The Easy Way To Get Good At Music

Look, here's the truth, there's an

easy

way to get

good

at

music

, there's an

easy

way and you probably already know it and you avoid it at all costs because deep down you think this is hard at first, you might even do it. you have tried. this easy way to be

good

at

music

sometimes you can notice that something happens every time you try this we are talking about transcribing today what is why we need to do it how we do it it's not going to be that easy, you're going to make a lot of mistakes, you're going to fail over and over again, you'll find it hard, it won't be as comfortable as playing f blues for the millionth time, the same way you play every time you do it, but that's the beauty, that's how we get good, that's the way easy to improve and as we move forward together on this journey, just keep in mind that this video is sponsored by open studio, visit openstudio jazz.com and check out your courses. truly as well as degrees like fred hirsch peter martin jeffrey keyser shawn jones christian mcbride gregory hutchinson and many many more you've probably heard it over and over again transcribe learn it from the record from experienced musicians from masters there are plenty of youtube videos many of these are really good youtube videos on how to transcribe why transcribing everything is great even here at open studio we have done a lot of courses on transcription the second part of your vocabulary will be transcription today we are going to talk about transcription the transcription process is extremely important Transcribing solos is one of our favorite activities as jazz artists.

You will have this beautiful transcript. We've made a ton of YouTube videos on transcription. How to absorb what you transcribed. You can do it? be overwhelming, you go on social media, you see what everyone else is transcribing, you say, well, I want to participate, you've taken it 45 seconds too far, this is all great and we're not going to stop that because they are actually very useful to analyze the music and demonstrate and explain what's going on beneath the surface, but the people who benefit the most from all of these transcription videos are the people who made the transcriptions now, before we get too far along.

This, let's talk about the word itself, transcribe if you are playing black American music or anything other than Western classical music, transcribing does not necessarily mean writing down what you are doing to put the thought, speech or data into written or printed form. , Yeah. sometimes, but it's really about listening to the record, absorbing it, internalizing it and playing it, really feeling it. Here's the great Christian McBride from his open studio course, Jazz Bass Fundamentals and Beyond, explaining exactly that, I think, when you're transcribing a solo rather than actually learning the notes, the most important thing is to transcribe as much as possible. of sensations you can when I say transcribe, I don't mean jot down on paper while you play, do that if there's something you really want to analyze, but in terms of transcribing things, you should try to do it as much with your ear and internalize it as much as you can because if you just hear something and write it down, you're not really getting the full meaning.

What those lines are supposed to mean, you can't write down the feeling, so when you're listening to a particular track and there's something you want to learn, feel the feeling, that's how you get the real effectiveness of transcribing something. A note here too: you may have a bunch of these transcription books and be honest, how many of those have you read alone or taken from a written copy that someone else transcribed? How many of them do you really have? absorbed, yes maybe there's some kind of lick, but overall you probably don't sound like charlie parker just from reading the omni book and how many tunes you've learned from the actual book you actually memorize that way.

Have you ever learned a melody by ear? I love this clip of Robert Glasper, who is one of the best musicians on the planet right now. He talks about learning music by ear. Look at this. Okay, listen. I couldn't hit Herbie or Chick when he was learning to play. Play this music I couldn't play it for Herbie and could you give me a tabla? No, you listen to it, you learn it and you write it yourself, that's how you get good, that's how you get to the level, you can't be great and be lazy those two things don't match those two things don't match the faster you recognize it, better now that, of course, is very easy to say, but we all know that in the back of our minds we are thinking that this is quite difficult.

Especially if you haven't done it much and it gets easier and easier, believe me, the more you do it, of course, the better you get, which is one of the benefits of doing it. There is a direct correlation between how much a musician gets the music out of him. the album and how good they actually are I've seen it for years and years and years and years so just bite the bullet and get into the hard part now another fact about it is that when you do this you're going to fail at a lot of things maybe not believe in me I do believe in you I just know that you are going to fail I don't want to be depressing but you will have to accept that that is part of the process that is helping you to be better, so how do we do this?

How do we actually transcribe? It's actually a pretty simple process. When it comes down to it, we're going to break it down into three simple instructions. The first instruction is to listen 21 times to what you are transcribing this is many times to listen to something and maybe you will listen to it 21 times today maybe you will listen to it 21 times tomorrow maybe 10 times today maybe 11 times tomorrow the point is even before you sit down with your instrument listen listen listen listen and listen again step two and we haven't even gotten to our instrument yet it's singing it all the greats sing it all the time it's the famous quote from lester young he stopped playing in the middle of the solo because I forgot the words correctly.

This is a big part of internalizing it so that you don't have to think too much about these solos that you're trying to learn. Spend a whole day listening to it and singing along with what you're trying. transcribe it and finally take it to your instrument, sit down, try to learn it from your voice to sing from that internalization, see if you can figure out some of the things on your instrument, this takes some discipline, you will want to do this. The first 10 minutes of trying to learn something again takes a few days to absorb. Really, really try to absorb it.

I think you'll find that it comes out much faster on your instrument if you've picked it up. that moment then when you get to your instrument now you're trying to figure it out now you're actually learning it at a very deep level this is not just reading the actual book or the actual level b this is like you're really understanding what's going on listening to the melody from just listening to the bass line trying to figure out where the bass is moving trying to figure out the thirds and sevenths of the chords that the bass is playing around all of that is going to be very useful and remember what christian mcbride said: it's about feeling What is more important than grades is to actually walk in the shoes of these teachers, don't let the dumb youtubers do this because you get your hands dirty, get in there and actually do the work that will make you improve again this is the easy way to get better at playing music now you might be wondering what should I transcribe what should I choose to transcribe well I'm going to fix that right now I'm going to fix that right now thank you Harry.

It's best to choose something you absolutely love, something you probably already know very well. It would be better. I also have three suggestions here for you. I have three songs loaded. soundlice review soundlice links description soundlice is the platform we use here at openstudio for all of our transcriptions it's our living notation system it's amazing i have charlie parker's billy bounce i have clifford brown sandu and i have wynton kelly only on freddy freeloader Now the nice thing about Soundlice is that you can slow it down without losing pitch so you can take your time, so I'll challenge you if you're a beginner and you start with one of these solos, Billy's bounce is probably the best. entry point, learn the head, which is pretty easy and then I want you to learn the solo four bars at a time, see if you can listen to it again 21 times the minimum, see if you can sing the whole solo and then when you get to your instrument take it four bars at a time just learn four bars at a time couldn't be simpler do this for five to ten minutes every day you don't have to kill yourself here you don't have to say "okay" in the next Six months, I'm transcribing every girl's race solo I've ever done.

Now just start getting used to transcribing, so we have a challenge here as well. We'll make a video of you playing your transcriptions of one of these three great solos. you can choose one or all three big solos, all you have to do is go to instagram, you can tag us at openstudio jazz, we will use the hashtag the easiest way for this challenge, so post the instagram hashtag of your video of the easier way and you'll be able to We may see your clip in a future open studio video. We're going to do a compilation of everyone working on this together as you get to it.

Remember a couple of things first, this is hard and that's good, second, keep in mind that you. We will find that there are a lot of failures involved in this and that is a good thing too, but in the end we have to frame it in a way that is useful to us, so let's remember the mantra of this session, which is thank you all for joining me today, I can't wait to see your videos, don't forget to hit the like button, go ahead and subscribe if you haven't already until next time, happy practicing.