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It would be interesting to see what--if any--research has been done on youngsters who are taught 'gypsy guitar' and how they develop compared with children who take up the guitar at the same age but don't get such systematic training. (Or those who take up classical guitar at a young age and how they develop in comparison with the other two groups.)
Originally Posted by JakeAcci
I'm afraid there's too little interest in the question for serious money to be put into research on it.That may change later, though. (Who thought there would be so much research devoted to golf swings?)
It's humbling--and a little scary--to realize how little we know about something that matters so much to us! Looking back, I would have done many things differently "if only I knew then what I knew now." (For example, I would've learned to read music sooner, learned more tunes, taken up jazz sooner, and gone about it a different way...) Don't we all feel that way?
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08-20-2012 06:29 PM
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First of all - I think the whole "to write it down or not" is really serving as a distraction here. Certainly there are some obvious advantages to writing things down.
BUT -
Bottom line -
Anyone looking for reasons or excuses why they needn't learn jazz lines by carefully listening to recordings (writing them down or not) probably doesn't have the fire in their belly necessary to ever become much of a player.
"Transcribing" is this context needn't be an over-ambitious, planned-out affair, tackling entire tunes or even entire solos. Most of my transcriptions have been on the shorter side, and were done rather spontaneously, the impetus being, "Wow! I GOTTA learn THAT!" I think anyone who's going to be able to go very far in this music has got to have some of that enthusiasm.
The very act of this sort of transcription is arguably more valuable & beneficial than just the notes you end up with.
I can't believe that it's even up for discussion whether or not this sort of transcription is more beneficial than simply reading someone else's work.
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I believe we will see some--not shortcuts, but increased efficiency--on the attainment of basic musicianship, simply because we are gaining a better understanding of the conditions for optimal learning.
Consider how most of us learned spelling: study a list of words; take a test; pass or fail; move on to a new list. This was (still is?) the accepted pedagogy. Much better learning methods are now known.
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It's simple. You want to decipher what chords Gene Harris uses on 'Can't help lovin' dat man' you transcribe it for you're not going to find that tune any place else but the recording. Originally Posted by Van_jazz
Not every song you'll ever desire to play, or the style you'd like to learn to play it in, will be in a book. So you get busy, stop being lazy and roll up your sleeves and learn something.
The answer to your question could as easily be answered with the question: why are you resistant to transcribing, and what are you failing to learn by refusing to transcribe. One doesn't know what they don't know from never having done it.
If I want to play 'God Bless The Child' in the style of Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, and Jack DeJohnette, I have to get busy and do the work. No books gonna get me there.
I spent a year transcribing Keith's solo piano concert of Over the rainbow...was it worth it? hell yeah, for I learned voicing's I'd never have otherwise considered.
Course I'm not talkin' single note line transcriptions...therefore all transcription is not created equal...I'm talking chords simultaneously often spanning 10th's in both hands.
this last one isn't on CD and was taken from a simple handheld pocket recorder steadily held to a television speaker...sometimes us transcriber's are truly driven to learn...that's what drives me.
Last edited by 2bornot2bop; 08-28-2012 at 06:08 PM.
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You seem to have missed the point, which was, how do you know what you're missing if you've not done it. Originally Posted by Jonzo
As a matter of preference one determines what's truly important to invest their time on.
Personally I'd rather exhibit mastery over fewer tunes rather than faking it through many. What's the hurry?
That seems to be the jist of the matter...everyone's in a rush to go nowhere. Slow down and enjoy the journey. One is not going to learn but so many solo's. If I die tomorrow knowing a dozen tunes inside and out exhibiting exceptional musicianship over them, I've lived a very full life, for I've known my share of cats that died at 25.
We're talking oranges and apples here, for I'm not speaking about solo's, but rather full tunes being transcribed for the purposes of digestion and assimilation into one's own vocabulary. That's all. Do whatcha gotta do brother!
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Because I teach and there's a lot of beginners here. I want to draw their attention to how trivial and tiresome this thread is, and how useless looking for a shortcut when learning jazz is.
This stuff matters. Jazz education on the internet is a series of dead ends and get rich quick schemes. When I see information that tries to discredit something as valuable as transcription, I feel the need to call it out as bullshit because misinformation makes my job harder.
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The things I have learned by transcribing have really stuck with me. The things I learned off the sheet I tend to forget. Also, when I learn by transcribing, I am usually figuring out the "why" behind the material much more than when I learn off the sheet.
I've yet to meet anyone worth listening to who hasn't learned most of their stuff by ear. The ear is really important, and transcribing trains the ear much more than learning off a sheet - I mean, that should be obvious.
