![]() Mostly, I'll just find solos I like by "tasty" but not necessarily "blazing" players (e.g., think people like Max Ionata, Bob Mintzer, Hank Mobley, or Dexter, rather than, say Chris Potter or Michael Brecker) and focus on language, inflections, and training my ear, rather than on picking up licks or anything like that. That can sometimes be useful, especially when you're learning a tune and you're stuck on ideas for a particular section, but that's not how I generally transcribe. There's a few distinct approaches to transcription, one of which is to use it to do formal analyses of what a particular player plays over such and such chord progression. ![]() I've been doing a bunch of Max Ionata transcriptions over the past year or so, but I don't really think it matters what you transcribe. Way worth exploring for everyone, including saxophonists! Some of the most brilliant minds of this music have been pianists. I've been transcribing more piano solos than saxophone solos for the last few years (I'm also a pianist) and every time I learn a solo by Kenny Kirkland or Bill Evans, I grow as a musician. Bud's heads in particular are, to my ears, like perfectly constructed improvisations. Incredibly good vocabulary, and if you learn enough bebop heads in all the keys, well. ![]() More recently, I've been doing the same thing with Bud Powell heads: "Wail," "Celia," etc. Kenny's playing in that period has such a beautiful balance of "inside" and "outside" concepts, and I learned a ton from that process. One I did that with was "There Will Never Be Another You" from Woody Shaw's "Solid" album (which is an excellent album that everyone should check out regardless of transcribing). One of the projects I did in my youth that really opened things up for me in terms of ears, technique, facility, comfort, and intuition while improvising was to take a couple short Kenny Garrett solos and learn them in all twelve keys. ![]()
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