Mark Turner, On Transcribing and Playing Solos
Channel: Vicente Parrilla
Date: 20/09/2018

Saxophonist Mark Turner interviewed at SmallsLIVE Workshop Podcast (http://smallsliveeducation.libsyn.com/mark-turner-episode-3).

Text transcription:

—Interviewer: “So when you’re gonna check out these musicians or any other musician, what do you do to study them?”

—Mark Turner: “I just transcribe them. So, I just write-transcribe them, or… Ah, I haven’t transcribed much in many years, but at one point I did a lot of it, so… I actually started doing it a little more recently again. I kind of did transcribe for maybe ten years… But when I was in college, and maybe the first five years or so afterwards… I think maybe the last solo I transcribed is probably… maybe ’95 or something like that. But, basically, I just transcribed by ear. I just put at that time the tape or the record and just wrote it down. That’s it. And then I either played with the record. First reading and then eventually without the music [score], just memorised. And when I was in college and actually after college, I pretty much played only solos. I didn’t know any scale patterns or anything—I kind of played a little bit—but I just played solos. Pretty much every day. So maybe I’d have a few solos I was doing at one time. I’d just play those over and over again… for months. That’s basically it. So that’s what I did, you know? I mean, I can’t say how many times I played [John Coltrane’s solo on] “Blue Train,” how many times I played the [Coltrane] “Crescent” solo, and other ones I’d transcribed, you know? I mean, some of them I played every day for three months. How many times? Do the math, I don’t know, that’s ninety days, so ninety times, at least.  A lot of these solos I played hundreds of times or tens of times just over and over and over again. Just like, repetition. You know, just like ancient cultures, I guess. The master says, “Do this.” You just do it, over and over again, and it makes an impression. Eventually, it gets inside you if you do it enough. It’s like a mantra… […] It’s just not only [about] the notes.”

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- Text transcription partially based on Kevin Sun’s (Music & Literature Magazine no. 8, 2017, p. 314)
See http://www.musicandliterature.org
- Audio: SmallsLIVE Workshop Podcast with Mark Turner (Episode 3)
http://smallsliveeducation.libsyn.com/mark-turner-episode-3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJF8q6fM48U
- Video and yellow marks: Vicente Parrilla (https://vicenteparrilla.com)