By transcribing songs from the standard repertoire, and some selected jazz musicians' improvised solos over these songs, I have studied how transcribing affects my own artistic expression. Some of the musicians I have been inspired by are Barry Harris, Paul Chambers and Oscar Peterson. The songs I’ve chosen come from the standard jazz repertoire of the 1940's and 50's. The question in this work was whether it was possible to derive my own playing and improvising at my degree concert from the material I had studied during the course of this project.

The idea for this project came from my interest in transcribing as a method for developing my artistic expression as a jazz pianist. Furthermore, I had grown tired of using some commonly used sources of sheet music and chord progressions, such as the mobile application iReal or various fake books containing jazz standards, like the well known Real Book. The song sketches these contain can in some cases give a very misleading picture of the original versions of the songs.

First, I did a transcription of an early version of each song, to use as a reference point. Then, I transcribed solos by the selected musicians, as well as parts of my own solos recorded at both the very beginning of the project and at my degree concert. I then analyzed the transcriptions regarding phrasing, tone material and sound.

In the process of transcribing solos, I have tried to mimic the original recording as much as possible. Various tools were used, such as mobile applications, to make loops and change the tempo to help with transcribing.

By going back to transcribing early versions of jazz standards, I hope to have gained an increased understanding of the jazz genre that I love to play and listen to. Working with transcribing has also made me reflect on the piano from a historical perspective.

In this text, I discuss the challenge of staying neutral to the transcribed material during the degree concert. Did I play phrases because they were part of my vocabulary or because I remembered them from the transcriptions? I further discuss the issue of the time limit of the project, which made it difficult to assess the results of the work.

Transcribing my own solos has been very rewarding. It has helped me to concretize what I want to practice. For example, through transcribing I recognize how limited I am in certain keys compared to others.

In addition to some specific phrases, much of Barry Harris's overall playing has been integrated into my own, and he is also the musician who have had the greatest impact on my own style of playing, of the three I’ve studied for this project.