Resource: George Collier Transcriptions

For the past few years, I have thoroughly enjoyed a series of videos by someone named George Collier on YouTube. The basic premise of what he does are transcriptions of popular online videos of musicians performing a wide variety of music. The first one I ever saw was a transcription of The Sunny Side of the Street performed by the now famous Laufey (see above). I LOVE watching the notation scroll underneath the performance as it truly demonstrates the connection between the dots on the page and the music that you hear. I’ll admit that I had absolutely no idea exactly who George Collier was (and no - he is NOT related to Jacob - I checked), but I knew that he was good at what he did. I' thought that George was likely a seasoned musician, possibly retired, who had loads of free time to not only do the transcriptions (many of which are VERY complicated).

Yesterday I was stunned to see an article about George in the New York Times. I think I was even more surprised to see that he is a university student - just 20 years old. After reading the article, I am now one of his biggest fans, and think that his videos could and should be used to help students understand notation, its role in music making and performing, while at the same time experiencing some incredible musical performances. Here are some of my absolute favorite George Collier videos.

Keith Jarrett

Arturo Sandoval

Mnozil Brass

Jacob Collier

My first thought on how you can use George’s amazing videos in your classroom is simply watching them. They are mesmerizing as I’m sure you’ll agree. But the most exciting thing for me is the idea of having students make these videos themselves based on YouTube music videos that they love. Adding the scrolling notation at the bottom of he screen is easily achievable with any music notation program and simple video editing program. How cool would it be to have students transcribe music that they love, and then produce videos in a similar style? I know that if I was still in the classroom, I would definitely be assigning a project like this. Keep up the great work, George! Music teachers need people like you in the world to make music come alive for students and the general public alike!

I’ll leave you with one last video - one that makes me laugh out loud each time. Enjoy!