Editing music files can be a big help for learning tunes. You can work with recordings on your computer to slow tunes down or do a host of other things with them.
I’ll mention a couple of programs you can use — one is free (Audacity), the other (Riffmaster) costs something but offers a free trial.
The free one is Audacity, which was first introduced to me by a Maine minister well into his 80s! It is open-source, which means the code is open to the public and it has been developed by experts for public use rather than a for-profit company.
With Audacity, you can import a music file and work with it, if the file is an mp3, WAV (CD quality), AIFF (iTunes), OGG or a few others. If your music file is a WMA (Windows Media file) you’ll need to convert it first (here’s a link to a good free converter). You can also record anything your computer can play, and create your own sound file
Inside Audacity, you can manipulate a music file in a ridiculous number of ways. You can slow any portion of the recording down without changing the pitch–great for transcribing tricky passages. You can also play around with tempo, pitch, speed, EQ, echoes, reverse, fades, filters, and lots more.
You can edit sound as if it were a word processor–drag the mouse to select an area of music, and cut, copy, paste, undo. You can add tracks and do some pretty sophisticated editing if you’ve a mind to. The results can be saved in many different formats. Mp3 might be most useful, but if your computer or other gadgets prefer other formats, you can output your music in formats most convenient for them.
Riffmaster, from Australia, is also a great program, though it costs $49 for the full computer version and $6 for the app version. Note that Amazing Slowdowner also does much the same stuff, though not as much, for the same price (but the app costs $15). With Riffmaster you can get a ten-day free trial to see what it’s like.
Riffmaster is like Audacity but is geared a little more directly toward learning musicians. For example, it allows you to highlight a section of music and have it play that section over and over, at various speeds. There’s also a filter to allow you to better hear the backup band of a musical track so you can hear what they’re doing behind a vocalist. If a recording favors left or right speakers for certain instruments, you can focus on the side you want to listen to.
Unlike Audacity, Riffmaster can both import and export most music file formats. It also keeps a list of music files you’ve imported so you can go back to them easily, and it lets you create files of the music files after you’ve adjusted them, changed speed or key, etc., so you can send these to others if you have a group or band you’re working with.
Whether you are transcribing music, learning by ear, combining or editing sound samples, preparing a recording for a website, preparing sound samples, or just having fun with music, Audacity or Riffmaster are tools you might like to have on hand.