Hi! I've a problem and I wonder whether anyone could help. I have an MP3 of a fun piece of piano music which I would like to learn but I know from research that the sheet music has never been published. It's about 1.5 minutes long, novelty piano style, and I wondered whether anyone has the ability to listen to it and write down at least some of the notes and chords? Unfortunately I don't have that skill myself. Otherwise would anyone know of another way of making sheet music from an MP3 file? Possible some type of software program? All the ones which I've seen can do only midi. Thanks for any help or suggestions.

I would offer to transcribe it for you if you sent me the mp3, but I have a large backlog of stuff to do and can't take on any new projects presently.

However, if you are looking to transcribe it yourself, there are tools like the ABRSM SpeedShifter (which you can get from here for free), which can slow down the notes greatly and make it much easier to hear stuff note by note.

Thanks very much for your offer. Actually I think I should be OK after all because I've managed to convert the mp3 into midi and then imported it into my music software program which then produced a sheet, albeit a slightly weird sheet! Anyhow, with some editing and playing around with it, I think I'll be able to make something that more closely resembles the original mp3. The SpeedShifter is a great tool. I downloaded it yesterday and am finding it very useful already.

That's interesting. If you look on the General music forum you'll see a thread of a few people who are having a great deal of difficulty with Speedshifter. I'm one of them and had decided to leave it for a while and try again a bit later when they've had time to iron out any little glitches. I'm very glad that someone has managed to use it successfully. Did you have any problems at all?

No, I didn't have any problems with it at all. Installed it, inputted a file and found that I could increase or decrease the speed as much as I wanted without altering the pitch of the notes. Fantastic!