You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How to Get Started Transcribing

Episode Date: October 14, 2019

Today, Peter and Adam walk you through how to get over any apprehension of one of the best ways to improve your skills: transcription.For an example of what a high-quality transcription looks like, check out our transcription of Wynton Kelly's solo on "Freddie Freeloader" here: https://youllhearit.com/freddie-freeloader-wynton-kelly-transcription/Make your practicing even happier with the official Open Studio Practice Journal! This is the perfect tool to improve your playing, and includes 52 weeks for a full year of notes. Learn more at https://store.openstudiojazz.com/product/practice-journal/28Like those You'll Hear It shirts Peter shows off on the podcast? Want some YHI swag of your own? Take a visit to our store! Just go to https://teespring.com/stores/open-studioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey, give me a melody. Shubidibu-di-bo-Di, your melody sucks. I'm Adam Annis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Daily jazz advice coming at you. We have fun.

Well, at my expense today, apparently. What happened to Jacob Collier? I don't know. We have two days straight of not sounding like Jake. We got a little hate mail. Can we talk about that? We actually don't even know it. But future Adam and future Peter were the recipients of some hate comments.

It seems like anytime we ever touch on Corey Henry or Jacob Collier or Adam Neely. Or I hate jazz. Yeah, we get a ton of hate mail. You know, we do this in fun and we do this for the love of it. And I love Jacob Collier. I think he's a talented kid, man. Yeah. Oh, now you're backpedaling, big guy.

I'm not backpedaling on anything. Well, you didn't do them today. That was my Jacob Collier. Oh, that was how you got it. Got it, got it. All right, what are we talking about today? We're talking about how to begin transcribing. How to start transcribing.

How, if you've never transcribed before and you hear everybody yap on about how important it is and you're like well it's too hard and you're feeling a little self-conscious perhaps maybe you're feeling a little self-conscious maybe you just need a little motivation to get off the couch maybe you're feeling a little unworthy that's possible I mean so are we talking about are we talking about

transcribing shaming is there such a thing as transcribe shaming Peter in this day and age of social media I go on Instagram I see people like young French pianist Domi Domi of course transcribing some Opie Domi Reisofo Fami lo

She just posted this thing on Instagram last night. She's like, I made the challenge. I don't have no idea what she sounds like. I made the challenge from myself. And she decided I'm going to transcribe Oscar Peterson. So I forget what was.

It was a chorus of Oscar Peterson. She's like, I'm going to read through it once and then I'm going to record it. And she did. And of course, it was. It was killing. Of course. It was killing.

And so I felt I had a little bit of, it's not phomo, but maybe like social anxiety. Adam, with Le Fomont. Yeah, you know. And Robert Glasper's on there, liking it. Robert Glasper, La Pianist de Houston, Texas, Superior.

It can be overwhelming. You go on social media, you see what everybody else is transcribing. You're like, well, I want to get in on it, but I don't have the ears. The transcript of all the world. You've taken it. These Etazonee.

About 45 seconds, too far. I'm literally translating what you're saying. It's pretty good. Comment below. The comment in the video for me. Let's see me. All right, so let's get into this. Transcribing on a serious note.

Yeah, so if you've never transcribed before, these are just going to be some basic things you can do, some things to keep in mind, and maybe some motivation to get you going. And yeah. Right. So we are anti-transcribing shaming here at the You'll Hear a podcast,

but we are very pro-transcribing. Yes. And then just to preface this, this is definitely Cé d'Ithééééééééééééééééééééééééééééééééééééééééééééééé, this is difficult. Oh, it is. say diffi-seum. So meaning that, you know, this is not something that you're going to get immediate gratification from.

But like a lot of things in life, if you go into that kind of understanding that, that can actually make it a lot easier. Yeah. So you're going to have times where you spend an hour and you're like, wow, I didn't get anything accomplished. This is not like going out and mowing your lawn where you've got the mower, you've got the gas and then or electric, hashtag electric. But like you just, you know you're going to push it through grass, you know, job done. This is more of like ups and downs, one step forward, two steps back, very difficult at the very beginning of the process. So that's why a lot of people stop it. Like as you get into it, it will get easier.

And it will get harder at a certain point. But I mean, the more you do of this, the easier. But that's why so many people don't do it, right? And so even though we know we're recommending this and we can give you a laundry list of amazing musicians that we know and have played with and that we've heard of and that we've read about that have all done this. So we know it's an important activity, even saying that we know that many of you will not do this because of the difficulty level. And I think there's, aside from the difficulty level,

it seems to be a monumental amount of work at first, right? If you never transcribed a whole solo before, you're like, oh, my gosh, this is going to take me a year. I can't believe I have to do this. So that's why I recommend starting out by picking one phrase. Pick one phrase, pick one lick. Shiba do be-de-ba-de-ba. That's a transcribe what Peter just sang.

