HOW TO TRANSCRIBE A SOLO: ASK YOURSELF THESE 5 QUESTIONS

 

In this article, I will try to answer to the questions you might ask yourself while transcribing solos, this process widely used in jazz that might seem strange to you if you are not yet immersed in jazz… I hope to help you discover everything in the interest of practicing this exercise, which is of course not intended to be played publicly, but whose purpose is rather to enrich your improvised playing.

The solo transcription is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to learn jazz, in the same way that one would study a concerto or an etude.

 

 

1) WHAT IS SOLO TRANSCRIPTION?

 

The solo, which is also called the CHORUS, is in fact the improvisation that a jazz soloist will play after having played the theme of the piece. There are often several choruses of different instrumentalists: saxophone, piano, guitar, drums…

The solo transcription attempts to reproduce totally or in part one of these improvisations. In the English-speaking jazz world the concept of transcribing solos is usually meant to describe the process of learning the solo of one of the jazz greats without the added connotation of ever creating a written score. When speaking in French, therefore, I personally prefer the term RELEVER—to pick up—which does not necessarily imply a written dimension. Indeed and as we will see in this article, there are different ways to pick up a chorus, and you can do it directly by ear, or by writing it down first.

 

 

2) WHY PICK UP A SOLO?

 

This question is very important. Indeed, if you are not aware of the usefulness of this exercise, it is difficult to get started, since transcribing requires a lot of time, patience and relentlessness…

To comfort you, you can be sure that all the great jazz musicians have been there! They have all at some point sought inspiration from one or more other improvisers.

It’s even sometimes the only way some musicians have used to learn jazz, which explains why it happens that they have no knowledge of music theory while being exceptional musicians… So inevitably, you can imagine that without this kind of knowledge, these musicians picked up the solos… by listening to them! And it is in this way that they developed excellent listening skills, and that they became great jazz musicians.

This essential exercise allows us to train our ear, which remains an essential tool for playing jazz since to improvise over changes, it is imperative to hear them!

Picking up a solo also makes it possible to better memorize the changes, and to hear them differently, since by picking up several solos over a chorus, it’s like learning several different melodies on the same chords.

Transcription also allows us to take inspiration from a soloist we like and integrate a bit of their playing into ours: their way of building a solo and developing it, their way of placing themselves rhythmically, their way of constructing their phrases…

Picking up solos finally allows a musician to create a vocabulary of licks, patterns, sequences of notes to be used directly in the improvisations, like when you learn a language…

 

 

3) WHICH SOLO SHOULD I TRANSCRIBE?

 

Just the one you like! It’s all open: violinists, other instrumentalists…Trust your ear to hear a phrase you like and try to reproduce it exactly the way the soloist you like so much does…So , you will create a vocabulary of licks that will allow you to express yourself freely, while remaining in a very specific context.

Obviously, I don’t advise you to start your first transcription with a solo that is too complex harmonically and rhythmically… If at first picking up the solo seems too difficult, first take up the theme of a standard , without the score, trying to follow the phrasing of the instrumentalist playing it! The themes are never played exactly as they are written in the Realbook anyway (apart from maybe some complex bebop themes). Indeed, a score of a standard is in a way a summary of all the ways there are to interpret the melody, but this is still a simplification, and most interpretations are more complex and above all very different from each other!

So try picking up melodies by ear. Gradually, it will become easier, and you will be able to tackle a bit of chorus, then a whole chorus.

Personally, I first started to pick up solos of Stéphane Grappelli (my first was Minor Swing, which I just uploaded for you! Click HERE to watch the video). This is an excellent jazz violin school!!! Stéphane’s playing is simply beautiful… he’s relaxed, it swings, he breathes music… And then, the fact of starting with solos in older swing really allows you to better understand the basic structures of jazz, rather than starting with more complex modern pieces, which you will have easier access to later on having gone through old-school swing before…

But if instead you prefer to start with modern jazz, do so! What matters most to me is motivation; picking up a chorus is already so tedious that it’s the love we have for this chorus that will keep our determination to go all the way! If one is not really convinced of the solo, the tendency will perhaps go towards discouragement…

 

 

4) TRANSCRIBING A WHOLE CHORUS OR ONLY PHRASES?

