Hi,

I've always had trouble transcribing stuff.

When you get a student who needs help in this area, what do you do?

Are there some better things for them to transcribe, or do you help them with ear training, or something else?

Thanks,

Alex

Transcribing is an aquired skill that does not always come easy. I recommend that one starts with easy things. I recommend the following: Record yourself playing a short 1/4 note walking bass line over a specific number of bars (say 4 to start) with a metronome so you know where the tempo is and where the beats fall. Write that out and have someone check your work to see if it is correct. Do that several times. Now do it with a solo phrase. Then do it with diffferent type of grooves: bossa nova, rock, funk etc (still with the metronome!). When you transcribe, first mark barlines on a blank sheet of staff paper 4 per line. If you know the chords, pencil them in above the staff. As you listen to a walking bass line, follow along with your pencil on the page. The odds are high that a good jazz bassist will play many roots on the downbeat. As your pencil passes each chord, make a mark if you think they played a root. Go back and listen again and decide which register they played it in. Mark that down. Check it with your bass. Listen to the contour of the notes in between. Did it go up or down? Fill in the blanks. Don't get stuck on one note or one bar. If you are unsure of some things, put them in parenthesis and keep going.
When you transcribe from recordings, start with a recording that the bass is very clearly recorded. One thing that one can do is to transcribe a recording that has been included in a pre transcribed book and use that to check your work.
Hopefully, this will get you started.