How to transcribe music? Slowly...

Have you ever been at a rehearsal where a musician suggested taking a song or piece at "tempo di learn-o"? It's a funny expression that belies the truth about how we really learn. Transcribing music is a slow-motion process that lets one absorb musical vocabulary at the real speed of learning - slow! I've heard it said that composers in the classical era learned melodic, harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary as well as arranging technique by hand-copying scores of the masters who came before them. That's a very slow process which virtually no one has chosen to undertake since the advent of photocopiers. For all the speed with which we can now electronically transmit our ideas, the process of truly absorbing them has remained in the very human domain of "slow". Michael Brecker, whose playing has never been described as being lacking in the speed department, said in this interview that he is "slow" in adding new vocabulary. He's referring to himself, but who would we be to say that we are faster learners than Michael?

Wherever musical language has grown, it has been a communal process. Jazz musicians are so accustomed to gleaning ideas from each other that a lingo has developed around it, with terms like "lifted" and "stolen" used to describe it. It's funny that these 'criminal' sounding terms are applied to the same process that every baby/child goes about when learning to speak. They certainly are "borrowing" vocabulary that they've heard before without any expectation of putting it together in fresh and unique ways. And yet they inevitably do. In learning jazz vocabulary, one can use the formal process of writing whole solos out, and it can also be done in bits and pieces. The key is that we make the connection of why a certain sound fits a certain context. It's a relatively slow process which requires trial, analysis and repetition. Just like learning how to talk.

Luckily, there are now tools (like iHearit) to make this slow process a little easier. Because transcribing is all about using your ears, iHearit has a very visual interface to complement this. You can see the waveform, timeline, and zoom in and out with touch gestures.

Happy music learning, and remember to take it slow:)