To transcribe a piece of music is to write in standard, European musical notation what the listener, or transcriber, hears. The transcriber’s notated version is called the transcription. Transcriptions of the same piece of music can vary widely, depending on the quality of the original sound source, the skill of the transcriber, and what the transcriber chooses to include in the notation. (See the box “The Character of Early African American Music” on page 23