More transcription questions

[Eublet]

Janek,

I've recently become more aware of you as a player. I appreciate your approach to things. I've been reading through a lot of things you are saying about transcribing, and I agree, but still, there seems to be something that I'm missing.

Very quickly, I can sing anything back to you that you give me, so my ear works fine. Also, one thing that is very simple yet very amazing to me is whistling. For example, hit a note on a piano, just one note, and I can whistle it back instantly and on pitch, without having to "slide" into it. Like I said, simple right? Yet, I've always wondered how my brain knows how to form my lips and such to make the exact note before I get a chance to hear it and then make an adjustment.

So here's a question for you along these lines. Can you approximate that on your instrument? I'm assuming you don't have perfect pitch, which would make the question rather moot.

Going further, I can sit down and name intervals all day long. Up and down, chromatics, whatever. That doesn't seem to always help me when I'm trying to transcribe a tune, and I'm certainly not thinking about intervals when I sing or whistle. I'm just letting it go.

I guess I'm wondering what the difference is between being able to sing or whistle something, versus making my hands just react to what I just heard and play it back. Is it just a matter of spending more time with my instrument so that it becomes second nature. Is it really a matter of more transcription? Gosh, I've got many, many, many more hours in the shed on my bass than I do singing or whistling. Why do those two things come so easy, and the instrument itself requires so much more work.

Thanks for your thoughts on this.

[janekbass]

Jason,

being able to play things seamlessly on your instrument that you first hear in your head, or from another musician comes down to just playing a lot. And through transcription you will find your ears not just tuning to individual notes, but to phrases and shapes and key centers also.

Just like when you first started to understand words and repeat them back to your parents, it's the same with the bass. You just have to take it slow at first, and try not to make yourself believe that you should be able to hear x,y, and z, when j,k, l, is really enough right now.

Put the radio on for an hour a day and jam along to it. Anything that's in the charts right now. After a month of doing this you should be able to have a complete song down with the changes, the form, and maybe even the melody by the time you've heard it once. Just look for the structure, and the melody and use those as a base to add all the other parts to. Bass lines are repetitive, and are often similar from one song to the next when you listen to the radio, so you should be able to recognize things reccuring all the time. it's just time, and practice. No other way around it.

Easy,

Janek