Transcribe No More! (by Mel Bay)

[jasonc]

I believe I've said this in previous posts but I'll say it again. I think the real value of transcribing is not to get licks and phrases but rather cultivating the ability to hear something and then find it on your instrument. Written transcriptions don't teach you that. My goal for improvising is to play what I hear. Transcribing (lifting stuff off of records not always writing it down) has helped me to do that. YMMV......

[coolvinny]

I think you can quickly and accurately find the value in transcribing with a simple experiment.

Take a lick from a record and learn it by ear. Shed it for a couple days.

Then, take a similar lick from a transcription book and learn it off the sheet. Shed it for a couple days.

Now, don't play either one for about a week, then come back and try playing each of them. See which one you (a) can 'remember' better and (b) sounds more musical when you play it...basically, which one has 'become a part of you' to a greater degree?

[Kojo27]

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?

Yes, I've tried it, and done it; and I agree that if you have't yet learned how to hear a passage (or single note) and know where it is on the fingerboard, then transcribing by ear will have to help, but it's taking the long, hard road. There are far better (and easier) ways of doing this -- solfege for one. There's no need, necessarily, to listen and then fish about until you've found it on the neck, and then capture it by writing it down. If you're talking about bebop, your ear is going to have to be awesome to transcribe without an instrument, but it can be learned and there are those who do it. Transcribing heads to standards, or transcribing straight-ahead blues/rock solos, etc., without a guitar, is fairly common, I'd think, among formally trained musicians.

Not saying I can do it - so don't y'all jump my ass: I'm just making a point about a thing that's true, imho, in general. I *can* learn simple-to-intermediate licks/solos without a guitar, however. It's much faster to read someone else's transcription, of course. Whatever turns yer crank -- but I think the time spent puzzling out every single note of a Bird tune would be better spent learning solfege (teach yourself to fish.)

[Kojo27]

I think you can quickly and accurately find the value in transcribing with a simple experiment.

Take a lick from a record and learn it by ear. Shed it for a couple days.

Then, take a similar lick from a transcription book and learn it off the sheet. Shed it for a couple days.

Now, don't play either one for about a week, then come back and try playing each of them. See which one you (a) can 'remember' better and (b) sounds more musical when you play it...basically, which one has 'become a part of you' to a greater degree?

Because? Look at how much more TIME you've spent with the notes learned from a recording. If it took four hours to learn, then ask how much better the "book lick" would stick with you if you'd spent four hours singing it, playing it one and two notes at a time, singing it again, two more notes, sing, play, take it from the top, play one note then two, then three then four, back to one, two, etc. For four hours - I think you'd know the thing pretty well.

[coolvinny]

Because? Look at how much more TIME you've spent with the notes learned from a recording. If it took four hours to learn, then ask how much better the "book lick" would stick with you if you'd spent four hours singing it, playing it one and two notes at a time, singing it again, two more notes, sing, play, take it from the top, play one note then two, then three then four, back to one, two, etc. For four hours - I think you'd know the thing pretty well.

Perhaps I should have been more clear. I should have said "you can quickly and accurately determine if transcribing has value to you with a simple experiment...." I was just making the point that rather than having academic discussions on this topic, try it for yourself and see which one seems to be more useful. If learning from the sheet is working from you, then by all means stick to it.

[jasonc]

Yes, I've tried it, and done it; and I agree that if you have't yet learned how to hear a passage (or single note) and know where it is on the fingerboard, then transcribing by ear will have to help, but it's taking the long, hard road. There are far better (and easier) ways of doing this -- solfege for one. There's no need, necessarily, to listen and then fish about until you've found it on the neck, and then capture it by writing it down. If you're talking about bebop, your ear is going to have to be awesome to transcribe without an instrument, but it can be learned and there are those who do it. Transcribing heads to standards, or transcribing straight-ahead blues/rock solos, etc., without a guitar, is fairly common, I'd think, among formally trained musicians.

Not saying I can do it - so don't y'all jump my ass: I'm just making a point about a thing that's true, imho, in general. I *can* learn simple-to-intermediate licks/solos without a guitar, however. It's much faster to read someone else's transcription, of course. Whatever turns yer crank -- but I think the time spent puzzling out every single note of a Bird tune would be better spent learning solfege (teach yourself to fish.)

Who said anything about trying to ear out Bird without an instrument? That might be a useful skill for an arranger but less so for an improviser. I had plenty of Solfege in college and I really don't see how that is faster than just listening to Bird (if you're trying to learn bebop) with a guitar in hand. I think about it like this. When you're on the bandstand and you want to start your solo by finishing the lick the sax player left off with, how do you practice that? By listening and playing what you hear. I certainly don't think of it like "Oh, the sax player just left off with sol, fa, me, mi, do.". Also, I don't think quantity is necessarily better in this instance. Think about how much music Bach could make out of a tiny motive. One lick learned forwards and backwards over differing harmonic situations is better than trying to make it through 50 ii V licks. I should know because I only have three licks.

