How important is to transcribe jazz solos?

[Christian Miller]

I tried a good bit of Auden but never got into him. But while he was in New York he gave a class on Shakespeare where he had the class read the whole bit and gave lectures each week on all the plays. They were reassembled later and compiled into a book and they’re awesome.

For example, the entire lecture for Merry Wives of Windsor is a single sentence where he says it’s terrible and the only good thing about it is that it inspired Verdi. And he proceeds to spend the rest of the class playing a record of Falstaff.

Haha, I like it…

[Christian Miller]

Me too. The only one I can still play is a Charlie Christian one that I teach with a lot. And I guess the Stella that I start working on again yesterday.

Which solo?

[pamosmusic]

I wondered. Where is the love for the music? The history? The story? The connection with your own self as a part of that history?
Where is the love?

And I wonder. What is the difference between the notes and the music?

Ive probably told this story on another thread but I had a lesson with Brad Shepik once where he said “if you want to play this music, you have to love this music.” In that case he was talking about the songs (I think I’d played an incorrect change in It Could Happen to You), but I always loved that coming from him. Such an unusual and idiosyncratic player, but the tradition of the American songbook was that important to him.

[Litterick]

Man you even quoted the spot where I said I wasn’t talking about you in particular.

You were talking about knockers in general, implying I was among them. I do not see why you have to react in such a defensive way to a simple question.

[pamosmusic]

You were talking about knockers in general, implying I was among them. I do not see why you have to react in such a defensive way to a simple question.

I’m sorry you feel that way, but that’s not what I was implying.

[Christian Miller]

Knockers!!!

[pamosmusic]

Which solo?

Gone With What Wind

[Christian Miller]

That would not happen today. Imitation is not part of the curriculum of art schools. Does it survive in jazz schools?

is that a fact?

I mean many artists working today are no longer painting or sculpting, but making installations and so on (or getting other people to make it for them) so is it a bit like comparing apples with oranges? Ability to draw or paint might be fairly irrelevant altogether.

(maybe more like the difference between being a classical composer and being a modern electronic musician working with computers)

What about if you study illustration?

tbh I think creativity and originality is a great white whale. There are stunningly original and creative people out there, but you can’t manufacture it, although people certainly try. Really it’s a gift. It can be emergent from craft, and we have the master works of the pre-romantic era to show us that. But I tend to feel more comfortable with an artisanal attitude rather than the romantic/progressive concept of the artist. (my sister; who is professional graphic designer and illustrator has a similar attitude.)

[Christian Miller]

Gone With What Wind

i haven’t done that one …

[pamosmusic]

tbh I think creativity and originality is a great white whale. There are stunningly original and creative people out there, but you can’t manufacture it, although people certainly try. Really it’s a gift. It can be emergent from craft, and we have the master works of the pre-romantic era to show us that. But I tend to feel more comfortable with an artisanal attitude rather than the romantic/progressive concept of the artist. (my sister; who is professional graphic designer and illustrator has a similar attitude.)

I think this is tough. I’m not sure I believe it, but really I think we probably are on the same boat and maybe I’ve just taken to defining creativity super loosely. And what you say about it sometimes being emergent from craft is definitely true. Craft can definitely be taught, so I guess part of it is in what you consider teaching maybe. Splitting hairs I guess.

But I tend to think of creativity kind of like I think of the ear. There is definitely a range of possibility for people. Setting aside perfect pitch, some people just have a higher ceiling than others, but there’s a pretty wide range you can kind of work on. Creativity feels kind of similar. That doesn’t have much to do with the teaching part, but talking about it as a gift tends to make people think it’s something you either have or you don’t. Really I think it’s more like something that everyone has in different measure. And it’s always a range—meaning folks who really work on their craft might do better than folks who have have more aptitude but don’t.

The other thing I’d say is that originality is overrated. I have a buddy who says that it’s important to be different, but sometimes being excellent is different enough.

People want to hear someone who cares about what they do and does it well. There are few enough of those people out there already.

[mr. beaumont]

That would not happen today. Imitation is not part of the curriculum of art schools. Does it survive in jazz schools?

That's a shame...I guess I've been out of school for a while...but I still teach my high school students the power of imitation.

As for jazz, transcribing--in the literal sense--is definitely still a thing. I'm a member of Jam of the Week on Facebook --which has slowed down a lot after a hiatus, but the pattern remains the same-- every few months they'll call a "Transcription Week" and you see a lot of faces pop up posting videos who you normally don't see on the regular "improvise a chorus on this tune" weeks...and they're all college kids.

My hope is that they're getting the full benefits of these transcriptions and not just plowing through them to quickly record and get some likes.

[AllanAllen]

The other thing I’d say is that originality is overrated. I have a buddy who says that it’s important to be different, but sometimes being excellent is different enough.

