Transcribe No More! (by Mel Bay)

[Kojo27]

I see how transcribing solos will help you play them. You have the notes in front of you then on paper. Can see them.

But really, in a lot of cases, by the time you get it right and on paper, or on the screen, don't you already know it by memory? You don't need the transcription any more.

Now I also get it that the work of listening so hard is good training for hearing. But there are far better ways! Faster, more useful, more methodical.

What I don't get is the attitudes of so many players who look at transcribing solos as almost more important than anything. You MUST do it, they'll say sometimes.

Because: it will take your playing to the NEXT LEVEL. Every guitar book, video, website, private teacher, quack religion, health food, new car, brand of jeans, Gypsy pick, anything salable, will take your playing [or anything else] to the next damned level. The NEXT LEVEL. Transcribe your way straight there! Now!

These things:

• Jazz is about composing music (on the spot, whatever.)
• Jazz is also about licks: we have licks we love to fall back on. Nothing wrong with that. It's how jazz is played, in part anyway. Faster the tempos, the more it becomes licks? Maybe?
• At any rate, it seems that the more licks we know, the better off we'll be as jazz players.
• Question is, WHY do students have to learn these licks by the slow, plodding process of transcribing? Why can't we learn the several times the stuff from folios of already-transcribed solos, and save countless hours of tedious work? We'd have the same end result to study; we could learn the licks and analyse them. With the time saved, we could learn 10x as many, and practice them until they're part of how we hear, and how we play. We have to hear it before we can play it; so how does it matter where the transcription of the lick came from? Why does it even need to be transcribed? Learn it by ear and find it on the guitar - learn it that way. Your dad shows you the lick, maybe - what's the difference?

The intense listening improves your ear? Is that all? That's it?

Umm... there are ear-training methods that work similarly to tried and true "drill exercises" - or to various accelerated learning methods - some might say there are far better ways of ear training than transcribing guitar solos.

Do it because it's how "the greats did it?" Who? Charlie Christian? Django? Wes Montgomery? Joe Pass?

Maybe many of the greats did transcribe - but they had few if any folios, or collections, of solos already transcribed and clearly presented. Some say the younger guitarists transcribe less and less - some not at all, ever.

So: why? What can you get from transcribing that you can't get by learning the solo - or individual licks - from Matt Warnock's guitar site, or from a Mel Bay book?

Why spend the time when Mel Bay and others have done it for us?

[Lambosoa]

Very pertinent question, and some quite interesting points.

I'll start with what I disagree with: I don't think learning licks in isolation is a good approach; it's better to understand the 'structure' that a great musician used in some awesome solo and how each lick fits inside that structure. That's why it's a great learning method to try and reproduce a whole solo by ear.

Otherwise, I tend to agree that transcribing can be a bit of an overkill: as you said by the time you get it right, you generally have it already memorized.

However, not everyone is very good at memorizing. Actually, according to my anecdotical personal observation, memorization seems to be the skill that a large majority of musicians - even some great pros - struggle the most to acquire, if they ever do. Plus, the more quantity of material you work on, the more likely you are to forget some, so the transcription avoids you to do the work twice in case you forget.

Another thing, if you're a music theory freak, is that written notes allow easier analysis.

[holgit]

A few days before I decided to start transcribing solos of Jimmy Bruno and Ulf Wakenius. I did this after purchasing and reading Matt Warnock's ebook - 30 days to better jazz guitar.

One of my weak points while improvising over a tune is the phrasing. I've practised it for a few years now and there is a progress. But it is still far away from what I would call tastefully.

I've never really transcribed a difficult tune or part of a tune. I can sing nice lines over a tune, but when I start to play the lines are gone - I can't hold them in my memory. That are my goals for the transcribing (hearing, memorizing, playing ... at least writing): better phrasing, better memorizing of nice lines.

[fep]

Van_Jazz,

Well thought out and good points.

I think one other topic is how do we learn to phrase in a jazz way. It's an illusive and delicate thing, hard to teach and probably not given enough attention (at least by me). But, that benefit could also be achieved by starting with someone elses transcription and then looping phrases from the original recording and playing with the recording.