 

 

The transcription of an entire solo is very useful for getting inspired by a soloist’s overall phrasing and swinging style! The goal is really to try to imitate all the ornaments, and to place yourself rhythmically in the same way as the soloist, in order to immerse yourself completely in their playing.

If you prefer, you can also pick up unique phrases, and work on them in all keys and in different contexts, so that you can use them at any time when you are playing. For example, when you’re listening to a piece, as soon as you hear a phrase you like, go over it several times and try to pick it up as you go, even if you don’t want to pick up the entire solo. Then play and play and play the phrase again, then in context, then transpose…

I think it’s important to do both, i.e. pick up whole solos and separate sentences. You can very well work on an entire solo, then extract your favorite phrases in order to deepen them. Chorus transcription is a long-term job, which every jazz musician strives to do throughout their life as a musician…

 

5) TRANSCRIBE A SOLO BY EAR OR BY SCORE?

 

I think this question bothers a lot of musicians, depending on the musical background they come from… These are the same questions I asked myself a few years ago… Is it okay to learn a solo by writing the score down? Or conversely, can we transcribe by ear without using writing?

In my opinion, and especially at the beginning, I think it’s important to listen to yourself and not forbid yourself from using the method that helps you most…

However, there are some points to consider, in order to take into account the pros and cons of either process.

We string players are very often used to working with sheet music, especially if we were classically trained first. To tell the truth, it sometimes even seems difficult to us to do without sheet music, if not impossible…

At the beginning when we start jazz, it is true that the scores can be a precious help, and even allow us to make the link between what we have learned and jazz which is so different. Nevertheless, it is important to keep in mind that jazz is improvised music, and that in the long term it will be necessary to gradually consider functioning without scores. Our advantage, as a violinist, violist, cellist or double bass player, is that to be able to play our instrument technically, a very good ear is essential. Yes, without a good ear, it’s impossible to play in tune, and impossible…to play at all!! The nature of our instrument has already developed our ear, it is up to us to use this advantage!! Moreover, most of us already use it naturally during the first tests of playing a chorus over changes…

Therefore, it can be used when picking up choruses! I consider that the ideal is to try to pick up a chorus first by ear, to sing it, to play it, to memorize it and to integrate it completely, and only then to write it down, somehow to archive it…

I’m telling you this, but I didn’t start that way… I started to pick up by first writing the solo, then learning the score I had written, which was faster for my taste… Yes, learning a piece is certainly faster by going through the score first. And above all we have this satisfaction of being able to play the solo very quickly, and it’s nice! But after years of learning jazz, I started to pick up my ears, and I really saw a difference in the licks I had learned by ear and the use that I could make of them.

Indeed, what is the purpose in learning a solo? Is it to know it by heart as one would have learned an etude or a concerto, or isn’t it rather to integrate it into one’s playing? Do you think the integration of soloing into improvisational playing will be faster by going through a score, or by going through auditory memory first??

I think you have deduced the answer to this question. If learning the solo itself is faster by going through a score, integration into improvisational playing will take much longer. On the other hand, if you memorize an solo by ear, even if you will only have a third of it instead of the whole solo, well this third will come back to you much more easily when you try to improvise and will really be more rooted in you. Sometimes even, as if by magic, a pattern will come back to settle in your playing a few weeks after learning it.

So, even if you want to go through a written method to transcribe your solos, I strongly advise you to also start training your ear to hear a passage of a chorus, or a lick! And little by little you will understand all the benefits of this approach which requires enormous patience and a lot of determination, but which ends up paying off!

Anyway, if you test both methods, you will see for yourself the difference in the long run…

 

 

That’s it for this article, if you liked it, don’t hesitate to share it on social networks! I think it can also be useful for other instrumentalists than violinists or other stringed instruments, even if it is true that this blog is specially dedicated to them…