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I transcribe a lot. It has improved my ears and also of course I can see what improvisers like Bud Powell or Woody Shaw are doing melodically against chord changes.
But I often get hung up on rhythms — jazz players tend at times to play “sprays” of notes in weird places against the beat, and sometimes the drummer is playing across the beat in a way that is hard to find 1 2 3 4. I can hear the pitches but I can’t notate or figure out the rhythm at those points. Do any of you transcribers get hung up on rhythm and, when you do, do you just simplify it, ignore the issue or some other option?
Thanks
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09-25-2024 11:59 AM
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Yes I get hung up on, but no I don't simplify or ignore it.
Rhythm is huge when you're transcribing, and I think is probably the best argument for writing transcriptions down at all.
Mind if I ask who you're transcribing? I wouldn't really describe most players I listen to in the way you describe, rhythmically.
(I would say there are places where putting the rough rhythm down with an instruction like "lay back" is quite useful, though)
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I import any track to be transcribed into my DAW session window, adjust the project tempo to the track tempo, then check by zooming-in any unrecognized rhytm against the grid - if visible in the waveform which is often the case. So visual aid.
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Originally Posted by pamosmusic
Harder rhythmically: Cannonball Adderly, John Coltrane, Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner (both right hands only).
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Originally Posted by RobSilver7
Those four are going to be really tough rhythmically. Cannonball because his time-feel is so malleable (some things feeling super straight and others swung hard, on top of the beat or behind the beat etc). The other three because they're a group you're going to get real sheets of sound stuff in ... septuplets, quintuplets, polyrhythms etc.
I've been transcribing Wayne with Miles lately, and there's a lot of that sort of floating over the time. I think with, say, Grant Green you buckle down and figure that sh** out. With some of the other guys you mention, there's going to be this place where you just have to decide if that is a weird septuplet thing, or like maybe a rushed triplet or something. And I feel like that's fine. It's a learning tool -- doesn't have to be perfect.
And no, a DAW won't help with that stuff. And on the easier stuff, having the DAW sort of defeats the purpose a bit, but maybe I'm just an old stick-in-the-mud.
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I almost never transcribe. It always seemed more an exercise in writing than in assisting with playing. Whenever I “learn” a solo I just use my ears and analyze as I go. And then I’ve never memorized them. I take a phrase, learn it and let it go. Otherwise it just takes too long. I’ve done it for students but otherwise I found no use for writing it down. It’s great for learning how to write though!
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Originally Posted by henryrobinett
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I don't write out transcriptions either. Everything is easier to learn the second time, or 3rd.... or the 100th if it's the dang bridge to Caravan. If I've learned 200 songs, 150 of them are the bridge to Caravan.
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Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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Originally Posted by pamosmusic
FWIW I personally try to use terms I find clear. So if I write it down I might say 'take down' but if I'm just learning it by ear I say 'learning it by ear.'
If I'm not sure what someone else means, I can always ask. (I do wonder if some students form the false impression that what what jazz musicians term transcription always means writing things down.)
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BTW I feel I've learned a lot about rhythm, or at least, notating rhythms and understanding them trying to write things down. Holdsworth is fun for this haha.
OTOH try writing down that thing Monk does when he plays quarter note triplets on a straight upbeat.
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Most of what I've transcribed has tended to be either eighth note or sixteenth note based, medium to up-tempo, so generally not too difficult from a rhythmic perspective. Where there has been a problem it has been deciding where the (errant) notes fall in relation to the beat, trying to capture the push and pull can be tricky... but I wouldn't dwell on it. I mean, Lewis Porter transcribed John Coltrane's incredible 'Venus', except he doesn't try to replicate exactly the rhythms Trane plays, all the many subtleties and micro-rhythmic shifts etc. That's free jazz of course, but the tradition of notation in jazz is that it doesn't and can't indicate the rhythms with exactitude.
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Originally Posted by henryrobinett
I think I'm not terribly imaginative with rhythm and I find writing them to be super useful because I actually have to think about and decode them.
And also about your earlier post, I also have found myself not really memorizing or digging too deep on solos. It's interesting. I learn them and work really hard to get them up to tempo, and then just put them away? Not sure why, but that works for me. I hear a lot of stuff kind of start turning up way down the line that I never really hear when I try to deliberately incorporate stuff.
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Originally Posted by pamosmusic
And BTW to Christian - I believe the word transcribe literally means to write it down as a written copy. So the word transcribe is incorrect for this usage.
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Originally Posted by henryrobinett
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Originally Posted by pamosmusic
I don’t know if this makes sense.
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Originally Posted by henryrobinett
Meaning in language drifts over time. For example I’ve noticed that increasingly the word ‘poignant’ is used by young people as a synonym for ‘pertinent’ rather than how I understood it which is ‘moving, affecting’. Unless it’s a US/UK division in the use of the word which I’m not aware of.
That said if you were to use the term transcription in classical circles the meaning is often used as an arrangement of a piece for a different instrument. For example, Segovia’s Bach transcriptions.
The term for the process writing music down by ear in classical circles that I’ve heard most frequently is “dictation”. (Not sure what the finished result is called.)
Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkLast edited by Christian Miller; 09-26-2024 at 10:18 AM.
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Originally Posted by henryrobinett
Thanks for your suggestions.
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Young people are terrible and ruining language obvs
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Originally Posted by henryrobinett
And for an update, dear readers: Wayne is kicking the crap out of me right now. It’s his Stella solo, which is beautiful but also long stretches just him and Herbie, very rhythmically loose. It is hard.
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Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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Originally Posted by RobSilver7
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Originally Posted by henryrobinett
Isn’t the only reason these things have to have a name because of teachjng? And the fact that classical music is a score based tradition that is also dominant within music education? For the vast number of world musics that teach primarily by ear it’s just ‘learning music.’
Academic assessment also likes stuff to be written down.
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