Three Reasons Why You Should Transcribe Other Players

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Welcome to today’s video where I’ll be discussing what I consider to be the three biggest advantages of transcribing other guitar players and musicians in general. I also touch on how transcribing should fit into your practice routine amongst improvisation, warm-ups, technical exercises and more.

Transcribing is the act of listening to a piece of music, working out the rhythms, melodies and more, and notating it. For the purposes of this video, I’m not going to talk about the notation part, as I don’t believe that it is always necessary to notate what you work out by ear. So transcribing in the context of this video, is simply working out a piece of music by ear.

Here are the advantages discussed:

Advantage #1 is that it can get you out of that rut you’ve been stuck in for weeks on end. We’ve all been through those phases where we feel as though every time we pick up the guitar, our playing and our ideas in general feel stale.

There’s no definitive answer for how to get out of a rut - everyone is different and sometimes you just have to wait it out - but I do believe that transcribing even just a lick or two from another player can provide you with more than a few lightbulb moments where new ideas start to flow again and you break out of your rut.

For example, as mentioned in the video, the solo that I transcribed from the YouTube video - Matt Schofield - Sophisticated Blues - provided me with many fresh ideas for improvising over blues progressions, which I am now able to incorporate in my own improvisation.

Advantage #2 is that transcribing - at least for me, personally - is an enjoyable way of training your ear. Nowadays it seems that the way to go about ear training is to use apps like EarMaster Pro, Tenuto, Teoria and more - all of which provide you with a series of listening exercises that you work through without the aid of an instrument. Whilst I do use such apps and would recommend them to other musicians, I believe that it’s also a good idea to simultaneously be training your ear by transcribing other musicians.

Transcribing is a form of ear training that allows you to play guitar, learn new licks, chord progressions, chord voicings and more, as you do it. I’d encourage you to find a healthy balance between the two - ear training apps and transcribing.

Advantage #3 is that it opens the door to learning from other players, who might not be teaching their solos, chord progressions and methods in general, online. If you’re someone who relies heavily or entirely on tab sites and tutorial videos to learn songs or licks, transcribing is the answer to how you can move past that and begin learning things on your own. Want to learn that cool new lick Mateus Asato just posted to his instagram... but there’s no tab? If you develop the skill of transcribing, you’ll feel liberated knowing that you have the ability to learn it without anyone else’s help.

What are your thoughts on transcribing and the advantages discussed in this video? If you have suggestions for benefits of transcribing that I might not have talked about here, please feel free to post them in a comment!

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[JensLarsen]

In fact, it is often better to learn it by ear and remember it instead of writing it down. Great video! :)

[davidframe]

Completely agree. You want to get better? Transcribe!

[gabelouis]

I started transcribing 15 years ago because of a snow storm. The bus couldn't drive us to high school. I stayed home for two days and I thought, "Well, I have time to learn a song by ear instead of looking for tabs on the Internet". I never went back to tabs ! Transcribing is so much fun ! It also helps learning how to groove and how to play nuances like bends, vibrato etc which are different for every guitar player.

[jjunaree]

You inspire me to practice again bro. Thanks a lot!!

[johnsee]

Get VLC Player; slow it down; learn it by matching/finding the notes on your guitar. You're done with method! Done! Rick on! (Last one I did was Mississippi Queen. Love to play that song. Backing tracks available for any "major" song.)

[RCSmiths]

Really useful and informative. A pleasure to watch indeed!

