![]() If you have trouble identifying intervals or basic rhythms, it’s probably not time to start transcribing yet. If you have the understanding necessary to make sense of the solo’s rhythms and harmony, then you can slow a solo down (or speed it up!) to adjust its level of difficulty. And, of course, you’ll be more likely to make mistakes. ![]() Otherwise you’ll wind up transcribing it mechanically and not learn very much. Go for something within your reach or just beyond it. Rather than try to give an explicit step-by-step method for transcribing, I’ll give a number of tips followed by an example of doing a transcription… Choose something appropriate to your level.ĭon’t transcribe something that’s harmonically or rhythmically well beyond your understanding. We also wind up reverse engineering the solo in the process, which gives us insights about what makes it tick. If we instead use our musical reasoning faculties to get the job done, we strengthen them… and these are of enormous use to us on the bandstand and off. But that’s not a skill that helps us much when we’re improvising on the bandstand. The “hunt and peck” approach makes use of one skill above all else: comparing pitch on a recording to a pitch played on an instrument. Or even just: The soloist seems to have reharmonized the heck out of this measure.The notes are in ascending groups of four, each group starting a little higher in pitch than the previous.The notes form a repeating pattern that modulates upward in minor thirds.The rhythm involves quarter note triplets.The pickup to the measure leads chromatically upward to the downbeat note.There is a flurry of notes that ends in a note falling solidly on beat three.The rest of the measure is a sequence of eighth notes.It requires that we peck away at a phrase not one note at a time but one insight at a time. This question is much more vague and open-ended than the first. The common approach has the student ask repeatedly, “what is the next note and where does it fall rhythmically?” A better question to ask over and over, and in increasing detail, is, “what’s going on in the upcoming notes?” It shouldn’t be how we transcribe either if our aim is to improve our playing. Luckily for patients, that’s not how doctors train. Unfortunately, that method won’t teach you to solo beautifully any more than you can learn to diagnose like a doctor by guessing at a patient’s problem until you get it right. Click To Tweet The “Hunt and Peck” approachĪ great many musicians use a sequential, trial-and-error method of transcription: guess at the pitch and rhythm of the next note, compare your guess to the recording, repeat until you get it right, then move on to the following note. They miss out on much of the potential benefit… Jazz musicians rave about the benefits of transcribing, but many squander those benefits. And, in the process, to gradually assimilate that understanding into your own improvisation. It is to deepen your understanding the music and all the artistic “decisions” that went into its creation. The point of transcription as a learning tool is not simply to arrive at the right notes. But, judging from the students I see, precious little attention is given to the process of transcription. Transcribing solos from recordings is widely regarded as one of the best ways of improving your jazz ability.
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