28 Why The Transcription Playhead Exists
While you learn songs by ear, there’s a lot of stopping and starting—you stop after you hear a few notes, and then you look for them on the instrument. And if you forgot the notes, you’ll need to hear them again. This gets tedious: moving the playhead each time you want to repeat those notes.
The Transcription Playhead was built to help you remember and find notes on your instrument. When enabled, the playback start position is locked so that every time you press play, the music starts from the same spot. As the note in your mind starts to fade, you can refresh your memory by pressing play again. Without it, you’re juggling two things in your mind—the note you’re trying to remember, and where to rewind the song!
While using the Transcription Playhead, stop playback immediately after you hear the last note you want to remember. While looking for it on your instrument, don’t struggle more than you need to: stop searching once you’re no longer sure of the note(s), and re-start playback to jog your memory.
Our tonal working memory has limited space. This part of our brain has two jobs while learning by ear: holding on to the note (short-term storage), and comparing it against the notes you’re playing on the instrument (processing, or the “working” part). That’s how we know we played the right thing!
You can combine the Transcription Playhead with Markers to work through a longer passage systematically. Place Markers at the beginning of each phrase you want to transcribe, then use the Marker navigation controls to jump between them. Enable the Transcription Playhead at each Marker location to work through the phrase note by note.