Transcribing music allows me to slow down and analyze music, taking me from a glorified ipod that
can play a few memorized songs, to someone that can build up their own music and expand on their ideas.
Without transcribing, it's easy for me to fall into a noodling black hole; a place where you just keep playing the same
ideas you already know over and over (it's not just easy, it's just what happens) .
It's hard for me to think of new ideas when I'm actively playing the guitar;
maybe really good guitarists are able to just jam out new material, but at my current level this isn't something I'm
able to just do.
The other problem with noodling, again maybe this is just me, but I can't hold more than 2 or 3 bars in my head, so even if I'm coming up with great riffs/melodies, they'll soon be forgotten as I move on. This also means that it's hard to build up an idea, as I'm always starting from scratch each time. Building music relies on building up phrases, and creating variations of the phrase which is much easier if it is written down, and it's easier to see patterns emerging when you have it written down in front of you.
So instead of just noodling randomly on the guitar, transcribe as you go along, capture the good bits and improve on them. Use music theory to build out the riffs and melodies and build out more interesting ideas.
Etudes were at one time used to figure out technical problems. Instead of a random noodling session, have an intentional puzzle solving session. Start with a basic idea, and then puzzle solve to continue to build out your idea. For people that like flow states, I've found that, at least for me, puzzle solving is a great way to enter the flow state.
Here is a simple ASCII tab editor , that uses the ASCII tab syntax, or you can just draw some lines on paper and go that route.
Working on transcribing some of the riffs in the url at the bottom of the notes:
e-minor scale
e|---------------------------------------------|
B|---------------------------------------------|
G|---------------------------------------------|
D|------------------------------2-4-5-7-9-10-12|
A|---------------2-3-5-7-9-10-12---------------|
E|2-3-5-7-8-10-12------------------------------|
verse1
e|---------|-----------||
B|---------|-----------||
G|---------|-----------||
D|-5-----5-|-5-----/9-7||
A|7-7-5-7-7|7-7-5-7----||
E|---------|-----------||
e|0-0-0h2-3-3------------------|
B|-----------------------------|
G|-----------------------------|
D|-----------------------------|
A|-----------0-2---------------|
E|0 0 0h2 3 3----5-5-/7-5-3-5-0|
fast fast
e|------------------|
B|------------------|
G|------------------|
D|------7-5------9-5|
A|0-0-0-----0-0-0---|
E|------------------|
a minor scale?
e|--------------|
B|--------------|
G|2-2--2-222-2--|
D|2-2--2-222-2--|
A|----3-----3-3-|
E|--------------|
===== NOTES =====
Pulled riffs from here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p_yiBtVVVY&t=142s
a-minor riffs:
https://youtu.be/6p_yiBtVVVY?t=366