[vsaumarez]

So what are the benefits of transcribing as opposed to using someone else's transcription: (This is by no means a definitive list and neither does it decry other methods)

1) Obvious oral training (well covered in other posts)
2) It's not what is played, but how it is played (dynamics, idiosyncrasies, technique, tone, forms of expression and emotions)
3) The effect the music has on you as you listen to it, will effect how you interpret what you learn.
4) Greater intimacy with, and understanding of the soloist, shared through his/her use of tone, dynamics, spaces, energy, individual technique)
5) Sense of achievement and reward
6) Improved notation skills
7) A greater inward digestion that will transform and develop your inner ear, creating maturity and depth of expression in your playing.

[Tony_C]

After reading the first page, seeing the total number of pages and not reading them all, I don't know that I can contribute much but I will try.

As has been said there is the distinction between writing it down and not writing it down. The term transcribe literally refers to the process of writing it down from the record, however it is very commonly used to refer to simply learning it by ear. I will go with that. The writing down part very clearly helps with your notational skills and makes it easier to analyze once you have it down on paper. I think it is great to learn notation, but it is not necessary for everyone. You can understand music on a theoretical level without using notation.

I think most of the greats who learned from 'transcribing' were not writing it down. They just picked up quite a bit from record. I don't think it matters much anyway.

I think the big things are number 2, 3, 4 and 7 of what vsaumarez stated. A lot of idiosyncrasies are not notated in many transcriptions and some are just too subtle to write all of. If you choose to play them along with the recording you now have the choice to go in and try to match those if you'd like, but you would have learned the nuances if you picked up yourself by ear.

I find playing someone's solo a long with them and trying to match their articulation (regardless of learning it by ear or notation) has been tremendously beneficial to me. You get the actual feeling of 'playing something great', of playing a long line over changes, playing something super bluesy, playing something rocking, whatever it may be. It doesn't matter that you didn't come up with it, you now have that visceral experience.

Matching their time and idiosyncrasies will in turn do great things for your time and your articulations. After an hour of sitting down and copping bits and pieces of various Grant Green tracks I found myself changed for good as a player. I had absorbed some of Grant Greens Greenness because I physically felt it, the staccato touch and all that. Likewise with Scofield. Being that painstakingly close to the music, slowed down, trying to nail it exactly, I started understanding those things that gave him such a distinct sound and attack on the instrument (his ever so slight bends on notes and careful dynamics being a huge part).

In short:

Is learning other people's solos important? Absolutely! Vocab, feel, fun, etc.
Is learning it by ear important? I think it will be more beneficial for you in the long run, but there is so much damn music and so many cool licks and ideas and all that out there that there is nothing wrong with just learning it from someone else's transcription.
Is writing it down important? If you want to get real good at notation and you find it easier to analyze on paper then certainly.

Gotta train that ear. There are tons of ways to do it, I think learning by ear is one of the best ways, and is worth doing at least every now and then.

And as someone mentioned that is the kind of ear training that will help you the most on stage when for example you want to start your solo with the phrase the sax player ended on.

[Kojo27]

Word. The thread is cyclical - next we'll hear from the "Let's-conjure-up-excuses-for-not-doing-the-work" apologists who will again toss up the red herring that "so-and-so said he never wrote anything down, so he didn't really transcribe..." The bottom line here is deep aural immersion, which transcription doles out in spades.

It's all good though - nobody's got a gun to their heads. Don't do the work - but you can't reap what you don't sow.

+1

At the same time, regarding sitting hunched over a manuscript tab for a good chunk of our lives -- it just isn't absolutely necessary. Jim Hall, Tal Farlow, Julian Lage, yes, Rosenwinkle, Mick Goodrick, on and on -- don't/didn't transcribe and, in the case of Lage, Rosenwinkle (I get from an acquaintance who knows him), Farlow, and Goodrick - they've stated they don't want to be transcribed, that time is better spent working out one's own licks. The spirit of the music, any music, is in "deep aural immersion." Good term. One can get to that point via more than one route, I think. How many reams of paper did Django use up? None. But I bet you that music never stopped playing in his head.

[mr. beaumont]

Again..."transcibe" is often a term loosely used to mean "cop licks." We can bandy dictionary definitions about and make them mean whatever we want. This is about connotation, not denotation.

Also again, Jim Hall plays Bird's bridge note for note on the '75 version of "Scrapple," and plays a whole Christian solo on that blues tune on "Dedications and inspirations." He learned them somehow, and not by magic.

Man, we like to argue about non-issues here sometimes.

