16/3/2015

3 Reasons Singing Helps Jazz Improvisation and Transcription | jazzadvice.com

Have you ever wondered why great pianists, guitarists, bassists, and drummers often sing along as they
improvise? Ever noticed how many of the best horn players also happen to be great singers? Great musicians all
over, seem to have developed the ability to sing somewhere along the way, whether theyve had formal training
or not. For all of us, from the musical innovator to the weekend music lover, singing is a natural part of musical
development and artistic expression. The voice is in fact our first instrument and one that everyone can play. For
serious musicians, though, the voice is a crucial part of our technique and one that can always be improved upon.
One concept that is not often talked about, yet immensely important, is the gap between our ears and what is
coming out of our instruments. The fact is that what is easily understood aurally, rarely is translated to our
instruments without any work. Internalizing this music takes hours of repeated listening and imitation until it finally
appears in our day to day playing. As improvisers, we rely heavily on our ears to hear the music going on around
us, but this is only a small part of developing our ears to their full potential. The real skill comes not in simple
identification of intervals and chords, but in the ability to recreate what we hear instantaneously singing.
Singing a musical idea naturally creates a strong physical connection between our ears and the sounds that were
hearing. For many of us, the way we learned music in school was from a page directly to our instruments, leaving
out our ears and our voices. Because of this, we need to find a way re-establish a direct connection from our
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16/3/2015

3 Reasons Singing Helps Jazz Improvisation and Transcription | jazzadvice.com

ears to our voice to what comes out of the instrument. The process in which you should learn melodies, chords,
anything really, should follow this pattern:
Hear it > Sing it > Play it on your instrument
We work all the time on listening (hearing melodies, solos, and chord changes, etc.) and on practicing technique
on our instruments, but actually singing what were working on too often falls to the wayside. In order to
eventually play what youre hearing, you need to sing anything that you play on your instrument. Often times,
inexperienced players skip theses first two steps and try to play something on their instruments that they cant
hear, let alone have the ability to sing. Virtually shooting in the dark, hoping by some miracle to be able to one
day get that line into their playing.
Here are three ways to incorporate singing into your everyday practice routine that will make an immediate
difference in your ability to internalize music:

I. You arent training your ear unless youre singing

If singing isnt already a part of your ear training practice, begin today. Rather than just listening to and mentally
identifying that interval, chord type, or progression that youre working on, try to sing it first; creating a physical
connection to the sound as you do. A quick way to start developing the skill to sing what you hear, is to play a
note on the piano and sing that exact note; its as simple as that. Focus on the sound of the note in your mind
then try to match it precisely with your voice.
This becomes more difficult when you start playing notes that are out of your vocal range, forcing you to sing the
note in a different octave; heres where your ears come into play. After matching one pitch with your voice
becomes easy, play an interval and sing both notes or try a chord and sing the bass note. Sure, its easy to
identify a perfect fourth or major 7th chord, as most ear training classes teach you, but to be able to sing the
notes requires truly internalizing and hearing the intervals; this is the skill that will benefit us when were
improvising.
Once you can sing what youre hearing comfortably, the next step is to play on your instrument what youre
singing. As you develop this skill of truly playing what youre hearing, the benefits will transfer to every part of
your playing. By following this process, you are strengthening the bond between your ear all the way to your
instrument.

II. Singing is the first step to transcribing quickly

Learning a solo, melody, or chord progression from a record can initially be frustrating and time consuming. One
way to significantly improve your success and efficiency at transcribing solos is to sing them. Before you try to
learn a solo or melody by ear on your instrument, listen to it repeatedly until you can sing the passage note for
note, exactly as it sounds.
Not just singing along approximately with the recording, but singing the line exactly note for note without the aid
of the recording. The simple act of singing a line and really hearing what youre singing greatly simplifies the
transcription process. You should be singing everything that you plan on transcribing, from simple lines or
melodies to entire solos.
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16/3/2015

3 Reasons Singing Helps Jazz Improvisation and Transcription | jazzadvice.com

For example, one solo that I have always loved is Chet Baker singing over It Could Happen to You. For years I
had sung along with the recording, especially his improvised scat solo. Recently as I was reviewing the tune, I
tried to play along with the solo for kicks. To my surprise, I could play the solo without having ever transcribed it
or practiced it; solely from the process of ingraining it and singing it.
This is a great solo to try singing because its simple, yet very melodic. Listen to the scat solo over and over
again until its memorized and then try to sing along with the recording:

After you have the solo ingrained into your ear and can sing it confidently without the recording, try to play it on
your instrument. Youll be surprised at how easily it will come to you through the simple act of pre-listening and
singing to the things that youre transcribing.

III. Learn to improvise with your voicenot your mind

An eye-opening experience came for me as I was in one of my trumpet lessons in school. I had been playing the
standard Ill Remember April and my instructor asked me to scat sing a solo instead of improvising one on my
horn. Confused, I timidly began to sing a solo over the familiar changes. Surprisingly I had difficulty accurately
singing what I usually played on my horn, let alone playing easy diatonic lines.
While I was using tri-tone substitutions and various other harmonic devices on my trumpet, when I sang a solo, I
was lucky to get by just with the chord tones. I quickly came to the conclusion that I was only able to sing what I
was truly hearing and couldnt rely on harmonic knowledge or licks worked out on my hornand what I could
actually hear and sing wasnt very much.
Even though we may not realize it, our instruments are a crutch that we rely on as we improvise. We hear a
chord or melodic fragment and once we find the key on our instruments, we use the scales, chords, and licks
weve worked out in that key as the basis for improvisation. In reality, all that knowledge and technique that we
have acquired over the years is getting in the way of our ears, or lines that we would naturally hear. Instead of
playing the melodies were hearing, we use our brains to improvise, fitting together lines and patterns that we
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3 Reasons Singing Helps Jazz Improvisation and Transcription | jazzadvice.com

have memorized once weve figured out the key.

When you are forced to sing instead of play an improvised solo, you truly have to play what you hear. Pushing
down a key or valve will not automatically guarantee a correct note in this case. Scatting a solo is a sure way to
tell if your ears are up to the level of the rest of your instrumental technique. By incorporating the simple act of
singing into your ear training practice as well as your transcription process, youll see a noticeable difference in
the way you are hearing things and how you play them on your instrument.
Your voice is always with you, so remember to use it in everything that you do musically, it can only help you!

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