From a pure logic standpoint this statement doesn't hold water:

Player A is great and did a ton of transcribing, therefore if you do a lot of transcribing you'll be a great player.

Again from a logic standpoint it's no more valid than:

Player A is great and is a Scientologist, therefore if you become a Scientologist you'll be a great player.

Or,

Player A is great and was breastfeed, therefore if you were breastfeed you'll be a great player.

___________________

The person that I know that has done way more transcribing than anyone I know, well... let's just say it didn't seem to make him a strong player or improve his playing and I can't even hear the influence of all that transcribing.

Given that, it would still not be logical to jump to the conclusion:

Player A is weak and did a ton of transcribing, therefore if you do a lot of transcribing you'll be a weak player.

I've just always thought the transcribing argument was flawed logic. I believe George Benson would still be great whether he did a lot of transcribing or not (I actually have no idea if he was big on transcribing when he learned).

One has to experiment and evolve their practice routine, it's a constant experiment to discover what is best.

Interesting topic, thanks for bringing it up.

BTW, I do some transcribing.

[mr. beaumont]

Transcribing isn't just about copping a lick.

Seeing it on paper helps me analyze it.

I don't write a lot down, unless it's a longer complex line that i need to cop in chunks...but when i come across something i don't understand, i write it down so i can analyze it later.

I think when a lot of folks say "all the greats transcribed" it might mean different things...i'm sure some players kept little notebooks full of ideas, while others simply stuck to the timeless process of lifting licks and assimilating them into their own playing.

[Ozymandias]

As a transcribing sceptic, I'm pleased to see the case against being intelligently made. We tend to hear only one side of this argument and it's good to get some balance. In the final analysis it's difficult if not impossible to prove whether doing lots of transcribing is more valuable than other learning approaches. Certainly some world class players (Scofield is one iirc) say they haven't spent much time transcribing so it can hardly be argued to be essential.

My baby steps on the instrument were made largely by transcribing because back then there were so few other resources for the styles I wanted to play (blues and rock). No teachers, no transcriptions, very few books and those generally of marginal relevance or poor quality. You tried to put the needle on the record to catch the bit you were trying to play and then tried to duplicate the sound on your instrument, over and over. My own sense is that although this produced good results it was painfully slow and inefficient. I'm convinced I'd be a much better player now if I'd had access to the kind of learning materials taken for granted nowadays.

[M-ster]

My baby steps on the instrument were made largely by transcribing because back then there were so few other resources for the styles I wanted to play (blues and rock). No teachers, no transcriptions, very few books and those generally of marginal relevance or poor quality. You tried to put the needle on the record to catch the bit you were trying to play and then tried to duplicate the sound on your instrument, over and over. My own sense is that although this produced good results it was painfully slow and inefficient. I'm convinced I'd be a much better player now if I'd had access to the kind of learning materials taken for granted nowadays.

Much of this parallels my own experience. But, I don't think this stuff just falls out of us on its own. We hear music that excites us, we want to make those sounds, and we emulate what attracted us in the first place. That involves some kind of inspection and study. As we are drawn in, we question why things "work" and begin to acquire theory and methodology.

If written transcription facilitates the process for an individual, why wouldn't they use it? If not, why bother?

Personally, transcription has deepened my appreciation for those artists that already attracted me with their sounds and has led to deeper insights into the music and art. For me, there's no question that transcription is invaluable.

But, YMMV, of course.

[mr. beaumont]

And perhaps one of the most important aspects of transcribing is the very deep listening it requires...

[jasonc]

I have to disagree with transcribing being inefficient. It's the one thing that is the most like playing, reacting to what is being played by another musician in real-time with an instrument in your hands. I also agree with Jeff that transcribing isn't all about lifting licks. I don't how many times I've sat down to lift something I thought was a cool lick to find out that it's nothing special harmonically but rather it's how it was phrased or accented that made the lick work. It is great for ear training and I can't think of a better way to train your ear. I had sight-singing and solfege in college and while it was helpful I don't think being able to sing intervals out of the blue is as useful as being able to hear your bandmate play something and you being able to play it back. One of the coolest things about jazz is the musical interaction on stage. When transcribing I always sing the line I'm trying to learn and then play what I'm singing. Plus I remember a lot more of the things I transcribed myself than than stuff I got off of somebody else's transcriptions.

