Making Jazz Transcribing Accessible to Everyone: A Scalable Approach

This fresh perspective on jazz transcribing addresses the concerns that plague student improvisers with an approach to transcribing that can be adjusted to enable students to transcribe what they hear without notation. This method is also useful to more experienced jazz musicians, lending them strategies for expediting the transcription process while still making meaning of broader concerns within improvised solos by the masters. Contrasting examples—Charlie Parker's solo on “Now's the Time” and Thelonious Monk's performances of “Well, You Needn't” and “Ask Me Now”—illustrate some of the possible implementations.