He does? Or do you mean Kenny Giaoa?
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Kenny Giaoa. I was led to believe they were one and the same person.
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Nope 
No other human talks like Kenny.
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So, at the basic level, if I wanted to start learning to transcribe, would I sit there with my bass and just bang out notes until it sounded right to me (eg: for, say “Mary had a little lamb”)? Or is there another way that you guys do it?
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Not me, I’m afraid.
I have lots of videos about finding magical things in my town.
Different.
I look like this and talk like this:
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Dude! That was cool. Are you going to get video from the show to post on here?
Gio’s Funk Album! Check it out. It’s good stuff. 
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Ha.
Funny story there - the show was cancelled through no fault of our own.
After the video and the promo push, there was nothing to show for it.
Booo!!!
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I always recommend that a player be able to sing the part they want to transcribe before they try and play it or figure it out.
If you have the pitch in your ear and your head, you can work on the instrument much more smoothly and musically rather than a single note at a time.
But!
Whatever works.
I’d love to know how people that have been transcribing approach it.
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Aww man. I didn’t even pay attention to the date in the video. Here’s hoping ya’ll get a gig soon.
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I apologize for the mix up.
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I think he (and I had similar discussions with others) wants to stress that the process of listening to some music (or part) and finding out which notes are played (and perhaps why these notes were chosen given the melodic context) is the main important thing. By listening to, understanding and then perhaps playing what you heard, you learn “musical vocabulary”. Writing it down also (to share or just for posterity) is less important in that context. Of course, writing down what you found is giving you extra training, but, again, probably less important than the initial process.
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That’s basicly it, yeah.
Yet, if you know a bit more on theory it becomes less guess work.
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Pam, in short: a fysical midi keyboard can do it all at ones.
Playing a fysical midi keyboard is just like playing an synth or fysical piano.
You play the song, like you would on a normal piano or synth. You can try different keys, listen, play again. Different tonation, duration whatever you feel makes the transcribtion more accurate. So do all you need to do to transcribe. All the input you need (want) is stored in a midi file directly, which the notationsoftware reads and shows to you as sheetmusic.
As most people have a better visual reference on a piano keyboard look, that is being used.
Ones setup, it does the same as you do now, but faster.
Nothing better or worse, just different.
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Sorry @howard I didn’t mean to insult keyboard players with my comment. What I meant was, “for me” it would be a nice toy, since I have no intention of spending the time to become a keyboard player.
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I understand completely. It would be nice if I had the extra money (and space) for a piano or just a nice keyboard, but I don’t. It would be nice if I had the extra lifetime it would take to learn to play piano, but I don’t (yes I DO understand how the keyboard is laid out). I wish I could turn the clock back 50 years, but I can’t.
For now, all I have time for is developing my ear and identifying the tones in a song. I have to do it the cheap way; with the piano app that Windows provides, along with my pc keyboard. I’m fine with manually dragging and dropping the notes onto the stave once I’ve identified them. I’m fine with testing out what I’ve written into my composition software with my bass, then fine tuning it.
I’d be curious to know how many professional (gigging) bass players who learn songs by ear own or play piano. I’d venture to guess, not that many.
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You’re not alone . . . 
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All bass players who have gone through a formalized education (e.g., Berklee College of Music etc) MUST have learned either piano or guitar. I don’t think you get through music school without knowing (being able to play) at least one instrument where you can play chords etc.
(Actually, goes for horn players as well…)
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Agreed! I meant those who DIDN’T go to formal music college. For example, I remember reading in Flea’s book that he had played trumpet prior to learning bass, but never learning to play piano. He didn’t go to Berklee or anywhere else.
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You’re right, of course! Somehow, I always think about the jazz dudes and they pretty much all went to music school 
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Jazz has become sooooo academic it is actually a BIG problem, as it is standardizing the sound of all jazz. This is really bad. Jazz started on the completely opposite side of the spectrum from academia, in the streets and brothels of New Orleans. To this day in New Orleans, some of the best musicians there learn in the streets and bars. Sure many go to more formal education, but the “Wynton Marsailising / Berklee-ing” of jazz is a very hotly debated topic right now, as it is forming cookie cutter musicians with no ‘grit/soul/backroom learning/real world experience’ and has become an academic exercise.
To me, its one of the reasons many people don’t like or care about modern jazz music (I am one of them). If you see the one wall behind me in videos, its mostly dead people.
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