The Smarter Way to Transcribe Solos (And Actually Use Them in Your Playing)

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The jazz police might hate me for saying this… but transcribing dozens of solos doesn’t automatically make you a better improviser.

I used to do it the “old-school” way — transcribing entire solos note-for-note, memorizing them, and hoping those ideas would magically appear in my playing. But most of the time, they didn’t. And when they did, they sounded copied rather than musical.

Then I realized… learning from solos is just like learning from a speech: you don’t memorize the whole thing word-for-word — you take the parts that resonate with you, understand why they work, and make them your own.

In this video, I’ll walk you through how I do this using a single Dexter Gordon phrase from his solo over Cheese Cake. I’ll show you how to:

• Spot the ideas that grab your ear (and why you like them)
• Internalize the rhythm by singing it at different tempos
• Deconstruct & re-shape the phrase (add/remove notes, change rhythm, elongate/shorten)
• Apply it to multiple styles — swing, ballad, funk, salsa — so it becomes part of YOUR vocabulary
• Merge it with your own ideas so you’re creating, not copying

🎷 Original phrase inspired by Dexter Gordon’s solo on “Cheese Cake” (Rudy Van Gelder Edition / Remastered 1999), around 1:29.
This lesson is for educational purposes, demonstrating how to extract and adapt phrases into your own playing.

By the end, you’ll see how one phrase can inspire dozens of fresh ideas and become part of your personal sound — instead of collecting dust in your notebook.

🎁 FREE TRAINING – Transform Your Solos with Rhythm
Learn my step-by-step method for taking rhythms from great jazz solos and turning them into endless melodic ideas. Perfect for all instruments!
👉 https://www.tonealley.academy/rhythmtraining

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Let’s start making solos that are truly yours — not just copies.