How do you learn a transcribed solo?

[Stu Foley]

Do you learn it phrase by phrase, where there is a natural pause in the solo, or measure by measure? When do you incorporate the section that you have previously learned into the new section that you are learning? And at what stage do you introduce harmony (backing tracks)? My hunch is that I should be able to scat sing the solo over the harmony before taking it to the instrument and then put it together like a jigsaw puzzle. Does anyone have a systematic approach to learning new solos?

[smokinguit]

I learn it section by section. Where ever there is a logical division in the solo. Usually that will mean about 2 to 4 phrases. Easier to memorize it that way. Don't try to memorize too much in one sitting, only where there is a logical division in the music.

[targuit]

It does depend on the complexity of the sheet music or the song you are transcribing, but generally if I can clearly hear the parts, I just play what I hear. Faster tempos certainly might require slowing the music down a bit. But if I can sing it, I usually can just play it.

I don't always learn transcriptions note-for-note. For example, on YT you can find nice transcriptions of Joe Pass recordings. But I'm more likely to play it in the style rather than go exactly with what he played.

[smokinguit]

Again I think in terms of phrases not bars. If it takes 5 bars to make a statement then I will learn those five bars. But I understand what jbyork is driving at. I'm at the skill level where I can here/take in more ideas in one sitting by ear and translate it to my axe. If you are not at that skill level then learning it in smaller 1 to 2 bar chunk is ideal. But if you can take in more ideas and can memorize more then that to me is more efficient use of your time.

[SuperFour00]

Do you learn it phrase by phrase, where there is a natural pause in the solo, or measure by measure? When do you incorporate the section that you have previously learned into the new section that you are learning? And at what stage do you introduce harmony (backing tracks)? My hunch is that I should be able to scat sing the solo over the harmony before taking it to the instrument and then put it together like a jigsaw puzzle. Does anyone have a systematic approach to learning new solos?

Typically, I used to write out the melody over the changes, and do it the way the particular player phrased the melody. When the solo comes up, I sing ( as you wisely surmised) the phrases in one or two measure segments, and write the part out as accurately as possible. Seeing the written lines over the changes is invaluable, as far as I am concerned. The more you sing phrases, the better you get at hearing solo lines, and the more you write these lines, the faster you get at written transcriptions. That's a worthy skill to develop.

[MarkRhodes]

Slowly. More phrase-by-phrase than bar-by-bar. Some parts are easy and sometimes one or two notes---an odd stretch, a tricky rhythm, what have you---can take a lot of time to get just right.

In short, do it any way you can do it!

[Patrick2]

Slowly. More phrase-by-phrase than bar-by-bar. Some parts are easy and sometimes one or two notes---an odd stretch, a tricky rhythm, what have you---can take a lot of time to get just right.

In short, do it any way you can do it!

yeah . . . think back to when we were copping solos of rock players off of vinyl. No "Amazing Slow-Downer" or any other programs to lean on. Try learning a Steve Howe or a Jimmy Page solo off of a record!!!

[Reg]

To transcribe solos... you need to make a chart or sketch of the form. The sections of the tune.

All you need to be able to do is count.

If the tune is in 4/4 ...count bars.. say the tune is a bop tune, generally the Form of the tune is A A B A and each of those sections are 8 bars each.

So your sketch would be 4 sections of 8 bars.

So now lets transcribe the 1st A section of the tune... 8 bars.

The 1st step is to get the rhythm of the line or phrase... the solo. If it's complicated... start with the easy stuff. Get the downbeats first. Then fill in as you can... your connecting the dots. But get the ones your sure of first, which generally helps set up the more difficult rhythms.

Eventually you'll have a rhythmic sketch of each bar... then the phrase(s)... then the entire "A" section or 8 bars.

Now start filling in the pitch of the notes... again start with the easy one, then try and get the target or notes that harder passages lead to. Then start filling in the rest of the notes. Usually the notes between the target notes will be organized, from the chord change, or some type of relationship with that chord change. A sub of the chord etc...