The really useful part of trancribing comes into play after the solo/phrase/etc has been learned - when we move the material around, play with it, try to make it our own. It's just so much easier to do that with material learned by ear. I also find that after learning something by ear (say a tricky head), if I fudge a bit while playing, I can still hang in there, rather than getting totally lost. I can usually just drop back in, because my ear still knows what it's listening for.
To those who are against transcribing: with all due respect, can you play? I mean, can you really play? Because if you're speaking from experience as someone who learned how to really play well without transcribing, then that's interesting information. But otherwise, I think I'd rather trust what's worked for the pros. No shortcuts!
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I think you just like having the last word. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
I've transcribed stuff, and don't see what the fuss is about. It didn't super charge my ears or give me more understanding than any other tune I have learned, and listened to closely.
My time is limited. I have a job and family. I would rather learn more songs in less time, or work out my own arrangement. There are many things that I find more useful than spending a year transcribing "Over the Rainbow". Using your limited time efficiently is not taking short cuts.
This is especially important for beginners. Get fifty tunes learned any way you can. Then you can start worrying about whether to transcribe or not.
I'm sorry Mr. Beaumont, but it is my job to protect internet jazz forums from your dangerous opinions!
Now please leave this thread and do not return.
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You can learn tunes without transcribing. You're being hard headed.
For the umpteenth time, the value in transcription, or copping licks, or whatever you call it, is not in the end result of having a neat tidy copy of music to play as written.
I don't know why that's so hard for you to understand.
But you want shortcuts....you were the guy who wanted to make a website denoting chords and their order of importance, right?
There are no shortcuts in learning jazz.
For the record, I have a job and family too. What's the rush?Last edited by mr. beaumont; 08-28-2012 at 11:16 PM.
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Yesterday i "transcribed" (just learned to play by ear) the intro from Nothing To Nobody by Robben Ford. I love this song and i needed to learn.
If i didn't do it, i would never thought that he used more than pentatonics
I could always have saved time and learn from paper, but i find i pay more attention to details and dinamics when i learn by ear. Plus i'm training my ear and i learned to play the same intro using more than one place on the fingerboard.
I'm still beginner in this, but my ear is getting better every day. I stopped studying for a while because i'll start with a teacher in a month, so i'm just learning things by ear right now. Nothing more.
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Have we properly discussed the difference between reading already transcribed solos and actually transcribing them by ear? I've done both, of course, and think that most people on this forum have as well. It's chalk and cheese. Doing it by ear indeed takes way longer. But therein lies the benefit. It stays with you longer! You go to sleep humming it. You wake up humming it. For days.
When you read it, even if you play it a number of times, it doesn't stay with you as much. The thing that sticks around is not just the way you play it once it's learned, but the way you hear it from the original. You hear the way Wes articulates, or how Benson attacks, or how Bird phrases, or how Dexter ducks and weaves. It replays in your mind thousands of times. It sinks in deep.
That's when you start to understand Jazz. Like any other kinda language, it really is "monkey see, monkey do". Point to one, just one great player in Jazz- on any instrument - that didn't learn this way!
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Thomas Owens wrote a book called "BEBOP: The Music and its Players." He devotes a lot of space to Charlie Parker and lists (in order) his most common licks /phrases. It's a good book, and covers guitar players, though not in the depth he gives Parker and other horn players (-which is appropriate).
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There's a conversation to be had on balancing transcribing (working on absorbing someone else's language/style) vs developing your own. I've known great players that advocate strongly for each side (Lets say Leibman and Goodrick) That's a very different conversation than asserting that a far superior way to absorb someone's else's language is by going to Mel Bay books rather than doing the transcribing yourself. I've never heard any reputable educator advocate that. Even the guys who do the books suggest that they're best used to correct your own efforts after you attempt to transcribe the solo yourself
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Cool article on Jazz Advice on transcribing...
Your assumptions about what to transcribe
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Oh, very good point. I know what you mean. I write fiction, and in a fit of passion, I once typed an entire John Updike novel into my 386 PC's word processor. Took weeks. Did it make me a better writer? Probably in some ethereal, inexplicable sense - but not really. But it made me richer somehow. To observe every word, every turn of phrase, as it had come to the master's mind (given editing, of course) - was really something. I've since copied countless short fiction pieces (my big love), and with each, I feel I've grown, somehow, by that much. Maybe this is a good case for transcribing? Originally Posted by HighSpeedSpoon
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I think Larry Brown started this way, though I think he wrote things out in longhand. A great exercise---and sometimes a great writing prompt---involves taking a few sentences by different writers, writing them down, then writing sentences with the same form (-noun for noun, verb for verb, and so on) but different content. It can be eye-opening. Originally Posted by Kojo27
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Here we go on a cool tangent - yikes. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
I did several short fiction classics in long-hand, and have to say that taught me more than typing the novel. Longhand slows you down and you can feel every letter of every word come from your hand. It does something to your brain that typing doesn't do.