[docbop]

Transcribing teaches many things if done right. Ear training, ear-fretboard relationship. Then rhythmic practice and as you analyze what you transcribe rhythmic placement of certain notes. Learn theory as you analyze what notes were play against what chord, relation of chords seeing what came before and after the section in particular. Technique and fretboard knowledge working out fingerings especially as you start taking that transcription into other keys. All this is building muscle and ear memory so you can get on the bandstand and "forget it all and play".

Also building your sightreading vocabulary when you write down the transcribed phrases.

So if doing a complete job when transcribing you learning like the masters did, except they didn't have computers, CD's and so on. They went to clubs, and jams, listened to radio and memorized lines then went home and transcribed them, then compared notes with other musicians.

[jtizzle]

I look at transcribing as the body weight training of working out, for guitar. It works every aspect of your playing, although it doesn't peak the effort put, but it helps a lot.

Transcribing works for:
- Reading: It's actually backwards reading, you have to take the notes from your fretboard and put them on paper. Rhythms are also more difficult to transcribe (write out) than to read them from a piece of paper.
- Technique: Some solos are really out there technically.
- Improvising: Learning how to play how someone else played is a great way to know how to make changes, not even by learning licks, but by getting the sound of how making changes in lines sound.

I know those three you can really work by reading the solo out as well, but then there's the

- Ear Training: Of course there are better ear training exercises (such as the Charlie Banacos exercises), as well as there being better reading exercises (something that is not 85% 8th notes i.e. Charlie Parker), technique exercises (classical etudes), or improvising exercises (free improvising or restricted improvising, among other things).
Transcribing works as well as the Banacos exercises, I believe, Banacos exercises helps to identify voicings, whereas Transcribing helps you hear lines. On a gig or jam session situation, you need to be able to do both, but you're gonna spend more time listening to solos than playing one, therefore as guitarists, you need to be able to hear lines as well, or even better than how you hear voicings, because you need to be able to react on the spot to whatever the soloist is playing.


The thing is, I don't transcribe as much as I should, but the young players DO transcribe more than you think. Lage Lund, Jonathan Kreisberg, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Julian Lage, ect. The only player I've heard who claims he's never transcribed is Jim Hall, which I highly doubt is true.

The thing about being a good jazz player is you need to do everything. That includes both, transcribing AND reading solos. They both help different things, but there are no shortcuts.

[MarkRhodes]

I write songs, so when I put notes on paper, they're usually something I came up with. I have stumbled on things---'hey, that was cool--what the heck was it? O yeah, that's that thing Kenny Burrell does in "Back at the Chicken Shack"---and then written them down, but I've never gotten that far transcribing cold. I think we should be cautious in how much transcribing we assume early jazz musicians did. (If a guy dies and among his effects one finds twenty volumes of meticulous transcriptions of solos by many player, then yeah, he did a lot of it, but I don't recall reading anywhere that Louis Armstrong made a habit of this, or Charlie Parker, or Charlie Christian. It would be hard to name three more significant jazz soloists!)

That doesn't mean I am AGAINST it. Frankly, I don't know how anyone could be against doing it, though I think a strong case could be made for the proposition that it is not necessary. Yes, it helps one's reading ability, but many fine readers neither transcribe nor compose--they just, well

I am assuming here the distinction between transcribing and learning from a record. If you write down what you learn, you are transcribing, but if you just play it, you are not. Lots of players pick up things through hearing that they don't need to write down. (Lots of players pick up things they THINK they will remember without writing down and later regret that misplaced confidence, but that's another story.)

[cosmic gumbo]

If you write down what you learn, you are transcribing, but if you just play it, you are not.