Right. Is that the, that's not the lick, actually. It's one of the licks. It's a lick. It's a lick. And I think the key to this too is pick something that you love to listen to. Pick something that you already know. Maybe it's like Miles Davis's, you know, Freddie Freeloader or whatever. And it's one single phrase from Winton Kelly, one single phrase from Miles or whomever.

It doesn't have to be even on your instrument. But pick something that you already know and love and just say, okay, today I'm just going to figure out this lick. I would just say one caveat to that. absolutely it should be something that you love but when you're starting out especially er on the side of like maybe pick five things that you love and then pick out a

phrase from that to get into it but then pick the simplest one and now that's hard to maybe decide sometimes but you can usually sort of figure out like in other words if you love Jacob Collier don't go to his hardest YouTube video and be like I'm going to transcribe that because you're going to get frustrated right I'm not saying you can't do it but you want to work

like you want to have some kind of chronology and pedagogy to how you're doing this. It doesn't have to be perfectly in order. Right. But I mean, we always talk about the Freddie Freeloader solo just because, I don't know, we're stuck on that, but also it's kind of that intersection between a relatively simple.

It is not simplistic. No. It's a very advanced musical solo, but it's relatively simple to get into and to learn. For sure. I mean, you can still spend hours on just one phrase with that, especially to get it accurately, but you can get the notes relatively

easy. There's some very good transcriptions. We'll link below to our Freddie Freeloader free transcription we have of that. Although we're going to get into some controversial area already because we're going to recommend that you learn by ear and not by page, even though I just told you about the PDF, download below. You're confusing me already. But I think this is a good point. Use it as an eight.

Use it as an eight. The point is, though, is to start off as simple as possible. Don't feel like you have to transcribe an entire, you know, Brad Meldow intro to all the things you are at Live at the Village Vanguard, an eight-minute solo piano epic from Keith Jarrett or something. And even, but it still should be combined to what you said before,

something that you love. Something that you've been listening to. And I think that the litmus test is it has to be something that you love and something that you can sing, at least the phrase you're learning. So this is something that I remember one of my teachers at the new school,

Hal Gauper used to say, be able to sing what you're doing to transcribe first. Spend your time listening to it and singing along with it. Man, I remember back in 78 when I taught Hal Galper that concept and he stole it from me, man. I was eight. It was eight.

But I think it's an important point, because if you can't sing it, you can't play it right. Right. You know, and also, don't write it down. Do not write it down. Don't write it down. And if possible, do not read it from the page, even though we're telling you, and look, we can recommend some good transcriptions. We've done transcriptions. For sure.

And if you need to use that, depending on your time, there's nothing wrong with that. But in general, learn it by ear, because that is the biggest part, and we haven't even spoken about that yet. But let's talk about it now. What are we getting out of the process of transcript? not like what do we get at the end like we get the solo that we can use the licks right we get the soul that we understand the concept we have the solo that

we can incorporate specific musical concepts groove voicings whatever it is into our playing but even more important just like life in itself is the journey like if you're not enjoying the journey of soloing and I think that these ideas

of something that's easy enough and something that you know really well that's the easiest way to do this and because it's still going to be hard. But at least if you love it and it's somewhat simple, you'll be able to do it. And so then you'll be able to enjoy the journey. You'll be able to get out of the process that your training and all the other

beautiful things that come along with that. Yeah, I think let's define a little bit of what you get out of this. And for maybe some inspiration for folks, because I feel like most people go to transcription with the idea of, I'm here to gather information. Right. Like it's some kind of a musical, jazz

archaeological dig. Right. Like I'm going to learn use some piece of theory that's going to push me over the top. And that's the absolute not primary reason you should be transcribed. Can you dig it though? You can dig it, but you shouldn't dig like an archaeologist looking for

art effects. Dig like a jazz player with a beret. Yeah, it's very cheap just information and you can't become a better player just by gathering information. No. That's not how this works. It would be like a poet studying you know,

like quantum theory and then trying to write beautiful poetry without actually knowing how anything sounds. Right. It's just like, okay, well, now this is just a bunch of jargon that sounds complicated, but it doesn't hit anybody. Right.

