Transcribing: Turning raw data into useful information.
I currently subscribe to a newsletter by a friend named Cathey Armillas, who appears to have developed much of her reputation as a coach for TED Talk speakers. And one of the things I’ve enjoyed about her content is her “52 Marketing Tips” blog where she’s able to share some quick wisdom in about a paragraph and a half. So since the most recent one I read is called “Tip #43: Don’t Confuse the Process with the Goal,” I thought I’d share one of the parallels that this statement made me think about with respect to music. And that connection has to do with the way in which many musicians have been conditioned to approach transcribing solos. Meaning that they tend to overlook or undervalue a concern for pacing and circumstance, both of which are the context under which a solo takes place. So if the specific ideas of a soloist can be regarded as 1/3rd of the matter, then the remaining 2/3rds relate to pacing and circumstance.
Pacing: Unlike visual art, where you can see the entire structure of a piece immediately, the entire narrative of a solo (like reading a book) is only fully understood after it’s over. So when analyzing a solo, you have to consider when certain ideas are introduced over the entire length of the solo. And to a lesser degree, where they land with respect to the total running time of a song. For example, there have been many times at a Jazz jam session where a more experienced soloist has come up on stage to take a solo that’s substantially shorter than everyone else’s, just to prove the point that a quality solo can be played in a truncated amount of time, as well as to subtly communicate that the song being played has been played long enough. So that would be an example of how someone might also be motivated to solo if they were taking into consideration the length of a song itself.
Circumstance: Since the goal of music is to create a set of feelings that’ll move a listener, the impact of those feelings will be reflective of the quality and frequency of unexpected moments in music. Therefore, the way in which musicians create these moments is by using alternate paths towards the inevitable points of rhythmic and harmonic resolution that the listener expects to hear. Now that aside, as you look at a transcription of someone’s solo, you’ll want to start by highlighting all recurring trends so as to ascertain if those ideas are strategic or arbitrary. And you’ll do this by balancing this question against the length of the solo, input from other musicians, and the length of the song itself, so as to extract useful insights for your own soloing. And I bring this up because if you try to play some of the ideas from your transcription before the other musicians have created a similar atmosphere under which your transcription is representative of, it’ll be like recalling a joke that falls flat when you use it. You might recall it correctly, but the circumstances under which you tell it might not be conducive for the reaction you imagine, such as the race, sex, age, region, religion, etc. of your audience. So context always matters, as a respect for it is always what separates amateurs from the professionals in any domain.
Suggested Takeaways…
a) Most solos don’t exist in a vacuum. There are usually other musicians accompanying the person soloing. Therefore, you must take into account the degree of influence they might be having on the soloist, in addition to the introduction of certain ideas by the soloist, as per the total running time of a song.
b) Unlike visual art, music (like a book) takes time for the form to reveal itself. So it’s best to suspend judgment until a song is over. This, of course, being easier said than done.
c) Transcription is a form of musical research. And like all research, the goal is to identify the existence of as many patterns as possible, and to ascertain the reason behind their existence.