicated.
What I usually do is play along - i.e. find the starting note, whether on a whistle, fiddle, piano or whatever, and take it from there. It’s not as hard as you might think.
If you can put the file on your computer then you can get some of the slow-down software (do a Search on these forums) to slow the track down and loop it over and over until you can play along. Then speed it up to normal. Its better to learn to play by ear, anyway.
djm
Well I know all the tricks of the trade, and I have been playing the pipes (Great Highlands, smallpipes, uilleann and whistles) for well over 8 or 9 years. I just do not have the ability to play by ear, which is something you either have or not. If you have the ability, yes it is quite easy to learn. The piece itself though is not terribly complicated, and is backed up by only a guitar, violin and a bodhran. Thanks for your help guys.
Nonsense. It is a learned skill like any other. Like learning to read music. You do it by practising, over and over and over. And then another tune, and another, etc. The only people who cannot learn by ear are the ones who tell themsleves they cannot.
Loop the tune. Try and get one or two notes each time the tune goes by. Better yet, if you have editting software, you can highlight just a part of the tune and loop that over and over. Slow the tune down so that you can catch all the notes. Eventually you will get more and more of the notes. After a thousand times you will have the notes picked out, and will know the tune by heart.
Simple. 
djm
I agree with djm. How did you learn the tunes to Happy Birthday, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, The National Anthem etc? I’m guessing you don’t play or sing these from sheet music every time?
Your “learn and play by ear” musical muscle is just like any other - use it more, and it will develop.
The offer to do the transcription still stands, btw - 
If you can play “Happy Birthday” or any common Christmas carol, (without using sheet music) you can learn Irish tunes by ear. It’s just a matter of degree.
I understand that well, but I do not play any of those tunes by ear. I have been going on trying for years and I do not have the ability to recognize tonal quality by ear. Kind of like singing, when somebody says, “Give me an A, and hold it for a moment.” I cannot listen to a song and pick out what is what. I know a lot of classically trained musicians playing with and orchestra who also play folk and cannot do that. It is simply hard for people who can do it to understand that.
Just to throw in my 2 cents .. you might want to think about relative pitch ear training. It’s a skill. It is taught in music classes, and there are also several free self taught methods of this online. Learning this skill, though tedious to some at first, will open many musical doors. For Irish music, ear training will get you out of the beginner classes.
If you’ve had failures with it in the past it can seem nasty or even hopeless to try again, but perseverence, with very simple intervals to start, will work. I would not begin ear training with trying to transcribe an Irish tune, that could be overwhelming.
Here’s one good link: http://www.good-ear.com/about.html
Another http://www.ossmann.com/bigears/instructions.html
Here’s a site with several different free programmes
http://www.harmony-central.com/Software/Windows/ear_training.html
Again, thanks for the post. To me it is obvious to not to try and begin learning such a thing with Irish tunes. I have tried all of those programs before, and for the past 20 years I have been working slowly and long with no avail. If 20 years is not long enough, to at least gain something of which I have not, I do not know what is.