But like a great poet can make very simple ideas seem powerful and sound amazing in your head as you're reading. And it's the same thing with a great jazz musician. It can make very simple ideas seem very powerful and connective. Right. that's what you're getting out of this. And sometimes even take very complicated ideas, make them

seem simple and powerful and beautiful. Absolutely. But in a lot of ways, it's really, you know, it's not about the information. It's about how that information is played. Right. And that's what you need to be paying attention to. And that's why we say don't write it down because it's actually not as important as how it sounds. Right. You shouldn't feel like, and, and look, there's some instances we may not get into that today where writing it down is okay and can be helpful. For sure. But it's not the primary part of why we're recommended. you do this and why traditionally jazz musicians have done this. And that will keep you out of that mindset of an archaeologist

where you're sort of digging for this and then you've got this treasure to bring home. Like, the treasure that you're going to bring with you is what you're getting from the process of that. And then you will get some things too, like, that you'll be able to play. I always tell people like, don't worry about that. Like, that's the part that's going to come automatically. It's going to be easy. I don't know why people are so, like, afraid of like, well, what about, I don't want to forget the legs. so what to have them down?

Really, are you going to bring a list of the licks you learn from the solo tour gig? Horrible. So that you could reference them? The only reason you should write it down is when you are at the stage where you're ready to do some, you know, melodic, harmonic, rhythmic analysis. That is not going to stick with you in the same way as learning how to play it exactly how the master who you're learning from is playing at all. And it's not going to help you're playing as much as you think it is. Right. Now, having said that, just as a little side note, it's fun to watch like...

caveat city over the other. I'm sorry. C.S. Caviot City. No, so, oh, no, that was ignorant. C.C. actually. Caviote City. Ooh, that was bad.

Okay, we're going to edit that out. But the idea... Coveot City is not stuffed with an S. No, but the idea that it is fun to look at a great transcription as, like, especially, that's what I'm loving about the YouTube era

that you can see like an Oscar Peterson's soul scrolling by or our living notation, we've been known to do a little bit of transcribing here at Open Studio. That is fun to see. And I think as, you know, we softened over the years out, you know, due to popular demand. People just wanted it. And a lot of people just don't have time. Like, they want to learn.

So my thing is like, it's not binary. It's not like, okay, I'm learning it out of the transcription. And I've never even heard the soul. I'm just learning it like I'm learning a Chopin etude. Or I'm learning it totally by ear blindfolded. No, it doesn't have to be that. You want to at least learn some of it by ear. And then maybe you reference a high quality transcription, which is hard.

harder than you think to actually find. That's the other thing. Anyway, it's just like the real book problems or whatever. And we got a little dogmatic a couple weeks ago. Got some negative comments on our dogmages, just so you know. On the rebook? Oh, yeah, I saw that. We got a little dark on that. Too bad. We were right. Whoa. No, we weren't talking

about people are bad with the... I mean, it's just like, you know... But anyway, that's another discussion. No, I agree with you. There's definitely some... There's definitely some value. But if you want to get better, the best way to do it is by ear. Absolutely. Music is a language. And just

like if you were learning French, like my boy Peter Martin over here. Yes, I'm Pierre Martin. Like the great... I'm American. Domain? Des etazunei. Can she speak the French like me? Have you heard her playing?

Yeah. She's amazing. She's amazing. She transcribes a lot, by the way. Yeah. I wonder if she probably doesn't need this, but... She seems like a practiser, actually. Yeah, maybe she has something like this. I mean, look, we're not going to tell you that you're not going to become a better

musician, better transcriber without the open studio. practice journal or as we call it the pooho practice journal not like a bullet journal why is that funny man because there's no you in practice well what are i going to call it the kujo like the like the dog the the the prajo projo that sounds so precious exactly is now called the poohjo like we want to call it no but look you can learn pooh jo you can learn a transcription without this many adam and i have done it but so much more fun with this Just like for years, hipsters were able to survive without bullet journals, but isn't life so much better with a bullet journal? Telling me, bud.

So we encourage you. So like what you could do, goals for the week, transcribe a solo. That would be my number one goal I would put there. Transcribe four bars of a solo. And look, if you're kind of wondering about, you want to throw a few notes in there, we've got a place for you, tune, scales, rhythm. That'll just remind you that you're not just practicing the transcription. That's just one part of your practice.

So this is a cool thing. And it's available now. And we're going to do some specials coming up. I mean, you can go now and just buy it on its own. But we're going to start including this with some of the courses. I think that's the right thing to do. All right. All right.

And until tomorrow, you'll hear it.