Transcription is one of the most fundamental things we do as musicians. In the same way as we learned how to speak, we listen to other musicians, we hear something that piques our curiosity and we want to be able to play it, so we work out what it was, then we make it part of our own vocabulary. I’m going to go into detail exactly how I approach the transcription process and exactly how I go about getting the most out of the time I spend transcribing material from the players that inspire me to play the instrument.
1. The Why - The why is one of the most important parts of the transcription process, both in selecting what to transcribe, and then what specific piece/fragment to examine. Why are you transcribing? What parts of your playing need work that could be improved or fixed via transcription? Ask yourself what is it that attracts you to the specific tune/solo/fragment that you’re looking at, and what exactly do you hope to get out of it? Considering all these factors can help you narrow your focus in beginning the transcription process!
2. Listening - Listen to the music you want to transcribe exhaustively!! The last piece of music I ended up transcribing, I must have listened to it around 80-90 times before I touched the bass or picked up my pencil and paper. Listen to it in a focused way with no distractions so you can fully internalise the music. This is a crucial step in the process, because the more you internalise the music, the simpler the process will become once you pick up the instrument.
3. Mapping Your Transcription - Before you start looking for the individual notes, create a framework (also known as the form of the music). This is less applicable if you’re transcribing a small fragment, but if you’re writing out an entire tune or a solo, creating a framework can help simplify the process. This includes working out the key of the tune, what the form is (for example it could be a jazz blues) and how often (if applicable) that form repeats. In the context of a pop song, if you have an intro, 3 verses, 2 bridges and 4 choruses, once you have one round of verse and chorus transcribed, you then might have the bulk of the song done. This can help make the process less daunting if you are new to it and help you encompass the tune as a whole. One word of caution is that you still need to listen in detail to every part of the tune, because within repetitive music, often there could well be small shifts in the harmony or the line! Don’t skip ahead!
4. Write It Down - You have a finite amount of memory in your mind, especially if you’re in an intensive period of learning, so I like to write down anything I transcribe!! It also always helps to have written transcriptions so that you can come back to them at a later date and refresh your memory. You can also discover new things within the music every time you come back to it! Certainly within most of the transcriptions I’ve done, I often discover little gems that maybe I didn’t originally pick up on the first time going through the process! Precisely how you go about recording your transcriptions is entirely down to you, personally I prefer pencil and paper but inputting directly into the computer is also a perfectly valid approach!
5. Playing The Music - This is the fun part where I learn the transcription and play it on the instrument. This is where you try and get so far inside the phrasing of the musician you’ve transcribed that it sounds like one instrument. This can take time and a great deal of persistence but this is a key part of really understanding the subject and concept of the musician and how it fits within the wider picture.
6. Moving away from the music - This is the critical phase of the process where you move away from the original context. If you’ve transcribed a solo for example, this is the point in the process where you extract those pieces of vocabulary that attract you and that you want to get inside your own playing, and you work on them in isolation. This can involve practicing that piece of vocabulary in different contexts and different keys so that it becomes a completely separate thing to the solo you originally transcribed. Please check out my previous article on vocabulary for a more detailed look inside that process. I will say this, the only limitation with this part of the process is your imagination and how far you want to take the process.
7. Being patient - It may well take weeks or months for these pieces of vocabulary to fully sink into your subconscious. It also requires in enormous number of hours of practice (and endless repetition) before it becomes instinctive to you, in the same way as when you were a child and trying to learn a new word you weren’t familiar with before. Sooner or later, these fragments will sink in to form part of your natural vocabulary as a musician. Again, I recommend reading my previous article about developing patience with the process.
There are several additional points I feel are very important when it comes to transcribing.
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The first is the importance of the selection process. When selecting a tune to transcribe, it’s important not to overreach yourself. If you have limited experience with the transcription process, transcribing Coltrane’s solo over Giant Steps or John Myung’s bass line in The Dance Of Eternity isn’t the wisest course of action or the best use of your time. Your ears need time and training, so start simple and work up. Tunes like So What (Miles Davis) or With or Without You (U2) are good examples of a starting point if you’ve never transcribed before. Give your ears time to adjust to the process of listening for the notes that you want to work out and slowly build them up. It’s a long process and one that requires a great deal of patience, but the payoff is so much greater than if you learn music from a transcription book.
While searching for the notes, remember that there are only 12 tones in the western scale to choose from. Knowing the key will help you get into the ballpark, and you can then move either in half or whole steps to find the note you’re looking for. Often the notes will be diatonic, so explore that avenue first before you start moving into more ‘outside’ options. When looking at bass lines, often chord tones should be the first avenue of exploration.
When new to transcription, try and choose tunes/solos/fragments where it is relatively easy to pick out the instrument you are transcribing. Sometimes it can be a little difficult to pick out the bass, if this is the case, add it to the laundry list for future transcriptions and pick something else. One thing that can occasionally help when transcribing bass is pitch shifting it an octave higher, as you are still in real time but the notes are moved into a frequency range much friendlier to the human ear! EQ’ing to boost the bass frequencies can also be extremely helpful!
Don’t shortchange yourself by looking for short cuts. Do the hard work, and do the work properly the first-time round, and you will see the benefits in the long term!
I hope this helps break down the process of transcription, as always if you have any further questions or want to discuss something within this article, feel free add your thoughts below!