I agree completely. The real benefit of transcribing is to improve your ears but not the ones on the sides of your heads. Transcribing teaches your inner ear how to hear things correctly and where what you transcribed and similar things are on your instrument. In my whole life I have never been able to play something I’ve transcribed earlier if it was more than a month earlier or something like that. After a month or so I’ve moved on and that’s it. It’s gone. Someone once told me that if I continued practicing the piece for three weeks after I transcribed it I would finally be able to remember it on a more or less permanent basis. Unfortunately I have never tried that. It’s not important to me but what is important is how transcribing has brought me closer to understanding where things are on my guitar and how to make them happen in the manner I hear them internally. However if years later I hear something I have transcribed I still probably cannot play it from just memory but I can play right alongside the recording with just a few mistakes. I am sure that this is common to others who transcribe material.
The other benefit is the noodling factor. For every lick I steal off a recording I can come up with at least 5 personalized versions of the original lick.
Brian Kelly
From: aaron woolley
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 1:02 AM
To: jazz_guitar@...
Subject: [jazz_guitar] Re: "Tune Slower" better than Slow Gold?
George wrote - You transcribe to improve your ears as much as anything else.
If you want to let a computer do it for you, just buy a book of transcribed
solos.
What a Rubbish statement. -
Most books I've looked at are 'incorrect in places' - regardless of who has
transcribed / published them, I'd much prefer to sit and transcribe - what I
want from a track myself..
Using 'Transcribe' is a great help in transcribing - much more of a learning
experience than buying a book - surely George .
As far as 'chord recognition' goes - Transcribe is really helpful - on
something like a 'Joe & Ella' or 'Barney & Julie' track - when it's just
guitar(and bass) and vocal - gets those chords that you're 'just not sure
about' (most times at least).
