Who scores modern music? (assuming the band has not done it)

Cafe Society
1

I was watching a video on John Bonham (drummer from Led Zeppelin) and the video producer used scored music to illustrate what Bonham was doing.

My question is, who scores that music? In the case of Led Zeppelin they may have done it themselves. They were all very talented and competent musicians. But I’d be a little surprised if they did. I certainly would be surprised if most bands did this and suspect many do not.

So, who makes the sheet music? Is it possible for someone to sit down, listen to the music and score it correctly (not to mention each instrument being used in a given song)?

Or, do bands really do this on their own and if they do not then sheet music for it simply does not exist?

2

I imagine that it’s usually the composer who does it. How do you think the musicians know what they’re supposed to play?

There might be a few musicians out there who create tunes by just plunking them out on their instrument of choice, without knowing the formal notation, but I would have to imagine that they’re very, very rare.

3

I had a sense many rock bands got started in a garage or basement and just kinda worked things out on the fly. No one is making notations on a music sheet. No one is doing it by themselves and then coming to the garage with sheet music in hand. I mean, some might. But many probably do not.

In particular the drummers do not seem to go off sheet music to play. They kinda do it more on the fly. Particularly since their kits can be different. A guitar is a guitar but a drum kit can vary a lot which would seem to make sheet music less useful.

But I dunno…

4

For Led Zeppelin specifically, John Paul Jones was a classically-trained multi-instrumentalist and certainly had the knowledge and background to score the band’s songs. I’ve not yet found a cite that he specifically did so – but in looking for such a link, I found some interesting links about Jones contributions to both Zeppelin’s and other bands’ catalogs.

5

Jimmy Page was a session player before Led Zeppelin. Willing to bet he could score the music too…certainly the guitar parts…not sure about the rest. Jones, as you said, could seemingly play almost anything.

6

There was a recent-ish thread here on the SDMB (within the last year or two) about scoring “unwritten” popular music. Someone here did it for a living in the 1970s. I can’t recall who the OP was, though. If I can scare up that thread, that person may have some insight.

7

In rock bands, they are usually played a rough demo by the songwriter and they create their own parts. If they use session players, there will probably be an arranger to notate their parts.

8

In that video, I assumed it was the maker of the video who produced the score.

For some genres that have a “composer” as such, like classical music, film scores, or popular songs from the Tin Pan Alley that were published as sheet music, I assume this is correct.

For modern pop, rock, etc., I always assumed that, when sheet music was available, there was someone in the employ of the publishing company whose job it was to analyze the recorded music and translate it into sheet music. But I don’t actually know.

9

I think it might be @pulykamell who has written sheet music in the past for pop music books.

10

That would be @Musicat .

11

Thanks, you guys. Here is the exact post I was recalling — it was older than I recalled:

EDIT: This post as well:

12

I agree with @Thudlow_Boink. I would consider it unlikely that the video producer had access to any written music. They probably just transcribed it themselves. That is the norm on Music Theory YouTube. Any sheet music that could legally be purchased would likely be a transcription anyways, and those often contain errors or changes to make them easier to play.

It wouldn’t be that complicated. It’s only a very short excerpt, and a lot of what would be given on a proper score is omitted (e.g. the actual notes/chords for the guitar part). And they’re already going to the trouble to have the notes display in time with the music. By the time you pull that off, it’s not much more work to write it yourself.

13

I have heard that submitting a lead sheet can be important for some legal or commercial purposes, but they can also be legitimately used by, e.g., jazz musicians.

IMO “modern pop, rock, etc.” is, music-theoretically, in the same wheelhouse as “classical music”, and that there absolutely should be, and actually is, sheet music. This is not some crazy Xenakis stuff where one has to think carefully how to even write it down. And that something should be available before a studio session, otherwise where would this recorded music be coming from?

NB once various parts are recorded, though, you can imagine someone working hard using a DAW, and there may not be/maybe no point to someone subsequently listening to the final master to translate every sound and filter on that to sheet music. Musical notation involves a certain level of abstraction.

14

I assume, besides composing, people still do actually make a living as arrangers and orchestrators, and if those are different people that would be an example of someone beyond the composer developing the music.