This is so true it hurts. I’m so burnt out on lazy people who learn stuff half way and then wing it, poorly, only to get a big head about being creative. Only, they’re too ignorant to see how middle of the road, below average and boring they are.

Clearly, this is a personal issue with me and some of the guys I’ve played with.

[pamosmusic]

This is so true it hurts. I’m so burnt out on lazy people who learn stuff half way and then wing it, poorly, only to get a big head about being creative. Only, they’re too ignorant to see how middle of the road, below average and boring they are.

Clearly, this is a personal issue with me and some of the guys I’ve played with.

Well it’s interesting because you can’t really know if you’re original or not unless you know what’s out there, right? Which implies a certain amount of conscientious study. You’d think that would be kind of obvious.

Sometimes I run into people who fancy themselves Out and Avant Garde, who would be pretty tame by Ornette Coleman’s standards … circa 1963

[Christian Miller]

I think this is tough. I’m not sure I believe it, but really I think we probably are on the same boat and maybe I’ve just taken to defining creativity super loosely. And what you say about it sometimes being emergent from craft is definitely true. Craft can definitely be taught, so I guess part of it is in what you consider teaching maybe. Splitting hairs I guess.

But I tend to think of creativity kind of like I think of the ear. There is definitely a range of possibility for people. Setting aside perfect pitch, some people just have a higher ceiling than others, but there’s a pretty wide range you can kind of work on. Creativity feels kind of similar. That doesn’t have much to do with the teaching part, but talking about it as a gift tends to make people think it’s something you either have or you don’t. Really I think it’s more like something that everyone has in different measure. And it’s always a range—meaning folks who really work on their craft might do better than folks who have have more aptitude but don’t.

The other thing I’d say is that originality is overrated. I have a buddy who says that it’s important to be different, but sometimes being excellent is different enough.

People want to hear someone who cares about what they do and does it well. There are few enough of those people out there already.

No I don’t mean gift as an immutable characteristic. We are all capable of receiving gifts, and we are all capable of originality but it does not come from ego or cleverness and it is not something we own. People have always modelled this as coming an exterior entity. Abrahamic Theists would say it is a gift from God, we also have the classical Pagan muses etc. Genius in the old sense from the same root as Genie or Djinn. Or Daemon. Choose your belief system…

I think our conception of being creative is completely backwards, the evolution in the meaning of the word post enlightenment (I want to say via John Dalton?) has robbed us of an ancient insight. No one is a genius. People have a genius, are touched by genius and so on, but no one is a genius.

Some people do seem to be blessed with a lot of this gift it is true.

[pamosmusic]

No I don’t mean gift as an immutable characteristic. We are all capable of receiving gifts, and we are all capable of originality but it does not come from ego or cleverness and it is not something we own. People have always modelled this as coming an exterior entity. Abrahamic Theists would say it is a gift from God, we also have the classical Pagan muses etc. Genius in the old sense from the same root as Genie or Djinn. Or Daemon. Choose your belief system…

I think our conception of being creative is completely backwards, the evolution in the meaning of the word post enlightenment (I want to say via John Dalton?) has robbed us of an ancient insight. No one is a genius. People have a genius, are touched by genius and so on, but no one is a genius.

Some people do seem to be blessed with a lot of this gift it is true.

Yeah okay so we’re on the same page I think. Using your terms, I might say you can teach someone to be receptive to that gift or spark or whatever, but you can’t teach it to come.

And yeah the sort of personal genius thing has more to do with originality than creativity. People who have very idiosyncratic processes and think in unusual ways are very mysterious to us. When they’re successful we tend to label them as geniuses. Though it should be pretty obvious by now that they’re just as prone to tunnel vision and getting stuck in ruts and patterns as anyone else. They just get stuck in more idiosyncratic ruts than most people do.

[pamosmusic]

For what it’s worth, I think originality has a lot of value too.

A person is more likely to see what others miss when they’re doing something differently. They’re probably more comfortable going against tradition when they’re already accustomed to be doing so etc etc.

Its just decidedly not the same thing as creativity and we tend to conflate the two.

[Christian Miller]

For what it’s worth, I think originality has a lot of value too.

A person is more likely to see what others miss when they’re doing something differently. They’re probably more comfortable going against tradition when they’re already accustomed to be doing so etc etc.

Originality is something we can all admire in others.

But I don’t think it’s something that can successfully be actively pursued. If we keep our channels open every so often something will drop into our laps and if we are prepared we can do something with it. We can go with what feels natural. It’s actually find it very difficult to cultivate that state. There’s a lot of noise. Sometimes I think you have to disconnect from the music world a bit.

As Bruce foreman put it ‘we spend our twenties and thirties thinking, I have to have my own voice then we get to 40 and realise, oh crap, I sound like me!’ It’s very easy imo to overvalue the role of conscious decision making and choice in all of this.

