Transcription

[Ryan Griffith]

In my quest to think up good new topics, how about this: transcription. I spent at least a couple hours transcribing a Phish tune (Horn) the other day. It gave me an appreciation of how tough it might be to do a whole song for all the instruments. But, it certainly has benefits to do this. What are some good song to start transcribing bass parts or solos from? What are the benefits of transcription? Any & all comments welcome on the subject... put your two cents in!

[Tom Capasso]

McGryff -

 

Take it one step further - how did you do it? Sitting at a piano to confirm the notes and working with a pencil? (hey - some of us are old enough to remember pencils ...) Did you use software to get the notes down, and then play it back to be sure?

 

I have not been serious enough to try this. Every once in a while, I figure out a part and write down the notes in English until I can memorize the riff. I know I'm missing an opportunity for growth - I should just write out the notation, but I've been too lazy...

 

Tom

[Ryan Griffith]

Tom,

I did it with bass & pencil. I had to listen to the darn song more times than i care to count & I'm still not convinced that I got all the notes & rhythm right! I just pulled out some staff paper & started to copy. I just got my bearings on the bass & took it from there. I'd stop every few lines & play it to make sure it was on target. I'd like to do this on keyboard, but my skills aren't all that hot yet. I'm not totally foreign to the piano, as I was a music major for a couple years & took piano class, but I'm not all that good either! But that's how I did it at any rate...

[dcr]

I've done a lot of transcribing; I find that doing the work of piecing it together for myself helps me learn a part better, & often pre-made transcriptions are inaccurate anyway. THE MAIN THING, though, is that transcribing can be more of a way of just taking down a line to memorize. Once I've made a transcription, I look for a chord chart of the song (a lot on-line, & often at--eek--guitar sites), & I then match the chord changes to the transcribed line. That way, I can learn not only the line, but how the line was put together, & that helps me get concepts for making my own lines, which is really the point. The other bit of advice is to get some great, classic albums. "Sgt. Peppers" is a great one--I transcribed the whole thing, and learned about McCartney's approach, & bits of it come into my vocabulary. Chuck Rainey's performances on "Aja" are also terrific. The thing is to transcribe a song so that you get something from the song that you can tuck away & take with you. You never know when it will come in handy.

[RobT]

Ah, this is becoming one of my favorite topics. I am also getting into this. Most times I start out with a song that is pretty simple that I don't have the sheet music or Bass Clef for and that I really want to learn. I usually start out on bass or the keyboard and listen to the song picking out the bass line. Write down the ideas on staff paper. I started out with some straight forward stuff: Someday My Prince Will Come, So What, etc. Familiar but not to difficult. Compare what I wrote down to the chord charts/lead sheets if I have them or can find them. Makes a great exercise for me. Sometimes I go back and try transcribing the drum part or the lead instrument part to see how close i can get.

[dansouth]

I started transcribing for a horn band in the late 70's. Horn players are used to charts, so I had to transcribe the horn parts from albums by Steely Dan, EWF, Chicago, and others. My high school once had a talent show that they did in mock Gong Show format. I taped an episode of the show and transcribed the intro, the ending, 'Gene, Gene, The Dancing Machine', etc. - I couldn't let them have a Gong Show without a Gong Show Band. - The band director selected guys to play my charts, and it came off really well.

 

What I DIDN'T transcribe, though, were the walking bass line. This was before I played bass, and I couldn't figure out what the heck the guy was doing. The whole walking concept just blew me away; it seemed to random. I played the trumpet back then, so horns seemed much easier to deal with. One of the trumpet players also played some bass; I told him he was on his own. He did a pretty good job, in retrospect.

 

Transcription is excellent for your ear training. When you start out, you'll probably have to "check" every note on your instrument. But after a while, your relative pitch will improve, and you'll be thinking, "Okay, up a fifth, that's F#, then down a major third to D...oh, he's playing a Bm7 arpeggio, and that leads to E7, etc." That kind of ear training is useful on stage when the band launches into a song you don't know.

 

Another advantage to transcription is that, when you're done, you can see how the parts relate to one another from a new perspective. Finally, transcription may help your reading by increasing your familiarity with notation concepts.

 

Bass can be difficult to transcribe, though. Some stuff you have to slow down, but that changes the pitch unless you have software or hardware that can do time stretching. I experimented with this technique a while back when a friends asked me to help him transcribe Eddie Van Halen's Eruption. I'd never attempt something like a Billy Sheehan track without the ability to slow down what he's playing.

 

What's a good song to transcribe. A song that you like a lot. Transcription is very laborious. If you don't like the song, you won't be motivated to work it out. By the way, transcription is not some tired academic exercise. It's really no different than learning bass lines by listening to the record. You're just taking the extra step to jot the notes down on paper as you go along.

 

My favorite bass line transcription to date is Jimmy Haslip's line on Gino Vanelli's 'People I Belong To'. That's one of the best bass lines ever recorded. I transcribed it almost twenty years ago and became an instant Jimmy Haslip fan.

[zujo]

Originally posted by McGryff:

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Take any style you don't know much about and trancribe the bassline and the chord changes. I'd start right there. Join a TOP40 band so you can apply everything too.

 

I personnaly find too challenging stuff to be non practical in the beginning. Let's face it if you can't internalize it you'll never play it right from memory, even if you were able to transcribe it. To internalize a transcription you gotta practice it in all 12 keys..

 

The Jeff Berlin and Anthony Jackson stuff is great for taking your ears to the next level. Then the Pat Metheny stuff. Now this man can teach you melody every step of the way!

[Jeff Addicott]

IMHO, transcription is one of THE best things you can do for yourself as a player. It's got a little bit of everything: theory, ear training, reading (in reverse form), chops busting. By listening to the original recording (as opposed to reading down someone else's chart) you get a better sense for the feel, the style, the context in which the notes are played.

 

90% of what I learned offstage, I've learned off of records.

 

Walking jazz bass lines are an excellent place to start.