15

Many (if not most) Pop music writers can’t even read music let alone write it. That’s left up to arrangers (for the studio if necessary) or publishers (after the record is made). None of the Beatles ever needed sheet music, because they couldn’t even read it if they did.

16

A friend of mine, who was a very skilled musician and teacher, once played me a song that he was working on. At one point there was a chord shape that I couldn’t recognize. I asked him what it was and he replied, “I don’t know. Some kind of C I guess. Sounds great there doesn’t it?” He was able to look at the chord and work out a name for it but he didn’t really care what it was.

17

Funny you should say that (did not know that about the Beatles), because when I wrote that sentence I had looked over at the shelf where I have a couple of volumes of Beatles sheet music, which does not mention any arranger by name (though obviously someone did it).

At least there are a few pop stars who are classically trained, even if they prefer making music by ear. Lady Gaga studied music at NYU, for instance.

18

He may not care for himself, but he is supposed to be teaching others :slight_smile:

While pop music may not use chords in precisely the same way as Mozart, it has its harmonic vocabulary that is related to that tradition, so it absolutely might make a difference what that chord was. Though, as you suggest, a very skilled musician certainly is not going to pause in the middle of playing and ponder it, he is going to know how to voice chords and create harmony without consciously thinking about it.

19

This thread brings back memories. I hope everyone will read the old thread that I contributed to:

I pretty much covered the subject there, but I would like to elaborate, mostly for Chronos.

I’ve been out of professional music for a few decades, so things might have changed. But, in my experience, there is often a wide gap in the capabilities and desires of born-on-the-bayou musicians, who rarely read or write any music other than a crude chord chart, and studio “session” musicians. These typically are string players, who often come from a formal, classical background and can read music better than anyone. Time is money, and musicians who can bash out 3 recordings in a single 3-hour session are the best bargain for producers, so sight-reading music is a must.

I often attended recording sessions where the strings saw the music for the first time, and could lay down a decent final recording of a song in the few minutes left in a union session, on the first run-thru. This avoided having to pay them overtime, or kick some other group off the studio’s time chart, something that nobody wants to do.

BTW, “sweetening” charts or sessions are used to add more orchestral tracks, typically strings or horns, on top of a basic band’s original recording. It is typical that an arranger is called in after the basic – mostly rhythm sections and possibly a scratch vocal – are done. This arranger is in the class of musicians who can read music, since that is how the arranger communicates with the performing musicians, although typically the arranger attends and conducts the orchestra for the studio takes.

When a rock band plays/records a new song, sweetening tracks may be planned, but not mapped out in detail yet, this being done much later.

So, to sum up, not all commercial/professional musicians read or write music well, but some do.

20

Sorry, but once I get on a roll, I can’t stop…so, to partially address the OP…

Modern recorded music is done two ways. Either the entire song is recorded at once, with all musicians playing simultaneously (like a “live” recording), or in layers, where a basic track is augmented by additional instruments and tracks repeatedly until the final result is achieved.

Until the advent of multi-track recording, the layered approach was impossible or difficult, but with digital techniques, there is almost an unlimited number of tracks that can be added or subtracted, remixed or enhanced. Sometimes these tracks are recorded (simultaneously or sequentially) in different places, in different countries, at different times.

How does a producer decide which method to use? Depends. With the all-at-once method, the cost is for personnel and space (it costs more to hire a 100 piece orchestra than a 4-piece rhythm section). With the layered approach, the cost is time. If the performing group is doing their own recording, or working as royalty artists, their time may be essentially volunteered, not on the clock.

I have attended or been part of, both kinds. I once worked for Barbra Streisand, who liked to record with an entire orchestra at once (she could afford it). She hired an arranger and worked closely with him, privately, on the complete master score, and we went into a huge scoring stage studio at Warner Brothers to record. After some rehearsal, Barbra went into the isolation booth to record a scratch vocal simultaneously with the orchestra.

The only layering done here (at a subsequent session) was to improve and enhance the original master orchestral recording by replacing the scratch vocal with a more polished one.

The advantage of this all-at-once technique is you have a finished product almost instantly.

In contrast, many Beach Boys recordings, like Good Vibrations, were layered many times and different ways over months, as this was the way Brian Wilson liked to work.

So the answer to “who scores modern music?” is it depends.