The point is... the solo or part of is already there... all you need to do is fill in the blanks. It will become a process of elimination, there are only so many options. Get what your sure of...and eliminate what your sure it isn't... eventually the correct choice will show it's self.

The trial and error process of trying to be able to sing or trying to memorize short sections... is Ear Training, not transcribing. Your using a different skill to try and accomplish what your trying to do.

Ear Training is great and once you develop the skills of transcribing, you may use your transcribing skills to help you develop your ear by trying to hear and memorize lines etc... but they're different skills and mixing them together early will create walls and take way to much time... but that does seem to be the educational process for many, and then you wonder... why is this difficult.

[Reg]

My mistake... but to learn that transcribed solo... basically same approach.

Overall shape or form, fill in the blanks.

There are technical details of fingerings and picking which will generally help with how phrasing and articulations will fall on the guitar.

Memorizing from one note to the next... is not the best approach. As I think more about this whole process... why would you memorize a pre-transcribed solo. For performance. A learning vehicle ? Isn't the whole deal with transcribing solos to develop your ears and begin to understand approaches and concepts for developing solos.

[SuperFour00]

To transcribe solos... you need to make a chart or sketch of the form. The sections of the tune.

All you need to be able to do is count.

If the tune is in 4/4 ...count bars.. say the tune is a bop tune, generally the Form of the tune is A A B A and each of those sections are 8 bars each.

So your sketch would be 4 sections of 8 bars.

So now lets transcribe the 1st A section of the tune... 8 bars.

The 1st step is to get the rhythm of the line or phrase... the solo. If it's complicated... start with the easy stuff. Get the downbeats first. Then fill in as you can... your connecting the dots. But get the ones your sure of first, which generally helps set up the more difficult rhythms.

Eventually you'll have a rhythmic sketch of each bar... then the phrase(s)... then the entire "A" section or 8 bars.

Now start filling in the pitch of the notes... again start with the easy one, then try and get the target or notes that harder passages lead to. Then start filling in the rest of the notes. Usually the notes between the target notes will be organized, from the chord change, or some type of relationship with that chord change. A sub of the chord etc...

The point is... the solo or part of is already there... all you need to do is fill in the blanks. It will become a process of elimination, there are only so many options. Get what your sure of...and eliminate what your sure it isn't... eventually the correct choice will show it's self.

The trial and error process of trying to be able to sing or trying to memorize short sections... is Ear Training, not transcribing. Your using a different skill to try and accomplish what your trying to do.

Ear Training is great and once you develop the skills of transcribing, you may use your transcribing skills to help you develop your ear by trying to hear and memorize lines etc... but they're different skills and mixing them together early will create walls and take way to much time... but that does seem to be the educational process for many, and then you wonder... why is this difficult.

Regarding the singing of pitches ... it's not that hard. Non musicians do it all the time when humming a catchy melody from the radio. Hit songs are born that way. I don't see any reason to segregate one process from the other. The laborious (IMO) process of elimination is greatly aided by learning to sing various parts of a melody or solo while transcribing. I'm not getting why one skill can't be adopted concurrently with another. They are both useful and necessary to the Jazz musician ... like learning to read words out loud as you spell them.

[Reg]

I misread the thread and op... But I don't believe there is anything wrong with any approach, I was just trying to respond to what I believe to be the most productive approach, for transcribing, which might also teach one to try and think
about what their trying to accomplish and maybe have an organized approach.

But obviously anything work, and if using combinations of technique works...use it.

I transcribed piano lead sheets during my early college years.... The only way to make any money was to produce lead sheets quick. I did this for a few years, a developed a very productive approach.