Memorizing a solo note for note, with the same phrasing and articulation as the original, and being able to execute it on your instrument, is also considered "transcribing". It's more of the real tradition than writing down solos. Was Wes writing down Christian solos? No. Was Sonny Rollins writing down Coleman Hawkins solos? No. Was Dexter Gordon writing down Lester Young solos? No. Was Freddy Hubbard writing down Miles solos? No. Do I need to go any further? Academia has fucked jazz up.

[Kojo27]

I think one other topic is how do we learn to phrase in a jazz way. It's an illusive and delicate thing, hard to teach and probably not given enough attention (at least by me). But, that benefit could also be achieved by starting with someone elses transcription and then looping phrases from the original recording and playing with the recording.

Yes - I do hear a lot from players who consider their phrasing weak, that transcribing is the cure for an ineffective grasp of "phrasing." I wonder how well this works out. Are there many good players out there saying, "I once had lousy phrasing, but then I transcribed...." ??? I wonder sometimes whether an ability to "phrase" well doesn't come on its own, from a superior devotion to, and passion for, listening. Eric Clapton answered a TV interviewer's question about Clapton's unerring way with blues phrasing by going straight into the story of when, as a boy, he got his first phonograph and a half dozen albums by American blues men -- "...because then I could listen with every fibre of my being," and he spoke the last words with closed eyes and a voice drawn to a breathy whisper. And that was it! That was his answer to the question about his immaculate phrasing. The phonograph story.

Maybe the question is, will focused listening help us all that much?--or did Clapton get a magic phonograph?

I've just always thought the transcribing argument was flawed logic. I believe George Benson would still be great whether he did a lot of transcribing or not (I actually have no idea if he was big on transcribing when he learned).

I suspect that transcribing, by itself, has never made a tremendous change in any player's musicality. It probably can't hurt - unless you see possibly wasting time as hurtful - but is it a short road to Shangri-la? I don't know. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Very pertinent question, and some quite interesting points.

I'll start with what I disagree with: I don't think learning licks in isolation is a good approach; it's better to understand the 'structure' that a great musician used in some awesome solo and how each lick fits inside that structure. That's why it's a great learning method to try and reproduce a whole solo by ear.

Yes: I like this one. Good point. But the Mel Bay version would suffice for this, no?

If written transcription facilitates the process for an individual, why wouldn't they use it? If not, why bother?

Absolutely... I wouldn't argue with such good sense. Of course, it's worth keeping in mind, I think, that many times we imagine that such and such is helping us in various ways, when little if any help is involved. Do we track any sort of quantifiable stuff that can prove the efficacy of transcribing?

And perhaps one of the most important aspects of transcribing is the very deep listening it requires...

Yes - "...then I listened with every fiber of my being." (Reference to Clapton, above.)

It's the one thing that is the most like playing, reacting to what is being played by another musician in real-time with an instrument in your hands.

Okay, I don't get that part. How is transcribing - hunched over a keyboard or pad of staff paper, your ears callused over and your eyebrows growing together -- how is this most like playing "in real time" with another person, with guitar in hand (and not keyboard or pencil)?

I can't think of a better way to train your ear. I had sight-singing and solfege in college and while it was helpful I don't think being able to sing intervals out of the blue is as useful as being able to hear your bandmate play something and you being able to play it back.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Solfeggio exists in the first place so that pitches won't seem "out of the blue." They have a homebase (do) and each pitch is made relative to all the others. If a guy plays something (not too difficult!), I can use solfeggio, along with a knowledge of scale fingerings and scale degrees within them, and play back what he played. And the way I learned makes it fairly easy - much easier, seems to me, than by a method one would gradually come by after a long time of search-and-find-pitch-location during the transcription process.

Do you really find this way of "knowing" your way around the fingerboard easier than the ways afforded by more standard ear-training methods?

[jasonc]

That is a good distinction to make...the difference between lifting something from a record and writing that something down. When I think of transcribing I pretty much just mean lifting something from a recording. I rarely write it down. However, the writing it down part is still very helpful for counting rhythms and reading and I would do it a lot more if I had more time. I still can't think of better (applicable to improvising) ear training than pulling stuff off of records. For those of you who think there is better ear training, what is it and why do you feel it is better? I'm not picking a fight I'm just curious. I also believe Armstrong lifted King Oliver stuff, Charlie Parker and Charlie Christian both learned Lester Young solos. Christian was also alleged to have have lifted some Django solos. I am not saying he was influenced very much by Django but the point is that he was getting stuff from recordings. Maybe not all of those jazz greats wrote them down but I think you would be very hard pressed to find any players of note who didn't spend a pretty good amount of time earing stuff out.