[Kojo27]

Word. The thread is cyclical - next we'll hear from the "Let's-conjure-up-excuses-for-not-doing-the-work" apologists who will again toss up the red herring that "so-and-so said he never wrote anything down, so he didn't really transcribe..." The bottom line here is deep aural immersion, which transcription doles out in spades.

It's all good though - nobody's got a gun to their heads. Don't do the work - but you can't reap what you don't sow.

I agree with the spirit of this, but it has nothing to do with the thread. Nothing, naught, zip. This post itself is a red herring. The question is, what's wrong with learning jazz (or any music) from someone else's transcription? And if you haven't read the thread (I know it's long), then please, let's not write it al over again!

[jasonc]

What is going on with this place. Everybody gets all riled up at the drop of hat these days. This is very simple. Learning solos off of a page and learning them off of records are both learning. They just work different muscles so to speak. Being afraid of not having a unique voice is a pretty tired excuse to avoid transcribing/lifting off of records/copping licks/whateverthehellyouwannacallit. You will still develop your own voice because if you learn some lines by Stitt then some Chet Baker then some Wynton Kelly you are the only one who will combine them like you do. You are the only one who will play them like you do. Then presto change-o you have a voice like nobody else.

[Tony_C]

What is going on with this place. Everybody gets all riled up at the drop of hat these days. This is very simple. Learning solos off of a page and learning them off of records are both learning. They just work different muscles so to speak. Being afraid of not having a unique voice is a pretty tired excuse to avoid transcribing/lifting off of records/copping licks/whateverthehellyouwannacallit.

This here.

There is value in both.

I think you will become a copy-cat only if that is what you seek. In addition if your transcription material turns into the bulk of your vocabulary you will indeed not sound like yourself. The art of varying a melody is an important part of improvising, so the process of making an idea copped from another player 'yours' is good training for that.

I'm glad you mentioned Julian. He is also my favorite player nowadays. While it may be true that he hasn't transcribed a solo or some such (be it written down or not) I'm sure he has still learned many a thing off of a record.

I think it is nice to practice other people's solos too because as I mentioned before you get to feel what it is like to 'play a great solo'. It is just as good of an idea to write out your own solos as well.

The biggest benefits are clearly working your ears and extracting what you can from the material. The lesson from Lage in question is this:

He talks about the lick around 1 minute in. From a small melodic excerpt you can learn a lot of new things about contour, melodic cells (and linking them), playing against the harmony, phrasing and all kinds of good stuff. In a way I try to take out the 'generic musical information', the stuff that I can then take and translate into my own way of doing things.

There is also another good reason to transcribe (learning it by ear not writing it down). Because you like it and it sounds cool! Haha.

Also: I think it does wonders for your time trying to play along with a recording especially if you're playing the same thing as the record in question.

[jtizzle]

There are many, many points in your post; I can't respond to all of them, so let's take this one. I don't see any real similarities here. But you say "just like," so what about transcribing is "just like" going to college? Aren't you assuming, for your own argument's sake, that they are both good and almost necessary things? Again, maybe I'm wrong.

By "both" you mean both transcribing and going to college?
I don't think they are all "necessary" things, but they do improve your chances at doing what you want to do, transcribing to be a better player and college to make more money. Just as there are many millionaires who didnt go to college, there are many musicians that don't transcribe. I'm not aware of any musician studies of this type, but it's a fact that going to college improves your chances at making money compared to not going to college. In a sense, not going to college to be a millionaire decreases your chances to become one. Not saying it's impossible, but it opens up doors. That's a completely different argument, though and just used it for the sake of an analogy.

In response to smokinguit. We're not trying to be monetary millionaires, no. But you want your playing to have the value of a million dollars I guess. I'm just defending the fact that every professional musician I personally know, and many I don't know but have investigated, have done some transcribing in their life.
Again, I'm not against reading, it is also a necessary aspect of your playing. But if I'm going to read something, I'd rather read something meant for reading. I love practicing Bach inventions, which is great to pick up from a sheet, but jazz has always been more about the ear, so I do support transcribing (whatever your definition of transcribing be) against reading solos.

Jason, I don't think anyone is getting riled up, haha. I look at this as a fun debate to a heavily argued subject. It's not the first time I've debated this topic. If i did ever come off as offensive it was meant as sarcastic humor.

[Kojo27]

By "both" you mean both transcribing and going to college?
I don't think they are all "necessary" things, but they do improve your chances at doing what you want to do, transcribing to be a better player and college to make more money. Just as there are many millionaires who didnt go to college, there are many musicians that don't transcribe. I'm not aware of any musician studies of this type, but it's a fact that going to college improves your chances at making money compared to not going to college. In a sense, not going to college to be a millionaire decreases your chances to become one. Not saying it's impossible, but it opens up doors. That's a completely different argument, though and just used it for the sake of an analogy.

Thank you for the wish to keep it a "fun debate!" God bless you!!!