[Stu Foley]

Thanks for the responses. I tend to find that most transcriptions from horn players and 'name' jazz guitarists are too mechanically advanced for someone of my level and so I get frustrated at the hit and miss attempts to get through the whole piece. I'm working through some jazz blues stuff by Frank Vignola which is comfortably attainable. I'm having some success by isolating phrases and playing them along to the click of an incremental metronome. If I start off real slow and build up the tempo I find that I can get the repetitions in without programing in the mistakes as I am prone to do if I attempt longer sections or if I try to play at performance tempo too early.

[TH]

I should preface this by saying I don't transcribe much at all; very little in fact. When I do, I didn't realize that my approach is wacky until I've been reading all the other really informative responses. But I start by listening to the solo...dozens if not more times, until it feels like an old road I've traveled many times. During this time, some times I'm listening hard (where in the tune is this and what are the pitches) and other times casually as I'm walking with the ipod. Sure this takes a lot of time, but by the time I actually begin "working" on it, quite often I can sing it by sound, anticipate peak points, hear the breaths and phrases internally.
What I don't want to do is isolate the notes from the architecture, pace, feel and thought process, all of which make up the forest. Kind of weird, eh? Anyway, it takes a lot longer this way but at some point in the process I feel like solo is something I was born with, and writing it down is quite easy.
I have a feeling this isn't really useful but it's the way one person does it anyway.
David

[pauln]

Mine is another odd method that reflects a little of what Reg and TruthHertz might be saying.

I think of a solo as having a profile or landscape with peaks and valleys... I learn the peaks first, then the supporting phrases, then the lessor phrases, then the connecting phrases. This is a holistic top down approach rather than a serial end to end approach.

The peaks are the intensity peaks - the primary message statements of the solo. These are probably what come to mind first when you recall the solo.

I see three big advantages to this approach:

1] The solo is learned around the peaks, focusing on the peaks. This means that the most important parts of the solo are the ones you know best - approaching an upcoming peak becomes a positive confidence gradient as you are moving into an increasingly more well known part of the solo - always a great feeling when performing on stage.

The extreme case of the negative confidence gradient is the solo that has has been learned note by phrase by starting at the beginning and playing until you crash, then figuring that out and starting over, playing through until the next crash... repeating this until the whole solo can be played through. You end up knowing the earlier parts real well and the later parts less well... the general result may be that each passing bar is a movement into a little less familiar or less well learned part of the thing. Since peaks often hang out near the end of a solo and sometimes comprise a little more technical playing, this may yield the feeling of wading into deeper water as you play through the solo, feeling less confident approaching the peaks, and maybe impairing the musical message.

2] Whereas an end to end learned solo generally needs to be "finished" before performing it, a peak learned solo may be performed at a much earlier stage in its development. The completion of only half of "the notes" may well represent a grasp of almost all of the actual intensity statement content of the solo.


3] May feel more natural, especially if the original musician was thinking in a similar manner in the creation of the solo, or if you naturally improvise using a similar profile / landscape concept to structure your peak statements and their supporting commentary, etc...

So, it is a little weird, but what it is doing is making you asses a weighting of statement intensity importance to each phrase of the solo, and naturally learning the most important ones first, and best. Personally, I find this also makes it easy to remember solos, their parts and order in the overall structure, etc...

This works for me because I abstract things conceptually using spatial, geometric, graphical, visual strategies that support a holistic photographic approach. If your main strategies are sequential, serial, logico-verbal... this approach may appear chaotic and impossible. Know thyself.

[TH]

I think of a solo as having a profile or landscape with peaks and valleys... I learn the peaks first, then the supporting phrases, then the lessor phrases, then the connecting phrases. This is a holistic top down approach rather than a serial end to end approach.

And a Duh observation: it emphasizes the constructive aspect of an actual real time solo, which at my best, recognizes and works around and to certain peaks in the piece itself. By the way, one of my favourite players to learn solos from is Keith Jarrett and he's a master of this. Plus he's a pleasure to listen to time and time again. I learn and find something each time I'll listen to a solo and before I'm even aware of it, I've learned the solo.
Learning a solo from the "top down" also makes me aware of things like motiv, rhythmic motif, evolving use of space and interaction with other musicians and the space between; good things to be aware of when playing that can easily be missed in focusing strictly on the soloist's notes.
But again, this is merely my approach that reflects on my real time playing awareness. It might be overkill if you're trying to learn a solo for the notes.
David

[fumblefingers]

How do you learn a (already) transcribed solo?

