It wasn't until a few months ago I realized the importance that transcribing music has on becoming a good musician. You often hear people say "oh, I just learned by ear, but I don't know all the theory and stuff." For years I thought music theory and scales were the most important ingredients in becoming a musician who can improvise and express themselves through music. It's unfortunate it took me this long to realize that learning existing songs (and transcribing them) is just [if not more] important, than the theory, scales, and chords.

So now I'm spending quite a bit of time learning a number of songs that really resonate with me. I have a number of guitar heroes I would love to learn from, but the one that is really touching my soul lately is Santana. There is just something about his tone and the emotion he is able to express with a guitar. Awesome! For where I am on my journey of learning to transcribe, it's also nice that he uses lot of short licks. I'm certain I'll focus on Henry Garza and Warren Haynes (The Allman Brothers Band & Gov't Mule) at some point too - they are some of my favorites.

Well, I've realized there are a couple of tools that are invaluable when transcribing music. The single most important one is Transcribe!. I found out about this from Justin, who is also a huge proponent of transcribing. When I first got started, I was using it and Guitar Pro 5. While Guitar Pro is a great tool, because I'm not that proficient with music notation (specifically timing) yet, I find it tedious to use it while I'm learning the song.

So I've since started using another approach to learn the guitar parts ... a text editor. I'm sure I'm not the first to take this approach, but consider how I've transcribed the lead guitar part of the intro and the 1st and 2nd verses of Put Your Lights On by Santana and Everlast.

Chords: Am Asus2 Am, C Cadd9 C Cmaj7, G G(w/extra 5 on B string) G, Am, G

213po212 210
38/39 412 39 312
28 25c 37 37 37
37ho39 410
Hey now, all you sinners
Put your lights on, put your lights on
28 /39\37 35 37/39
Hey now
39 37 39 28 28
All you lovers
18 17 28 25 /210
Put your lights on
/37 /37 /37 /37
Put your lights on
/37 35 47 45 47 35 47

I have no idea if this is actually correct, but it sounds right to me when I play it. Okay, let me explain this notation - it's really simple. In each set of numbers, the first number is the string and the 1 or 2 numbers after it are the fret number. There are a couple of other things in there too:

po = pull off
ho = hammer on
/  = slide up to
\  = slide down to
c  = curl (half tone bend)

So the first note is the C on the 13th fret of the 2nd string then a quick pull off to the B on the 12th fret of the 2nd string, etc. Obviously, like tab, I'm not capturing the timings or fingerings, but I'm okay with that until I get good enough to use Guitar Pro as the initial tool.

You could argue that I could still use Guitar Pro since I'll end up using it when I'm all done anyway, and I could just use 16th or 32nd notes and ignore the fact that all the bars will be incomplete, but I've found this approach has lot less friction (and distractions) and let's me get a lot transcribed quickly.

I'm by no means the model Dad, but I do like being a Dad and having 13 and 16 year old daughters, there's never a shortage of challenges and laughs. One of the things I like about parenthood is the constant challenge of bending their will to MY way. Although I've never been a fan of spankings - the kids, not the wife ;) - I got them [often] while I was growing up, and thought it worked pretty well for me, so that's the approach I took for the first 10 years or so. I've since figured out ways to be more effective without the spankings. Not surprisingly, it's often the younger of the two who forces me to be more creative when "motivating" her. If you have more than one child, this might sound familiar.

So, I don't think she has ever given a shit about turning the lights off when she's not in the room. Unfortunately (for her), Esse and I are pretty big on conservation. Every time I turn around, her bedroom, bathroom, and hallway lights are on. First I would turn them out myself (that didn't last long). Then I would make her stop whatever she was doing at the time and go turn them off. I thought this would annoy her to the point of change ... nope ... she didn't even slow down. I was finding no joy in this process (understatement), things were not improving, and I was getting more and more pissed off ... and it showed ... which isn't good ... or effective.

So recently, I've employed a new approach that is both fun for me and more of an inconvenience for her. This is a common theme in my quest for obedience. For the past week, when I find a light on, I stop what I'm doing, without saying a word to anyone, and go unscrew the light bulb just enough for it to not work (above her bathroom mirror there are 4 of them). You can imagine it took her a while to figure this one out. After doing that for a day or so, I noticed I was still seeing an occasional light on. So I started removing the bulbs completely and laying them on her bed or counter. This is a bit more challenging for her since our days are pretty short this time of the year and it's usually dark in the room. I think I'm [finally] starting to see change. If we need to, we'll graduate to hiding them in various places in the room before I'm willing to ditch the idea and try something else. But I haven't seen one unneeded light on today (first time in a long time) so maybe I'm on to something. If nothing else, at least it's fun and I'm not being near as grouchy :D

I'm open and honest with her about the fact I am trying to find the most effective way of raising her. She knows when something isn't working, it won't be long before I come up with some new idea. Stay tuned for more experiments I've done ... I have a few in the queue that have been pretty effective in the past.