[jasonc]

Yes - I do hear a lot from players who consider their phrasing weak, that transcribing is the cure for an ineffective grasp of "phrasing." I wonder how well this works out. Are there many good players out there saying, "I once had lousy phrasing, but then I transcribed...." ??? I wonder sometimes whether an ability to "phrase" well doesn't come on its own, from a superior devotion to, and passion for, listening. Eric Clapton answered a TV interviewer's question about Clapton's unerring way with blues phrasing by going straight into the story of when, as a boy, he got his first phonograph and a half dozen albums by American blues men -- "...because then I could listen with every fibre of my being," and he spoke the last words with closed eyes and a voice drawn to a breathy whisper. And that was it! That was his answer to the question about his immaculate phrasing. The phonograph story.

Maybe the question is, will focused listening help us all that much?--or did Clapton get a magic phonograph?


I suspect that transcribing, by itself, has never made a tremendous change in any player's musicality. It probably can't hurt - unless you see possibly wasting time as hurtful - but is it a short road to Shangri-la? I don't know. But I wouldn't bet on it.





Yes: I like this one. Good point. But the Mel Bay version would suffice for this, no?




Absolutely... I wouldn't argue with such good sense. Of course, it's worth keeping in mind, I think, that many times we imagine that such and such is helping us in various ways, when little if any help is involved. Do we track any sort of quantifiable stuff that can prove the efficacy of transcribing?




Yes - "...then I listened with every fiber of my being." (Reference to Clapton, above.)



Okay, I don't get that part. How is transcribing - hunched over a keyboard or pad of staff paper, your ears callused over and your eyebrows growing together -- how is this most like playing "in real time" with another person, with guitar in hand (and not keyboard or pencil)?



Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Solfeggio exists in the first place so that pitches won't seem "out of the blue." They have a homebase (do) and each pitch is made relative to all the others. If a guy plays something (not too difficult!), I can use solfeggio, along with a knowledge of scale fingerings and scale degrees within them, and play back what he played. And the way I learned makes it fairly easy - much easier, seems to me, than by a method one would gradually come by after a long time of search-and-find-pitch-location during the transcription process.

Do you really find this way of "knowing" your way around the fingerboard easier than the ways afforded by more standard ear-training methods?

I think it is the most like playing because when I do it I am listening to something then trying to produce that sound on my instrument right then...just like I would be on stage. I mean that's the goal right? To be able play what is in your head on your instrument? I don't think the goal is to just be able to play some stuff over changes.

I understand what you are saying but, no, I don't think solfege is better ear training for jazz. Knowing how to sing a minor third above a given tonic (or whatever interval you're going for) isn't as valuable to me as hearing a pitch and being able to play it back on my instrument. Anyway, once you've worked on your solfege you still have to translate it back to your instrument....which is what your doing by transcribing (by transcribing I don't strictly mean writing it down).

If nobody transcribes then who is going to make those Mel Bay books?

[MarkRhodes]

Memorizing a solo note for note, with the same phrasing and articulation as the original, and being able to execute it on your instrument, is also considered "transcribing". It's more of the real tradition than writing down solos. Was Wes writing down Christian solos? No. Was Sonny Rollins writing down Coleman Hawkins solos? No. Was Dexter Gordon writing down Lester Young solos? No. Was Freddy Hubbard writing down Miles solos? No. Do I need to go any further? Academia has fucked jazz up.

This is news to me, perhaps because I'm a writer by trade and can't shake the sense that to "transcribe" requires writing.

I think this is bad usage because many people who learn things off records can neither read nor write music. To say of such a person that, all the same, they're good at transcribing courts confusion.

In short, if you ain't writing you ain't 'scribing! (My view, anyway.)