Emulating sentence structures: yes! Have done a bit of that, too! James Joyce, Faulkner, Joyce Carol Oates... some others. Fun stuff.Last edited by Kojo27; 09-21-2012 at 08:40 PM. Reason: foot-ectomy
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(I scanned through so I might have missed it if someone spoke on this point.) When you are transcribing it isn't about just the notes in the solo that you are transcribing(at least I hope not). All these solos are going over chord, rhythm and harmony changes. It is how the solo corresponds with these other actions that combine in real time creating a cohesive whole and a unique experience based on the players. That is why I think using your ear training, notation skills, rhythm training and concentration to transcribe can be very helpful.
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I agree that longhand is different. I prefer to write that way. I journal (-when I do it) in long hand. I take notes when I read books though I'm not in school anymore. Writing sentences down helps me remember them. I also hear them more clearly in my head. I type a lot but it's not the same. I don't like to compose on a computer. (I have, and will again, but I prefer longhand.) Originally Posted by Kojo27
Not that this has anything to do with the guitar---well, it does: the guitar is a hand-extensive excursion!
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Kojo, I don't know many other serious writers who also play jazz guitar. (I'm sure there are many, but like Duke, I don't get around much anymore...) Anyway, I sometimes think that one reason I've always had trouble with my picking (---no matter how I grip the pick, it moves around and renders me inconsistent) is that I spent so much more time as a kid WRITING (-with a pen) than picking. Lately I put the pick on my second finger instead of the index. It feels pretty natural, though I don't know that I'll keep at it. You ever have any issues with picking that might relate to holding a pen so much? Curiously......
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I'd never thought about it from this angle, Mark - but as I've said elsewhere, I quit playing for 18 years, came back to it and almost as if by magic, I could use a flatpick, whereas before, I was definitely pick-challenged. I never really felt in control of the thing. Then I wrote for 18 years and VOILA. Probably no correlation, but it's worth thinking about! Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
I've heard guitar teachers (in books, etc.) saying that writing with a pen is sometimes similar to picking - with the circular gyrations of the fingers. Beats me. When I came back to guitar, I had a whopper of a big callus (corn?) on my first knuckle, middle finger. Not sure what this could have done.
Interesting, Mark. : )
kj
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Yeah, I have that same callous. I don't mind holding a pick the conventional way but it moves around on me. I tried the Benson way, but I wind up with the pick straight up and down, so I'm rubbing the strings. (My thumb cocks all the way back.) Heck, if I could pick fast with my thumb, I wouldn't use a pick at all. But...
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You make many good points, and I would have agreed with you at one time. Transcribing is time consuming, tedious, and frustrating. The main thing you miss though is that a solo is not a collection of licks, or at least a good solo isn't IMHO. Licks are the way many of us start off, and you can sound pretty authentic, at least to an untrained ear.
Putting aside the obvious importance of learning the jazz language, (which to an extent can be learned from books etc), by transcribing a solo you are gaining a valuable insight into how the soloist is thinking. What are they trying to convey to the listener (or to themselves)? Are you being pulled into a groove, or thrown off with something unexpected, like a sudden rhythmical deviation from a groove. Why did the soloist do that? Was he/she trying to hold you attention, drawn you in, or keep you in a state of anticipation? What was the emotional effect on you? Was is rewarding?
If you look at a solo as story, or a painting you'll find elements that you may have otherwise taken for granted. A slow beginning, a build up or climax, a phrase that tells you the statement is finished, contrasts in rhythm, tempo, volume, range, space and so on are all part of a solo. You can hear them of course, but that if for listeners. As a player you might want the record to stop so you breakdown the various components into digestible parts, and incorporate some of the ideas into your own playing. You can then tell the story in your own way.
You also gain an insight into the processes of improvising. How does one idea lead to another. What devices are sometimes used as thinking space. How to create on the spot with the simplest of devices.
If gifted enough, you could go your own way, and play the way you think is important, based on what you consider jazz improvisation to be about. For most of us mere mortals, it's a task in itself to cope with just the above.
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As with the "transcribing benefits" cited in the rest of your post, I still don't see why these benefits are missing from someone else's clear, accurate transcription, and why the student can't reap the same rewards from learning the solo that way - from a book. I can look at Stan Ayeroff's transcription of a Charlie Christian solo and know that "...a solo is not a collection of licks..." -- for the "spontaneous composition" is right there in musical notation, and I can hear it and see it as I play, or even before I play, if my ear is advanced enough. Originally Posted by vsaumarez
Seems to me. Just my opinion.
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I think you can gain a lot from a transcription that has already been done for you. But there's not doubt you will gain a little more if you do it yourself. Have you ever tried it?
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