The Best Piece of Advice About Transcription

Unlock a learning superpower with one simple phrase

As promised, we have something new up and running on the website, and it’s on sale (50%off!!) for Cyber Monday.

I’ve basically been archiving my own career since my teens, and have had some form of video or audio recording device with me on the road for over two and half decades.

This has been central, if painful to listen to at times, to my development as a musician. There is nothing like immediate and brutally honest feedback about a show or practice session, and the video tape never lies.

Even though I recently closed the old bass studio, I’ve cherry picked a few of my favorite elements of the material on the site, and made them available as stand-alone courses. The Live Archive is one of my favorites because it is so personal, and there are so many life-changing moments in there to look back on and learn from.

It’s also something I’m continually updating. As and when shows happen, and as soon as I have the time to edit the footage down, it all goes in the live archive.

Along with the archive I’m opening up access to the Transcription Vault, Learning By Ear, Ten Minutes a Day, and the Bass Player’s Guide to Perfect Technique. Hopefully there’s something in there for everyone, and my intention is that these core courses will continue to grow as I add footage to them over time.

As you’ve maybe seen in the past week I’ve started creating a series on YouTube called “Could I Play Bass With…?”. The next stage of that is to create teaching videos for each song that will live in the Transcription Vault.

Along with recording everything I do, transcription is also a top priority in my learning process. I hope I can encourage more of you to transcribe, no matter what your ability level, and most importantly no matter what your favorite music is.

Whether you choose to check out Chet Baker, Pat Metheny, Miles Davis and Clifford Brown solos with me, and how I transcribe songs I’m working on in other genres, or whether you’re just curious as to how you can improve your ear and your playing through transcription, always remember this: Work on music you love.

Don’t transcribe something just because someone else told you to. Unless that person is telling you to do it because they think it’s applicable to what you’ve told them you love about music, you should always start with asking yourself that question first.

If you love Dream Theater but I tell you it’s important to transcribe Charlie Parker (something you may have no interest in at all), then the amount of information you’ll retain about that process will be minimal. I would also be an asshole teacher for telling you to do that.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t have an open mind and look outside your comfort zone. My new play along series on the YouTube channel is all about that. I don’t play in the style of Dirty Loops and Animals As Leaders all the time, and the challenge of playing their music is helping my greatly with my own.

Make the most of the Cyber Monday thingy. It’s running through midnight on November 30th. There are still physical books shipping. Thanks for that btw, the response to buying them direct from me has been crazy and I’m already ordering more stock 😮!

Yes, I’m going to add international shipping this week also. There have just been way too many requests to ignore it. I may have literally become a real YouTuber and a small shipping company all in one week. 🤔

The Black Friday Event is also still happening through November 30th. 40% off everything digital in the store.

More soon,

Janek

P.S. For anyone who has ever purchased a book from me, ALL the videos and play alongs can now be found in one simple location: https://janekgwizdala.com/book-videos

We were way overdue a simple solution for this, and bringing everything under one roof seems to have been the best move. We really appreciate your patience with the move, and all the play alongs for the book will be fully migrated within the next couple of days.

xxx