Resources – Jazz Essentials

We at Jazinc.com are firm believers in learning to play jazz the “old school” way.  Years ago there were not published transcriptions of the great’s solos, nor were there hundreds of books on how to “play jazz”.  Musicians learned by studying the greats, by transcribing their solos or just transcribing the melodies of popular songs.

However, transcribing a Coltrane solo can be challenging without being able to slow it down.  Now there is a tool you can use to transcribe all those fast passages, Transcribe! allows you to slow a tune down without changing the pitch.

Pat Metheny recommends Transcribe! – visit his site www.patmetheny.com, click on “Pat Recommends” and see the entry for February 14, 2007 where he describes Transcribe! version 7.40 as “An amazing tool for musicians with a few really interesting new features”.
Another world-famous jazz musician who has given us a quotable comment is Michael Brecker (who sadly is no longer with us) who says “I use Transcribe! to assist with the process of transcribing. It is a great piece of software and I would recommend it to every musician.”

Transcribe! is the world’s leading software for helping musicians to work out music from recordings. It is also used by many people for play-along practice, and also for speech transcription.

Check out this screen shot of the software in action.  It’s awesome and definitely a jazz essential!  Transcribing is the best way to develop a jazz language.  I think back to all the solos I have learned both from books and by transcribing them.  The amazing thing is I can still play the ones I transcribed; the ones I learned from a book were soon forgotten.

Do you play jazz with singers?  Singers love to play standards in these obscure keys making it more difficult for the horn players.  With Transcribe! you can record your favorite play-along recordings and put them in whatever key you need to!  This allows you to prepare for a gig by getting comfortable with that new key.

One last word: When you go to purchase this amazing software, make sure you specify the Windows or Linux version.  Go here to download your copy of Transcribe! and start working on your favorite solo today!