Transcribing, is it worth the effort

Buco

Ah I see. Yes but I think I did far too little of it to expect it to benefit me also. I'd guess I didn't transcribe more than 5-10 pieces of music in the last year. I think this number should be monthly if not biweekly for benefits to start trickling in. On the upshot I just sat down to listen to that section of Limehouse Blues and figure it out again and it was coming back fairly fast until my daughter dragged me to help her climb.

dennis

i personally don’t think it’s about transcribing but about adopting a certain lifestyle that is conducive to learning. Kinda like a language, if you want to learn French, moving to France is already a big help towards being able to speak French with more fluency. But only if you try to make the effort to learn French, and that last one is the key.

I’ve met lots of classical musicians who hung out with jazz musicians which is a great thing, some of them had perfect pitch, and some of them even transcribed but they still never developed as jazz musicians because they didn’t adopt the way of thinking that would allow them to take advantage of what they heard.

consider the following in French: “bonjour, j’ai acheté ma première guitare manouche en 1996” which translates to: “hello, I bought my first Gypsy guitar in 1996”.

If someone learned how to say that sentence in French phonetically, but didn’t bother to understand the meaning, then they would be technically speaking French but they couldn’t actually speak French. Now then if they used my translation , now they understand the meaning, but they still don’t understand how each really worked. If I completely deconstructed the sentence and explained how each word worked, only then have they truly learned something useful from that sentence. They can now remove the “bonjour” and say : “j’ai acheté ma première voiture en 2006” , “ I bought my first car in 2006”. They ‘ve learned the past tense conjugation (at least one form) and can use other verbs in the past tense : “j’ai mangé ce matin” -> “i ate this morning”

etc...

I think the same is true in improvisation. I ‘ve met a few classical musicians who transcribed grappelli and played the solos note for note but who still couldn’t improvise. Not only could they not improvise, but they always had to start their solo from the very beginning of their solo. They couldn’t start it from a different phrase or different section. That is akin to being able to phonetically speak that one French sentence but not understanding the meaning.

The next example of understanding the basic meaning would be a long lick over say a II V I. You now know that the long phrase works over II V I, but you don’t understand it well enough to break it down into smaller chunks to make your own variations. That’s like me translating the sentence for you but not explaining each word.

but then if you learn a bunch of other sentences with similar grammar : “J’ai mangé ma première pizza en 2007” , “J’ai écouté Django pour la première fois en 1995”, “j’ai volé mon premier violon en 2011”, etc... You’re going to slowly notice the similarities and the differences.

Anyway, I think it’s about living a specific lifestyle, which I talk about here :

https://youtu.be/P79aG17bCNY

mac63000

I taught french for several years ... If I could only apply that to being a better guitarist 😂

But jokes aside I can see the relationship. You can learn to repeat after your teacher word for word but until you get an understanding of grammar and develop a vocabulary of your own, you won't be able to improvise.

To counter, and this is maybe what @Twang eluded to, you have people growing up speaking a language without learning grammar, and they can get by with a great vocabulary alone.

I've thought about this topic quite a bit this weekend and I think I use transcription mostly when I'm learning a new melody but not when it comes to improvising. That's where understanding the relationship between the changes, scales, and all that theory stuff comes more in handy.

Si seulement c'était moins compliqué...

dennis

I wasn't talking about grammar though . I only used the "technical" terms because that s what they re called. I go in detail in my video about environment and proper listening skills

mac63000

Oh maybe I read your post too literally but I still like the analogy. I'll check out the vid too, thanks!

dennis

I have nothing against grammar/theory though 🤗. Obviously it doesnt hurt to know some very basic grammar/theory if it can help. My point was about immersion and intelligent listening

Bones

Wow, well said Dennis. Thanks! Makes me want to go back over old transcriptions and just extract phrases over each chord. Maybe in one of these lifetimes.....:-)

Buco

I just remembered an article that I think ties into this pretty well.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-i-rewired-my-brain-to-become-fluent-in-math

It's been a while and I should reread it myself but this was my takeaway. The person writing it today has a doctorate in systems engineering and math is a part of her daily life but she grew up flunking math throughout her schooling and only turned to studying math at the adult age of 26 and succeeded.

But until then she was fluent in several languages. To not make an article out of this post here's the bottom line; she approached math as she approached languages. Which is start learning by rote: words, small phrases etc... Then understanding the underlying structure and and playing with those small chunks and single words, putting them in different situations and also learning and realizing when a certain word is the wrong one to use. But keeping those concepts flexible.

It mentions how chess masters are able to take a single glance at the board and turn around and be able to repeat the position of each piece. They don't memorize the whole board. What they see are small chunks that they're already familiar with and simply remember these chunks. They have thousands of these small chunks memorized.

I think what Dennis is talking about is similar to this. Also transcribing process ties into it. What follows you've heard many times but maybe worth repeating because it directly corresponds to this article.

You transcribe something. Then find parts that are particularly good sounding to you. Or take the whole thing, brake it down by phrases and do the following. These are like small chunks of language (or small chess board combination) and single words. Take those and memorize them well: different keys, different roots, fingerings etc. Then use them in different contexts, different songs. Be flexible, to be able to to change what beat to start on, take a note out, add a chromatic, add approach note, enclosure. Do it enough and becomes a part of your vocabulary. Repeat...

I'm still trying to see where Stephane's thinking comes into this...I don't think it starts happening the way he describes until you're ridiculously fluent in music improvisation like he is. So I believe it's true from his perspective, I don't think it's something I should rely on though.

Twang

@Buco Yeah Buco these great players can sometimes wax lyrical about what there doing and we are non the wiser.

Denis's post really bothered me in that it related to exactly how I feel, which is not great, about my playing. I may know the fingerboard, the notes on the neck, the harmony etc (to some extent) but I still feel as if I dont know what I'm doing. I think the closest I get is I have this favourite lick. It's kinda a classic "go up on a harmonic minor scale and come down on a diminished over a dominant chord thing". What sets it apart from other stuff I play is I've learned it so I can start it in any inversion starting anywhere on the neck. When I play this lick I feel like I'm in control and I'm improvising. I understand it.

But I think what Denis said points a way forward. If I'm honest with myself I think I'm constantly circling around this improvising thing. A bit like when you see people dipping there toes in the pool when it's less painful to just jump in.

I think I spend too much time learning arpeggios, licks etc in the hope that I'll wake up one morning and be able to improvise. It's almost as if I'm hiding behind these things. I should spend more time applying myself to making these things work in the music. I think the whole transcription thing is me just finding another thing I can feel good about working on for hours that will distract me from what I should be doing. There have been many references in this thread that have pointed to this.

dennis

I can’t speak for anyone else. But i’ve only realized lately that i’ve barely practiced scales and arpeggios. Enough to know what they are and where they are, but i spent more time listening (intelligently) and absorbing as much as possible. I’d absorb and forget,.. maybe only retain 5% (don’t quote me on that figure) but the important thing is that even if i forgot things, they still somehow remained in my ears, and if i heard them again, i can for the most part reproduce them immediately..

again, speaking for myself again, cause i know some of you are asking other people about what i said ( ;-) ) , i eventually saw the arpeggios/scales/ornaments that the phrases came from and from there i was able to deconstruct longer lines into smaller chunks... in the beginning though, i copied quite a lot of stochelo and jimmy rosenberg because they had made lots of recordings and their lines were easier for me to digest

and one important thing , and i think i do mention it in the above video, is that I learned TONS of songs. I knew a whole bunch of songs as a rhythm guitarist before i really developed any kind of serious improvisation skills