Listening to music and transcribing are two of the most valuable practices a guitar student can engage in. As with most rewarding practices, they require focus, time, and a lot of patience. But after a while you will see your improvisations soar to new heights of mastery. Here are five tips to develop listening and transcribing skills.
1. Hearing Music vs. Listening to music
To start this process we have to become inspired. But to do this, we can’t just have some music on in the background while we do our homework or cook dinner. We can enjoy these sounds but we are merely hearing them, we are not listening. My favorite way to truly engage in listening is to sit down by myself, with headphones and in a room with no physical movement or distractions. Sometimes I will close my eyes and try to find myself in the music, as if I was in a movie theater watching the music and becoming immersed in it. Try it with a band or artist you like, and while focused, try to pick out something, anything, that you can recognize and work from, even if it is a few notes of a solo that stood out to you.
2. Start transcribing
Step 2 of this process is putting what you heard on paper. If you don’t feel comfortable notating music, simply try to figure it out on your guitar and record it so you can refer back to it. Find the lick or segment one note at a time. Get the first note and go from there. This will be a painstaking process and you may make 10 mistakes before getting the correct second note but keep at it. But with every mistake you make, your brain is making incredible progress. It is learning what you hear versus what you want to hear and your brain, along with your ear, will help you guide your musical choices as your improvisation skills develop.
3. Transcribe more
Now that you have accomplished working out a bit of a solo you like, try another tune you know. Pick a random note on the guitar as your starting point, and try to work out a familiar song, solo or melody. Then, try that same song starting on a different note, maybe on a completely different area of the guitar. You are teaching your brain to connect notes and to hear familiar intervals, an essential skill while improvising.
4. Expand your listening
Once you feel more comfortable listening for certain notes and translating them to your fingers, try to pick out more of the complexities of the sounds. For example, does the guitarist you are hearing bend between those two notes or does he slide them? Is the guitarist using any effects like delay or distortion? Can you describe the tone? Maybe it’s full and round or in contrast, sharper and tinnier, like the different pickups of a guitar. Ask yourself these questions and you will start to hear the differences in all these sonic choices, perhaps helping you to make some of your own down the road.
5) Use It
Listening and transcribing are an essential part of guitar lessons, so we must apply all that we have learned here. When you improvise, play with a backing track in a key you are comfortable with, and try to reproduce some of the licks and tunes you have learned in your listening. Attempt to put them in a place rhythmically that works with the beat of the song and then adjust it. Play with the notes a little bit to make them your own. A wise musician once said that “you should learn from your idols, not copy them.” Take what you have learned and put your own personality and musical choices into them. Most importantly, have fun, be patient, and always keep listening!
© 2013 Brenna Method