Tremendous Transcriptions with Decadent Dolphins and Backhanded Bulldogs

Snoop Dogg with Dolphins

The Nationalist Dolphin

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen! It's that time of year at my schedule where all the Jazz band kids at my school have to do a transcription. Usually only 12 bars from a 12 bar blues song with the head and the actual solo. In my jazz band we have to learn to play the changes on piano for our song; I'm sure that in Varsity it's only harder and more time consuming.  

Maybe it is a hassle to do the transcription but it improves us all as players of our respective instruments. For example when you are listening to the soloist you have to be able to tell what note he's playing while keeping track of the rhythm. Not all of the notes are sustained for long at all. Maybe you are trying to transcribe one of Andy Martin's solos and he goes into a 5 bar nonstop 16-note run, and there, you are pretty much hopeless unless you are now all of the jazz specific scales by heart or you have a program that can slow the song. But, when you transcribe you develop your musical ear so you can decipher notes better and be able to listen to something and play it right off the bat. When you get to that point its really cool and you can show off to all your friends. 

Transcription improves your solo vocabulary. If you want to be a good soloist or even if you just want cool stuff to play over changes then transcription is what you want to do. There are hundreds of solos over an f blues by talented and famous musicians that you can listen to, transcribe, and play over some changes at your school or even at home with some changes you can play on your laptop. 

The last thing is that the best players have done tons of transcriptions. There's a trumpet player at my high school named Luca and he is an amazing soloist. He's transcribed every solo that clifford brown has on the internet and if you listen to Clifford or you know how he plays, Luca has an identical solo vocabulary and tone quality. If I wanted to sound like Andy Martin or JJ Johnson I would listen to them all the time, transcribe everything that they've put out. At the end of it my solo vocabulary would be dramatically different and expanded, my tone quality would have changed to a point and I would be able to show off all his works and name them. 

That's all I have to say about transcriptions for this post. I hope that you guys liked and potentially learned something from it. Also if you want an easy way to transcribe you can go to Noteflight, it makes the process of transcription phenomenally easier then just using a pen and musical score paper because you don't have to rely on your handwriting and what you believe a note sounds like in your head. It writes it out so it looks professional and it plays the note for you so you can check if its the correct one.It plays back what you wrote with your choice of instrument to play it along with a choice of swing or no swing. 

Sorry, but I had to say it. Have a nice day or night. Look forward to a post about marching band and this bulldog.

Bulldog in a Toddler Swing

Notoriously Noteworthy Noteflight for Transcending Transcription

Get out of the old days of transcription kids! It's too quaint to just write notes on paper for a transcription when you can just jot it down on an internet. Noteflight shows you the pitch and then plays what you wrote down back to you so you know you did it right without even picking up your instrument. You can write down multiple lines, for example you can write down the melody for Doxy for trombone,  copy and paste that into the trumpet line and adjust the octaves so the trumpet can play the same thing. After that you can change the instrument for the line. Instead of a piano playing the parts you can change the instrument to what you want. Noteflight is free and all the necessary things you need to write down music doesn't cost anything. Noteflight Crescendo is the premium version of Noteflight, it cost 50 dollars a year/ 8 dollars a month. I don't use Crescendo, and you can definitely get away with not using and it still looks professional.

Sorry if that came off as an advertisement. It probably did.  I just really like the program and I think that you guys should try it out. It has expedited all my transcription endeavors. It has also allowed to do more transcribing by just being there. I never would of transcribed "Black Sugar", the song that I shared in the last post with Andy Martin. It is a great program that has improved my musical competency and I believe that anyone that wants to improve themselves musically. Especially since a certain band director at a certain school said that we should be thinking about a certain transcription project in a certain class, *Wink*Wink*nudge*nudge*. I'm not sure if he is referring to all of these certain band classes, but I would ask him if he doesn't bring it up.

Time for personal talk. Today, tonight or this morning or when ever time you exist in currently when you are reading this you are going to experience the nitty, gritty, bits and pieces of my inner psyche. You'll learn what makes me tick, my pet peeves, what goes on in my little idea chamber/idea whole.

Ok, ladies, gentlemen and individuals in between lets get into it! First off squirrel jokes!

A metaphorical representation of good vs. evil in the context of Star Wars (AKA: The bets squirrel photoshop ever)

To indulge all you spongebob fans here's one of "those" squirrel jokes:"Why does it take more than one squirrel to change a light bulb? Because they are so darn stupid!"

A teenage squirrel told a guy squirrel she liked, "I'm nuts about you!".

They guy squirrel said, "You're nuts o bad yourself." Ba-doom-chh..."

Yes, that was a punchline. All squirrel humor aside, I'll talk about whats going on.

So, I went to region for jazz, and we got a 1, 1, 1-. If you don't know how the scoring works a 5- is the worst score you can get and a 1 or 1+ is the best. The Varsity Jazz got all 1's.  We are going to state with that score and apparently we are the first Junior Varsity Jazz Ensemble to go to state at our school. I'm honestly really proud of myself and the band and I can't wait to see what we can do at the end of the school year. 

Wait! I can't share all of my secrets in this post so, I'll save what else is going on in music for me in my next post. Thanks for reading, sorry to leave you hanging, but I have to keep a smooth supply of these things. Comment, and, um do other things. Have a nice night and Goodbye you handsome individuals. I'll leave you with this...

Metaphorical Representations?