Definition
Dictation is the transcription on paper (or in the DAW) of music you hear. It is divided into rhythmic (durations only), melodic (pitches and rhythm of a line), two-part and harmonic (bass, quality and function of the chords). It is the counterpart of solfège: from symbol to sound in solfège, from sound to symbol in dictation.
General strategy (before, during and after)
- First listening, without writing: meter (duple, triple, compound), major/minor key, number of bars, shape of the phrase (antecedent–consequent?).
- Anchors: the first note, the last note (almost always 1, sometimes 3 or 5) and the notes on the strong beats.
- Rhythm before pitches: write the rhythmic skeleton with stems and beams or in shorthand notation.
- Contour: up, down, leap or step? Draw it as a line.
- Scale degrees: assign the numbers (or movable-do syllables) starting from the anchors; only at the end translate into actual notes.
- Check: sing what you wrote and compare it with the audio.
Rhythmic dictation
- Tap the pulse with your foot and count the subdivisions (“1 and 2 and” or “ta ti-ti”).
- Recognize the cells: dotted eighth + sixteenth, syncopation eighth–quarter–eighth, triplet, figures in 6/8 (quarter + eighth).
- In modern grooves, separate the instruments: first the kick, then the snare, then the hi-hats.
Melodic dictation
- Listen for the tendencies: the leading tone rising, the 4 falling to the 3, the 6 falling to the 5.
- Recognize typical intervals: leap 5–1 (ascending fourth at the start of many melodies), 1–5, broken triad.
- Chromatic notes are almost always neighbor tones or passing tones, or they announce a secondary dominant.
Harmonic dictation
- The bass first: it is the easiest voice to follow after the melody. Write it in scale degrees.
- The quality of each chord: major, minor, diminished, dominant seventh, maj7, m7.
- The function: a major chord on 5 with a seventh = V7; a minor chord on 6 = vi.
- Inversions: if the bass is on the 3 under a tonic chord, it is I6; bass 7 under the dominant = V6 (or V6/5).
- Cadences: authentic (V–I), plagal (IV–I), deceptive (V–vi), half (–V).
In pop an effective trick: learn to recognize the most common loops as gestalts (I–V–vi–IV, vi–IV–I–V, i–bVI–bIII–bVII, ii–V–I).
Tools and resources
- musictheory.net (Exercises: Interval Ear Training, Chord Ear Training) and Teoria.com: free exercises.
- EarMaster, Functional Ear Trainer: training of scale degrees in tonal context.
- The aural tests of the ABRSM exams are a good graded model: tapping the pulse, singing echoes, recognizing cadences and modulations.
- In FL Studio you can slow down audio without changing pitch (time-stretch in Edison or in the Audio clip channel) and use Newtone to check the notes after you have written them by ear. Use the tools only after listening, as a check.
Example of guided dictation
“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” in C: 1 1 5 5 6 6 5 – 4 4 3 3 2 2 1. Rhythm: six quarter notes and a half note, twice. Harmonic bass (simple version): I I IV I – IV I V I. Repeat the same procedure with the chorus of “Let It Be”: melody descending 3–2–1, harmony I–V–IV–I.
Training plan (4 weeks)
- Week 1: 10 minutes a day of intervals in context (from the tonic) and 2-bar rhythms.
- Week 2: 4-bar stepwise melodies; recognition of I, IV, V.
- Week 3: melodies with leaps within the triad; diatonic chords with vi and ii; cadences.
- Week 4: transcribe the hook and the bass of one real track per day.
Exercise for the producer
- Choose a reference track in your genre and transcribe by ear the bass line of the first 8 bars in the Piano roll, then check.
- Transcribe the drum pattern of a famous breakbeat (e.g. the “Amen break” by The Winstons, “Amen, Brother”) by listening alone.
- Recognize by ear the 4 chords of the chorus of three pop songs and write them in Roman numerals.
Connections
Solfège; Functional listening and scale-degree recognition; Scale degrees and functional names; Cadences; Method for analyzing a pop song.