[michaelinglis]

One of the biggest advances I made as a player was when I started watching guys play who were better than me and transcribing them by ear and by watching them play the licks they played that I really liked or just any part really that was something that I couldn't play/hadn't thought to play. Any time I'm in a lull I'll pull up spotify or YouTube and find a guitar part I like and work it out. For example I'm not a huge G.n.R. fan by any means but Slashes really quick blues pentatonic type soloing is very different to the type of playing I normally like to play. So I pulled up spotify a couple months ago and found a few solo part of his that on first listen made zero sense to me. And because the tempo was fast a lot of the nuance took a lot of trial and error to get right but it really really helped me. Plus again, the way he writes/plays a lick is so different to the way I go about playing/writing riffs. It really felt at first like he was playing a completely different instrument than me because Slashes phrasing is so different. The only way I could relate to it at first was through my experience learning legatto licks (like Tom Quayle style legatto etc.). But after learning a few chunks of a few solos I had really learned and picked up on a lot of material to work into other areas of my playing. And as Ross would likely agree learning the song start to finish is also really helpful. I'm bad about skipping song parts that are too easy/not interesting" or that d9nt sound good with solo guitar. But learning those parts actually really helps me with rhythm and timing. Anyways I love your videos Ross! I might already "know" some of the stuff that your talking about but you lay out great plans for actually going about utilizing these ideas to improve our playing. I've said it before but it really helps hearing someone else say these things and then brake down ways to start implementing these techniques. And you going over the ways in which to implement them is what helps me the most. I take guitar really seriously because I love playing but at the end of the day I don't have gigs and I only jam with other people maybe 1 time every month or every other month. So I'm not as in tune with quality practicing techniques like someone whos gigging and taking lessons regularly so these types of videos are really helpful to me. Keep it up!

[hkguitar]

"Transcribe" Program, very cool.
Pretty amazing the tools that are available these days.
I started playing guitar back in 1974! Back then the only tools available for a young guy were either using the vinyl record or a Cassette/8-Track Tape. Many times I can remember using my small Cassette Recorder to record the song from the radio broadcast and then using the tape for learning the song/passage!
Yeah, back then I also had to walk 3 miles to school and back home, up-hill both ways! (just kidding).
More great content Ross, Thank You.

[ClassicKrk]

Ross! Great video brother! I try to transcribe at least one thing a day, no matter how big or small. Recently I have been trying to cop peoples vibratos. I just started a YouTube channel and if you ever have a second I would love to know your opinion on it. Thanks again brother.
🤘🤠🤘

[noahtenshen]

And what a difference talent makes. It took you 90 minutes to get that down to where you could play it. It might take me that long to get the first lick down and feel confident. That made me smile--and if it were in my program to do so, feel jealous. But I know you worked hard to get where you are. I started late (62) and work less hard. Having a long full time job will do that to one's practice. But I will still give it a shot. As a side note, it takes me vastly longer than you did learning this, to learn a lick or series of them even with the tab. Oh, the disparity is comical when I think of it. Rock On and Stay Well.

[jakemf]

Great advise don't limit your self to just guitar there are many sax, trumpet, drums and singers that can open our minds to how another instrument would approach a tune.

[IamtheActionman]

Hard work on the details is what separates us all.
So many players are good but the great ones see beyond.

[yonikup]

Amazing content and great quality as always man! =)

[notacrew]

Hello ross i was looking at your guitar course and was wondering if it would fit people like me. I have zero knowledge of theory all i have learnt was from watching tutorials and learning them or by improvising a bit . Much appreciated for your work

[thorstenritter]

Hey Ross, really good work you’re doing! How do you get the YouTube download into transcribe+? I tried and failed and YouTube Help says you cannot share the downloads? Thanks for an answer, that would be great!

[trevorhayden]

Is it still considered transcribing if you use your ears but also watch where the players fingers are on the fretboard? I do this a lot especially with mateus asatos playing.

[j.rozman]

Great sound!! What pedal did you use? Revival drive? Cheers!

[OspreyEye]

It’s not called transcribing unless you write it man. Just say “learn by ear” so people understand what your saying. The word transcribe at it’s essence implies writing out what you’ve “learned by ear”. Even further it means writing the music out for a different instrument and in a different key as well. But not always. Anyway, I think people with get what your saying if you just say “learn by ear”.

[Johaneeeek]

stuck in a rut these past weeks...or even months....Hmm try years ;p