I agree that the older tradition was to learn through imitation--picking up things from records, or from other players at a rehearsal or jam session. (Wouldn't it be cool to hear a tape of Charlie Christian showing "Seven Come Eleven" to Benny Goodman and the rest of the group?) I think that's a fine tradition but that it would only confuse matters to call THAT tradition 'transcribing.' I think it gains nothing and costs too much.

And this still goes on, of course. One player can show another one a cool lick---perhaps in a video posted in the Jazz Guitar Forum---but I don't think this is transcribing. However, when someone posts a video and one of our dazzling members posts a accurate transcription of it, we are all impressed and don't think that is at all the same thing as learning something from a record or video or live performance.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Could someone elaborate on the "Charlie Banacos exercises"?

I did some googling and found a veritable treasure trove of info, but I'm not sure which specific bit you meant.

My own personal opinion: I think transcribing, ala, writing it down on paper is useful because it lets you have a snapshot to analyze. I can look at a lick and say "Oh, okay, it uses a b9 on the 3rd beat; I'll have to try that over this chord or progression to see if I can make my own licks using that concept".

By putting it into a snapshot, I can focus on learning specific things and applying them, instead of waiting for them to osmose as I would if I'd just learned it on the fretboard by ear.

As for why not just use the Mel Bay transcriptions? I don't know. Maybe it is in part not trusting them, wanting to have a more personal connection to the transcription, or the fact that I like a lot of music that isn't generally sold as sheet music (I'd like to apply the transcription idea to as many different genres as I can- rock, blues, jazz, et al.)

[jazzuki]

I agree with what has been said abour transcribing.It isnt the be all and end all of developing your lines ,its just another tool you may or may not want to use. Me! I dont and never have.

[princeplanet]

I learned Bird a bunch years back, not from reading the Omnibook, but from copping from records. You own it that way, it's a slow process, where you go to bed at night humming the lines in your head, and you wake up in the morning still humming them.... The phrasing, the swing feel, the 'X" factor - you don't get that from any Mel Bay book. Making up your own lines is what I try to do now, but without a grounding in bebop as played by the masters, my lines would be guitar-centric, which always sounds dull to me....

[Jonzo]

This is an interesting question, and there is no difinitive answer. No one has done a double-blind, random sample test.

The logic of the pro-transcription arguement is weak. "The Greats" learned other people's material the best way they could. I recall hearing that Louis Armstrong covered his fingers with a handkerchief so other players could not steal his technique. Is finger watching then the "best method to learn"?

On the other hand, there is no evidence that learning from already written transcritptions is better. There is educational research that shows learners often take education shortcuts that are to their long-term detriment (for example cramming for a test). But again, there is no proof that such is the case in this instance.

It is interesting to consider what would happend if you exclusively used one method. You probably would never sound like a great jazz player if you never listened to jazz (and all listening is learning by ear). Yet you could eventually sound like a good jazz player if you only learned by listening and copying.

The question is really one of finding the proper balance.

Of course, I am taking transcribing as listening and imitating, rather than listening and writing.

[Jonzo]

Another take on the written transcription method is that once jazz became a university subject it had to be made difficult. There was a revolt in academia against chord scale theory, as overly pedantic and not what "The Greats" actually did. The academics who overthrew cord-scale theory replaced it with written transcription, which is now being attacked as a misinterpretation of what "The Greats" were actually doing--creating transcriptions because they could not be bought.

[FatJeff]

Another take on the written transcription method is that once jazz became a university subject it had to be made difficult. There was a revolt in academia against chord scale theory, as overly pedantic and not what "The Greats" actually did. The academics who overthrew cord-scale theory replaced it with written transcription, which is now being attacked as a misinterpretation of what "The Greats" were actually doing--creating transcriptions because they could not be bought.

I don't think there is any basis for this statement. You make it seem like "the academics" are this evil, calculating group whose sole reason for existence is to make life difficult for students. In my experience this is not so. The instructors I had during my undergrad were all helpful, inquisitive, top-notch professionals and the last thing they wanted to do is churn out robots.