Like any piece of written music. Play as much of it as you can as soon as you can. That may mean a measure at a time, a few measures at a time, a line at a time, a chorus, or all of it. That depends on a lot of things, most notably you. Also, find the recording in question and get the sound of it in your ears, that really helps too.

Other notes:
1. There is the question of level. If you're a beginning or intermediate jazzer you will very likely have a great deal of trouble trying to play a solo from a master or virtuoso. You may be able to handle a few licks though. So try to work with material that you can handle. It doesn't need to be easy, but it shouldn't be impossible either. It should be a challenge that you have to work for.

2. Many transcriptions include tab and maybe fingerings. You don't always have to agree with them.

3. I read a book recently that emphasized how extensively The Amazing Slow Downer is/was used at Berklee. The students were doing more than just getting the notes right though. They were trying to emulate the inflections, expressions, feel, etc. of the master player ("laminate" their own playing over the master's, was the way the author described the practice). I think that's OK if you keep it in perspective. Meaning, know why you're doing it/what its relative importance is, how extensively you need to do it, and when it's time to move on.

[Reg]

Stu your approach sounds fairly common, and it's cool. But looking down the road... if you even want to is the question.

Do you want to reach more proficient levels of performance, maybe... not really worried about it. If your not really worried about it and really just want to enjoy playing... which personally... should be somewhere very high on that list of why your playing guitar. Anyway any approach or method will work. But if you want to develop your skills you need to be aware of what the approach is teaching you and your playing skills.

Nice points by fumble fingers and pauln

[targuit]

A question for this thread. I just hit this after spending some time early this morning on a site called Chord Melody Guitar. It is a collection of books and CDs and DVDs from guitar masters and their transcribers. An excellent site to peruse if one is looking for the works of particular guitarists, like Charlie Byrd or Johnny Smith, or well know arrangers.
There are also occasional links to YT videos of the performers or others playing the arrangements. I played along with several of the links.

I create my own transcriptions of standards with Sibelius, and the idea of developing a collection of solo guitar standards arrangements is something i have thought seriously about. I was wondering where is the greatest demand. Note-for-note transcriptions of certain artists' performances (which would obviously be for advanced level and likely out of reach for most aspiring guitarists yet) or a more simplified yet sophisticated arrangements that would be more accessible for more students and hobbyists? To do a serious job of advanced transcriptions, I would need to use Transcribe or other software and secure permissions regarding royalties and other performance rights. The latter would be true of simpler arrangements not focused on particular performers but related to composers or publishers.

In any case, which level (intermediate vs. advanced) would be more appealing to those who like books of arrangements for solo guitar? Or are students more interested in a guitar video plus transcription type approach that would break down the arrangement? My approach in that case would be a slowed down version, not a Conti style thing.

Jay

[gtrplrfla]

Hi Jay,
To answer the question in your final paragraph, I should imagine an advanced solo guitar standards collection
that includes some choice Pass, Burrell, Kessel , Smith numbers that aren't already available. There are many chord melody collections for the aspiring and intermediate player, but the less popular "Virtuoso" series has a few omissions, some of Kenny Burrell's standards haven't been put into print, Barney's originals are available, but very few of his standards and finally, Johnny Smith's material is scarce, too. Wes is well documented, so I've omitted him.

I hope this helps and I wish you the very best of luck should you decide to pursue .

[bako]

Jay,

Not an expert but I did recently complete notating 50 songs for a collection book and this is what I observed from the producers research re; copyright details.

