I went to music school which emphasized chord scale theory. Transcription was discussed but the emphasis was mostly on memorizing scales and chords. As a result my improvising, while 'correct', seemed very mechanical.

At the same time I would go to clubs and hear self-taught players that learned 'licks' off records. To my ears, the playing sounded contrived. Some guys just sounded like they were imitating other famous guitarists. Also, I found many ear players avoid learning to read music or understand theory because they were afraid it would hurt their playing.

So, I think too much of one or the other isn't good.

I've never been one for learning licks and writing them down or playing them in all keys. It just never seemed to work for me. What did work for me was learning to solo using all chord tones, and then begin to apply various approaches to them.

Lately I've been doing more transcribing. But instead of just learning licks and inserting them, I've been trying to really learn what makes them work, and how to manipulate them to other situations.

There are some great articles on the Jazz Advice site that discusses this topic. Actually the whole site contains valuable information about jazz improvisation. If you haven’t checked it out I highly recommend it.

This is a great topic.

Dana

BIAB 2013
MacBook Pro 17"
2.5 GHz Intel Core i7
Mac OS X 10.8.4
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