Yamaha Education Blog » Jazz Transcribing with the Michaels

As an experienced keyboard/piano player but a relative newcomer to jazz piano playing I decided last year to start the journey to get my jazz piano playing working. Following a week at a jazz summer school in 2008 I've kept up my practice during most evenings but have not yet found a regular practice routine that I feel is really moving me on.

That is, until I started to work on the listening activities that almost every jazz musician will tell you are the key. But what do they mean by 'listening'? And what should one do, having listened? Well, the idea is to listen repeatedly to a piece of music you'd like to learn, so you get to know not just the notes but every nuance of the performance. 

So, having heard the late Will Michael's amazing piano solo, 'Elegy', which jazz star, Julian Joseph, played as a tribute to Will at his Ronnie Scott's gig in November 2008, I set out to learn it. Jazz musicians speak about transcription but they don't necessarily mean writing something down. There's nothing wrong with writing down the music that you've worked out but the notation doesn't contain enough of the original performance to allow you just to read it. So sketch it out if you need to but treat the notation just as a guide, not as 'the music'!

With 'Elegy' I started by working out some of the harmony and melody - just a short section initially, over a period of 2-3 weeks, whenever I got a moment to listen on my iPod. When I felt I'd got it, I played along at the piano to check. As time went on, constantly referring back to Will's wonderful performance, I was able to add additional sections of the piece and more and more of Will's performance detail - expression, ornaments, phrasing, chord voicings, tempo fluctuations, his expressive use of rubato, etc. I soon found that even my performance had begun to come alive!

After a while I did get to the stage where I felt the need to write something down to guide me but I am clear that working it out first by ear is the key; sometimes it may be tempting to write it down straight away but I must resist for as long as possible! When I did finally need to capture on paper what I had done so far, even then I only sketched it out, using the manuscript pad and pencil I now keep permanently by the piano.

I've now got to the point where I can give a reasonably convincing performance of this and at last week's Jazz Experience workshop, played part of it to Will's brother, Richard, who was leading the workshop. He was very moved and suggested that I tell people about the transcribing process I had gone through, so here I am!

This whole so-called 'transcribing' process really is the best way to learn the language. Listening and copying is the way we all learn to speak, so of course it works! My plan now is to tackle some sections of piano improvisations by some of my heroes - maybe from McCoy Tyner's 'Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit' or Herbie Hancock's 'Cantaloupe Island' to begin with. Thanks, Will, for showing me the way!