[jtizzle]

Could someone elaborate on the "Charlie Banacos exercises"?

I did some googling and found a veritable treasure trove of info, but I'm not sure which specific bit you meant.

My own personal opinion: I think transcribing, ala, writing it down on paper is useful because it lets you have a snapshot to analyze. I can look at a lick and say "Oh, okay, it uses a b9 on the 3rd beat; I'll have to try that over this chord or progression to see if I can make my own licks using that concept".

By putting it into a snapshot, I can focus on learning specific things and applying them, instead of waiting for them to osmose as I would if I'd just learned it on the fretboard by ear.

As for why not just use the Mel Bay transcriptions? I don't know. Maybe it is in part not trusting them, wanting to have a more personal connection to the transcription, or the fact that I like a lot of music that isn't generally sold as sheet music (I'd like to apply the transcription idea to as many different genres as I can- rock, blues, jazz, et al.)

Charlie Banacos was pretty much THE jazz educator, when he was alive.
I don't know if he came up with this. Doubt he did, but he did use it on most of his students. My teacher told me about this one.

Sources say he plays a I-IV-V-I cadence, although my teacher works me with just a middle C note. After that, he plays any other note, chromatic or diatonic, and you're expected to know what it is. It's a relative pitch workout.
After you get one note down, he plays double stops, and you're expected to nail both notes. When it gets to three notes, you have to identify all three notes, chord, and chord quality. Same with 4, 5, 6 and so on.
Someone here posted a doctoral dissertation someone on Charlie Banacos' education techniques. The dissertation quotes Banacos saying that an ear that can get to the 6 pitches at a time in this exercise is a professional level ear.
However, that's just half of the exercise, it gets to 11 notes at a time, and what you do at that point is identify the missing note, rather than identify what's in there. Most people put it down at the 6 note point though.

[JakeAcci]

I think that there are a lot of small skills that a jazz musician has to put together to have larger skills. There probably are several different ways to acquire each of those small skills, and for different individuals with different brains in different circumstances, some methods are probably more effective than others. Also, in different situations, to different people with different goals, some of these skills are more important than others.

I guess lately I've been trying to avoid having any perspectives that consist of grandiose, sweeping generalizations.

I will say that transcription is a very simple and direct method of internalizing music that has already been played. So when somebody posts on this board saying "I've learned all my modes but I still can't play jazz!" I might respond with "transcribe" as it's a simple way of communicating "get in touch with the actual music." There are other ways to achieve this, sure. I think (just my opinion) the best alternative to transcription would be composing one's own lines (or voicings or whatever.) The point is to be working on actual music, rather than concepts or exercises. Get direct, get to the point.

Unfortunately there isn't much science to all of this. There have been no studies, and when a player does Y and then has result Z we really can't say that Y causes Z just because they correlate, but in some situations it's hard to say that it doesn't. As musicians we are all the result of a lot of different factors, and only one of those factors is what we have practiced over the years.

The only thing I feel strongly about is that a player might need to figure out what he is trying to achieve, break that goal into smaller goals (with the help of a great teacher who also is a great player) and figure out how to tackle those smaller goals. Sometimes transcription might be a part of that, and sometimes not. Sometimes writing it down is necessary and sometimes it's not.

I have done ear training, sight reading practice, music writing practice, transcription from records, and practiced lines and concepts that were my own invention. I have a personal psychological difficultly with the concept of working to assimilate somebody else's transcription, or licks from a book. It feels inorganic and cheap to me, like the music isn't really being ingrained but instead just borrowed. That's not a scientific, factual perspective, just my personal emotional response to the concept.

I also think that it seems like many players on this board (some admittedly) are really quick to buy all the latest books but not invest the time to study the material thoroughly. I suppose that's not awful...I'm much more into taking a few measures of music and figuring out a week's worth of work with the material. You can skim through five different books (and 30 different online articles) only to then have some intellectual insight on some concept that you then have no ability to apply on the guitar while improvising. I think this is the process that results in folks that can 'talk the talk' without being able to play very well or even put together a sensible solo over a simple standard.

Anyway, time on the instrument...spent playing music...