I'm barely still in this thing, and I'm practically (almost) playing devil's advocate when I say that, as far as I know, it's never been shown in any sort of reliable test that transcribing improves your chances of becoming *anything,* except a better transcriber - and there ain't much of an audience for that. Of course, the efficacy of direct transcribing would be a hard thing to prove or disprove. Musicians who do it are naturally going to give it great credit, if for no other reason than that their time won't seem wasted. Mick Goodrick (judging from what I've heard; I don't know him) swears against it -- saying there are far better ways to spend one's limited time.

This is an important point - VERY important, even. I do not doubt that transcribing has beneficial effects - of course it does. However, the question isn't, "Is it a good use of our time," but is rather, "Is it the best use of our time?" Won't (just for example) methodical ear training and then jamming over tracks with, say, quarter notes, until you can "pre-hear" everything -- won't this (or some exercise, whatever) make you a better musician?

Thank you Jonzo, wherever you are, for that basic idea.

I don't know; I'm not claiming this is true - it's just an example, a "suppose." We're left to ask such questions because no one knows for sure that the amount of time required for transcribing (recordings to paper) is more helpful than any other way of spending that substantial time. I don't think anyone would question that much can be learned from close scrutiny and analysis of someone else's transcription. And look at the time saved. Perhaps one could analyze and learn to sing back 5 "Mel Bay" transcriptions in the time it takes to transcribe 1 for yourself. Which use of time would be more valuable?

I think we need to examine what others did - absolutely. I'm just not convinced that direct transcription is worth all that time. Transcriptions abound. And the ear can be trained more thoroughly, and faster, by other means.

kj

[jtizzle]

Well, technically there have never been tests of transcribe vs read, so I can say theres no test that shows reading is superior either. What I do go by, as I've said in about all my posts, is the amount of world class musicians have personally told me they spent a lot of time transcribing and that I need to transcribe. I took a lesson with Adam Rogers thursday (which is why I've mentioned him a few times already). And the thing he told me I need to do more importantly than anything is to do it, and that was the thing he would spend the
most time on. That goes for many other musicians on his level and above.

I just kind of rather transcribe jazz and read classical stuff. Jazz is something that comes more from the ear, so I use my ear for that. Classical compositions involve a guy sitting down for hours or days or weeks or months or years in order to write the piece, it's something meant to be read because it's perfection to the sight (in the composers standards).

But anyways, my main thing with transcribing is the ear training you get with it. Eventually with transcribing you can get to really figuring lines or changes almost instantly. And some examples of this result are on Miles Davis My Funny Valentine, George Coleman's reharmonizes some of the changes into Coltrane changes towards the end of his solo, and the whole band instantly goes in with him.
I've started to really get some results with my ear training and it's just really cool to go to a jam session and really improvise with your comping, like hear a melody in the bass, or the sax, and bass your comping melody instantly on that melody you just heard. It makes it a lot more fun.

[Kojo27]

Well, technically there have never been tests of transcribe vs read, so I can say theres no test that shows reading is superior either. What I do go by, as I've said in about all my posts, is the amount of world class musicians have personally told me they spent a lot of time transcribing and that I need to transcribe.

The point here (and of the OP) isn't "which is superior" as a way of becoming a better improviser. It's "Since we can get reams of transcribed solos from Mel Bay, and others, does the huge amount of time spent directly transcribing pay off in comparison to using that huge amount of time for something else?"

You gotta keep in mind that "the greats" didn't have such ready access to so many accurate, cheap transcriptions, and they HAD to do it themselves. The computer age brought a boom in transcriptions-for-sale. Probably as few as 15 years ago it wasn't easy to find practically anything.

Too, we must always keep in mind what strong creatures of habit we are, and how fearful of change, and how slow to change. For centuries, marathon runners trained by going out and running a marathon - frequently. Or something equally as idiotic, I guarantee you. We know now that this is insane. But not to Joe Runner of 1850! All the great runners told him - and they're great. There's little doubt that those who ran the crazy runs were in better shape and beat out any who didn't run daily, or at all... you can see my point. Seeing how "they" did it is better than not. But is the copping itself necessary? I don't know. But I suspect it's at least overrated.

kj

[JazzinNY]

Might as well add my 2 cents:

Transcribing is an intimate experience that brings you closer to the musician you're transcribing. Heck, my whole journey into jazz guitar was inspired by a Metheny quote that he started by spending a year transcribing a Miles Davis album. I thought, "I can do that", even if I don't understand all the theoretical stuff you hear when trying to get some jazz instruction.

Transcribing is so basic and time-tested, I can't imagine not doing it.

That said -- while I have yet to find any value in full printed transcriptions, I have taken to using 2 excellent books which are in essence collections of licks: Ted Greene's Single Note book vol. 1, and Martino's Linear Expressions.

I can see the point of the OP, that you can go straight to this language and by repeatedly playing it, gradually work it into your own playing.