you know how you start thinking about one thing and it reminds you of something slightly related that you figure this kind of thing would be perfect for the people interested in what they are currently responding to aka:HIJACK
Well, anyway it reminded how I wish there was something that could figure out sounds I have clung to in my head (notes and keys) of songs I someday hope to run into and get the title of. To ramble incessently some more, there was this one episode of “Married w/ Children” where there was a music store which was a virtual Mecca for people who had songs stuck in their heads that they never knew the name of and one by one in a line each would sing the notes they knew and these people behind the counter would tell them the title of what they were singing … cute anyway I’m on a buzz so forgive me OPer I promise it will only happen this one night/day
You could try Melodyhound, which allows you to sing, whistle or type the tune you’re thinking of, and attempts to identify it. And there’s Shazam in the UK, where you play music into your cellphone and it then sends you a text message identifying the track.
In my experience, I’ve found the SDMB to be of great service for these moments. I’m one of those people who remembers song hooks until they jackhammer at my skull like a migraine, and so these two links look VERY good, thank-you. Prior, I just ran to my bass, plucked out the rudimentary notes, and wrote them down in a post for whoever would care to help with this issue. Naturally, I would try to keep these sorts of posts down to a small roar.
This has turned out to be quite the informative thread! Many thanks, all.
I didn’t know music analysis software was at the level of even basic chord transcription, so I downloaded the demo out of curiosity. Well, it seems the technology leaves much to be desired. Perhaps there’s better out there, but this software seemed pretty much useless. Occassionally it got the right key or chord (and the bass transcription was particularly nowhere near the mark) but overall, it seems to be a hindrance rather than a help.
The song Xanadu, by Rush, is pitched just a hair higher than the other songs on the album, A Farewell To Kings. I’ve thought of a couple possible reasons:
a) the song prominently features chimes, played by drummer Neil Peart. The chimes may have been pitched a bit too high, and so they tuned the guitars and keyboards to the chimes. (The chimes themselves would have been untunable).
or, more likely:
b) After the song was recorded, the band decided that the piece would sound better if it was played just a tiny bit faster. Rather than re-record the whole thing, they just speeded up the tape a bit.
Another Rush song, The Camera Eye actually fluctuates as the song progresses. My bass will be in tune with the CD at the beginning of the song, but then I’ll suddenly find I’m out of tune partway into the song. Then, just as abruptly, I’ll be back in tune again, then out again…
If you are hearing sped up music on the radio today, that’s likely because they have sped it up to get more time for commercials. In the digital age, when most recordings are done with computers, and played on digital keyboards, it’s safe to say that most music is recorded at A=440 and will remain that way from inception to playback in your home.
But when everything was analog, the pitch of records was all over the map. For instance, there are no Beatles albums on which you can play along with every song without retuning your guitar. This is because the line voltage fluctuated and altered the motor speed of the tape machines (before quartz-lock). The music was recorded in several different studios on several different machines (first speed anomaly), mixed down to another (second speed anomaly), the finished tracks were then edited together on a master reel, copied onto another (same) and sent to the mastering lab where their tape machine may have run yet another speed. When you played the record at home, 40 years ago, your turntable may not have been going at 33 or 45, but somewhere sharp or flat. Even though the musicians were very probably tuned to the studio piano, which was certainly in concert pitch, technology intervened to change it after-the-fact, and no one noticed, or at least paid any attention to it.
I discovered this many, many years ago, and found that it extends to all records. A very small percentage of them run for the amount of time it says on the label. If you want to learn a song by playing along, you have to speed it up or slow it down to match 440. CDs of albums are the same. It seems nobody is aware of it. Pitch correction is now possible on computers, and I have to do it all the time. I wish I hadn’t noticed it, because now records that run at the wrong speed are the bane of my existence.
Wouldn’t it be possible to transform the song into the frequency domain (Fourier transform or something), interpolate that to a different length, and then reverse the transform to get a song that’s sped up or slowed down but has the same pitch?