If you transcribe pre-existing arrangements, then you would have 2 copyright permissions that you would need to obtain to share this work commercially. The composer or whoever controls the publishing rights and the creator of the derivative work arrangement.

[targuit]

Thanks for the responses, Bako and GTR! Actually, I prefer to create non note-for-note arrangements, rather than transcribe what would be advertised as very accurate transcriptions of a performance, in part because the later would require working with Transcribe or other slow downer software. Nothing odious about that, especially as I have just in the last week finally gotten my Godin LGX-SA guitar to work with Sibelius for note entry, which simplifies the process quite a bit. But I like writing my "original" arrangements that reflect my choices.

Bako, may I ask how you got the job to notate that number of songs and is it a Hal Leonard type thing? For example I noted and played through an arrangement of Laskin, I believe, of Georgia On My Mind on the Chord Melody Guitar site that I assume is his own arrangement.

Given the tenor of the thread, I would assume that beginner to intermediate players would want to cut their teeth on something less complex than a Joe Pass arrangement of some of the standards before tackling advanced level stuff. At least I would think there would be more commercial potential rather than the advanced level stuff. I'm thinking also of videos like the Martin Taylor style Jimmy van Heusen and Ellington DVDs where he plays a performance version followed by commentary and then a slowed down performance version, providing also a PDF file of sheet music (including the dreaded tab as well). I think Martin is a great teacher in that respect, and his DVDs are advanced level, pulling no punches. I also believe that reading the sheet music and being able to watch a slowed down performance is more beneficial than the Bob Conti style "put your third finger on the seventh fret, second string...." style approach. (Btw, I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting and hearing Conti up close in the mid-Eighties and admire his playing especially of ballads - which you don't hear much on his web site.) Just not my approach.

I would love to do a selection of Kenny Burrell tunes - always was one of my favorite guitarists.

Jay

[bako]

Jay,

It is a limited run 500 copies (which kept their licensing fees down) for an organization that at first
had a member on board to do it, but he had to back out due to other commitments.
They contacted me because I am local and have performed frequently at one of the organizations venues.
Mine was not a viable career path model for an aspiring transcriber/notator.

If you have a project in mind, I would suggest contacting Hal Leonard and other large music publishers with a proposal.
Consider also what is to be gained by a joint venture versus a self produced effort.

[acoustictones]

Another point that may be obvious to some, but has meant a lot to me as of late...
I completely agree with the idea of singing each line that you are trying to learn and/or transcribe for TWO reasons:

1) One is because of what it can do for both your ear and to help you better internalize the music.

2) ...And this one has become more important to me as of late while working on some of Django's solos... Groove, rhythm and phrasing!!! A number of players can just throw out a TON of notes, and that's not always a bad thing, but I tend to be really drawn to guitarist and musicians that have some really cool rhythmic phrases, and being able to nail some of those vocally has really helped me to nail them on the guitar as well.

So as mentioned above, sing what you hear and play what you sing, but remember that there is more to singing than just getting all the notes. Try getting everything you can out of it, including the dynamics, specific phrasing and more.

[targuit]

Totally agree, David! Especially point two.

Last night I was on a Stephane Grappelli kick, including songs recorded with Martin Taylor, Yehudi Menuin, Oscar Peterson, George Shearing, and Joe Pass. Oscar and Joe along with an uncredited bass and drum section were just stellar in a performance of Nuages. Perhaps the best I've ever heard. On YT. Stephane had one of the most exquisite senses of rhythm.

Thanks for the reply, Bako! Yes, I have to find a way to earn more income. This physician gig is not going to make it much longer - for me I have perhaps a year before a coding transition spells FINE (the end). Can you imagine - having to work more as a musician because the medical profession is sucking wind! What a commentary on our economy....

Jay

[smokinguit]

... I have just in the last week finally gotten my Godin LGX-SA guitar to work with Sibelius for note entry, which simplifies the process quite a bit.

Jay,

Are you saying that the program notate what you are playing in real time. That would be really cool.