Originally Posted By: MarioD
. . . I had to pick the chords off the radio/record then buy the Hit Parade magazine for the lyrics.


I went a step further. I learned to pick out chords by ear like many of the rest of you, but I saved money on the magazines (which I didn't know existed--Hit Parade, you say?) by recording albums and radio broadcasts onto an old Wollensak reel-to-reel deck and transcribed the lyrics by 'rocking the reels.'

I had my share of "mondegreens" at first, but I began to learn how to coax meaning out of context (not always easy with lyrics heavily influenced by the drug culture). Not only did I save money, it helped me later in foreign-language study and in my present career as a medical transcriptionist.

Now that I mention it, transcription is also being heavily augmented by its own version of the ACW: speech recognition (SR) software. My parent company, Nuance Communications, who is behind the SR technology in iPhones and elsewhere, touts it as being a big cost-saver to physicians and hospitals.

Let me tell you from my experience on the back end, it doesn't work nearly as well as they would like clients to believe. Most of the time we would do just as well from raw voice recordings, but it gives transcription companies a chance to pay its workers, who are highly skilled medical language specialists, half of what they would without the software. Sucks to be us.

R.

"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."