Playing the saxophone What, how and why are you transcribing?

[BrianJoeSandy]

It was a challenge from my grandson

 

[BrianJoeSandy]

In numbers the rhythm is 821113 repeated twice
It would be good to have a simple app that would play a rhythm given a string of numbers. Your hearing ignores the bar lines and you hear
211138 or bap papa da dah da. Any offers of other words to fit?

 

[BigMartin]

In numbers the rhythm is 821113 repeated twice
It would be good to have a simple app that would play a rhythm given a string of numbers. Your hearing ignores the bar lines and you hear
211138 or bap papa da dah da. Any offers of other words to fit?

You're really asking for trouble there .

 

[AndyWhiteford]

<snip>

1) What are you transcribing at the minute?
2) How are you going about doing the transcribing, whats your method(s)?
3) Why are you transcribing this particular player/solo/lick etc.

Also a youtube link <schnip happens> l

1:/ what? a lot of Gypsy Swing and New Orleans swing Clarinet
2:/how?
*rip / record youtube files to audio files, or use audio mp3s from itunes / Cds etc.
*place them in Garageband and slow them down and adjust parametric EQ to make clarinet
as clear as possible .( note you can also record from youtube playing video at half speed )
*transcribe to paper /with propelling pencil ;-) .... check on clarinet.
*Playalong with original recordings or various Gypsy or Aebersold
or iTunes karaoke backing tracks.
*Highlight / select phrases, analyze / transpose & try to synthesize into my own, similar style
3/ why? i must walk this path, though i've long forgotten why......

this weeks choice......

 

[Pauly]

1. Not much right now because I have two small kids but the last things I did were some Tony Malaby solos from his Adobe album with Drew Gress and Paul Motian.

2 I'm pretty old school for a youngish guy). The first thing to do is really know the solo, and preferably be able to sing it or at least bits of it. Then i work out the changes. Then I work phrase by phrase: listen to the phrase, sing the phrase, play the phrase, repeat until you get it right. Then I write down the phrase and move on. Copying the phrase includes copying the dynamics, phrasing, etc so you're learning that as you go.

3. I find it really helpful to get inside someone else's style - I don't try to copy any licks but I do try to analyse what the player is doing rhythmically and harmonically and then I try to add the bits I like to my own playing. It's a slow process!

 

[Bis Key Bandit]

How many of you write down your transcriptions (I always wondered if transcription meant to actually write it down?)

I try to memorize the solos by repeating each phrase until I get it right then I play it along with the record. Problem is it tends to slip from my memory right after I think I've nailed it so the end result is a rough approximation of the original solo, and it always feels rubbish and stilted, but I hope somehow it's managed to stick in my subconsious in some way. If I try to perfect the rhythms it ends up sounding rigid and unspontaneous. Sometimes when I go back to a solo after a break it sounds better. It's a load of fun and a learning process, whatever the results.

It's a funny thing, like capturing a butterfly, you want to grasp and hold onto the beauty but by it's very nature it was fleeting and spontaneous, it always seems to get farther away!

I usually extract phrases I like and analyse them, then play them in all keys.

Like with all practicing, I hope, HOPE, somehow it will filter into my improvisations.

 

[Bis Key Bandit]

Another thing, I figure this: If a musical solo it an outward expression of a musician's inner musical mind, then by imitating their solo I'm "reverse engineering" to feel in some small way a little bit of what they were feeling, in the same way as people try to "empathise" with others to feel a bit of what they feel. (seems a bit illogical, cos we can't know what someone is thinking, but we have mirror neurons and have similar physiology amongst ourselves so perhaps we can know what they are feeling, and music is primarily feeling, it's wordless rhetoric, like the "prosody" of language).

So when I play a transcription I'm imagining being inside Coltrane or Prez's musical feelings.

Jazz is like a language in that it's composed of these shared musical vocabulary so there's no point re-inventing the wheel. You learn to talk the language then you learn to speak your own voice.

It's an endlessly fascinating project.

 

[Bis Key Bandit]

That said, Coltrane was interviewed and was surprised that people said he sounded angry :/

 

[kevgermany]

That said, Coltrane was interviewed and was surprised that people said he sounded angry :/

He plays in a language I can't understand, and it's very aggressive.

 

[Jeanette]

He plays in a language I can't understand, and it's very aggressive.

Or is it a tortured soul playing?

Jx

 

[ProfJames]

I sound like a tortured cat playing!

 

[Jeanette]

I sound like a tortured cat playing!

Me and you both then, but I am working on that 🙂

Jx

 

[ProfJames]

I get the all clear - hopefully - to resume sax playing next week..............nine months out!

 

[kevgermany]

Or is it a tortured soul playing?

Jx

That's the way I hear it, including the screams.

 

[Nick Wyver]

He plays in a language I can't understand, and it's very aggressive.

Doesn't sound aggressive to me but I dunno whether I "understand" it or not. I just like the noise it makes. Which is my attitude to all music.

And, to answer a previous question, yes, transcription means writing it down. If I didn't do that I have to do it all over again next time I wanted to play it.

 

[Jeanette]

Doesn't sound aggressive to me but I dunno whether I "understand" it or not. I just like the noise it makes.

I don't like all the noises he makes but I like the way he suits my mood sometimes 🙂

Jx

 

[Bis Key Bandit]

I sound like a tortured cat playing!

There are people who practice for years to sound like a tortured cat!

And if they're good enough they even get onto Eurovision:

 

[kevgermany]

I don't like all the noises he makes but I like the way he suits my mood sometimes 🙂

Jx

Warn me and I'll stay away.

 

[Jeanette]

Warn me and I'll stay away.

Maybe

Jx

 

[Lizengar]

I am probably gonna get a stake to the heart for saying this but I am transcribing the following songs...
1. I WANT IT THAT WAY by...BACKSTREET BOYS
2. Eyes on Me by Faye Wong (Balamb Concert Version)
3. Everything by Michael Buble
4. All Of Me by John Legend

I use Guitar Pro and sort out the chords. And since I am still trying to under the tranposing theory, I play the first note. If the transposed key is correct, then I will look at what key I am playing on the saxophone and scibble the notes on my Moleskine musician notebook.

Then I may or may not, depending if I still have air-capacity, play that key on the guitar and continue where I left off or continue with the saxophone and scribble the notes.