[mr. beaumont]

Just don't get too original, or you'll activate the "that isn't jazz" crowd.

[RLetson]

To back up just a bit from the conversation's latest turning: it's pretty clear to me that in current practice, "transcribe" does suggest writing-it-down, though the writing-down might be just a way of preserving the more valuable part of the exercise, which would be to listen with close attention, perhaps analytically, and perhaps to aid in practice, to get it under the fingers consistently. And in an academic context, it might be used as a demonstration of various competences and thus get enshrined.

Which actually does connect to the matter of creativity or originality. Christian and Peter's comments touch a nerve in me, since as an English teacher and hanger-out with writers (and married to one), "creativity" is one of those notions that always struck me as a bit mystifying--in the Marxist sense. There is a semantic network of more specific terms associated with "creativity": invention, innovation, extension, problem-solving, and (and this is where it starts to get mystical) surprise, unexpected.

It seems clear to me that "craft" can be taught or coached--the fingering exercises and etudes and playing-through-standard-rep part of musical training. Being able to get through "Cherokee" or "Black Orpheus" or whatever and make it sound like music* is a non-trivial achievement. What I would call "creativity" is signalled by surprise, the unexpected, even the dis-expected. Decades back, Barbra Streisand's slow, sad take on "Happy Days Are Here Again" surprised me. It's a bit of a stunt, but she made it work. Godknows I wouldn't have thought of it at the time. (Now, though, tempo changes are one of my favorite ways of freshening up a tune--though I'm being imitative of Barbra's stunt rather than "creative" in doing so.)

The mysterious thing about "creativity" is that predicting where and from whom it will appear, or how to generate it, is pretty tough, and I doubt that it can be taught (though it apparently can be encouraged). Nevertheless, I suspect that it is a pretty normal extension of the normal progression of mastery--the "only different" part of "the same only different" that drives any art that is not mere ritual.

* One of my personal tests for "musicality": does a performance make you want to dance? Maybe sing along? I used to play in a deli every week, and when I saw a five-year-old wiggle free of parents and uninhibitedly dance around, I figured I was doing something right.

[Reg]

This is the busy time of year... LOL.

But seems like the yea or nay part of transcribing may come down to how much time one has, the balance of how to use that time and then obviously transcribing skills.

I'm old and did most of my transcribing in the 60's and 70's. But generally, once one learns how to approach transcribing... it's quick and easy. I'm saying this from one who made a living doing copy work and lead sheets.

Long story short... Form, tonal targets and fill in the blanks. Big picture, most important locations and the easy stuff.
Then the rest is filling in the blanks... which is usually easier in the end etc...

The other large object in the room.... one needs to be able to read and notate music. The memory approach is tough....it can be a rabbit hole for most..... and yea if one doesn't have their technical skills together, one's time might be better served there.

[RLetson]

Addendum on creativity: Another possible source is extension of technical ability--to be able to execute material that might be beyond the reach of most players. It's a combination of "how did you think of that?" and "how did you do that?" And I suspect that once a technical feat has been demonstrated, it becomes more widespread, which leads to further exploitation of the possibilities it opens. I remember when two-hand tapping was exotic and cutting-edge in the acoustic-fingerstyle world--Michael Hedges made it part of his compositional vocabulary--and in a while it was all over the place. (Sometimes to the point of being too much of a good thing.)

[Christian Miller]

That is certainly one manifestation of it, though i find the novelty quickly wears off if it is not exercised with sufficient …. creativity

on the other hand, I would say my playing has generally felt more creative since I stopped worrying about playing ‘my own thing’ (which I used to worry about a LOT.) I feel I respond more to the moment and the music I’m playing (whatever it happens to be) without getting wrapped up in myself. No idea tbh. But it is an enjoyable way to make music. You can surprise yourself sometimes, and that’s when ‘it’ takes over (if you forgive the Zen in the Art of Archery reference.)

Really I’ve come to the conclusion that I cannot do anything very well and it’s best to leave it to other entities… I think I’m getting better at letting ‘it’ take over…

[pauln]

How important is to transcribe jazz solos?. Is it really that necessary?. Do you just play them in your instrument or you also write them down on paper?

No two jazz solos have ever been performed
so identically that their perfect transcriptions
to music notation would be identical down to
the note. Even the same soloists on the same
tunes weren't doing it - a part of why it's jazz.
Not important, not necessary; just learn how
it goes, play your best - expressing musically.

[pamosmusic]

No two jazz solos have ever been performed
so identically that their perfect transcriptions
to music notation would be identical down to
the note. Even the same soloists on the same
tunes weren't doing it - a part of why it's jazz.
Not important, not necessary; just learn how
it goes, play your best - expressing musically.

And how might one learn how it goes?

[pauln]

And how might one learn how it goes?

By ear, just like when a child says they know a
song, you ask how it goes... they sing it to you.