as a professional music transcriber for most of my life, transferring music (especially guitar music) from the air to the page. Even before that, as a kid, I would always be doing what I then called “figuring stuff out,” trying to decipher the magic I heard in my favorite musicians’ playing. One day, I was struck by Louis Armstrong’s trumpet solo on one of my dad’s old recordings, and I knew right away I had to play it, in particular, one especially cool-sounding phrase. Once I figured it out, I quickly realized it was something I already knew how to play. I recalled that this had happened a couple of times before, and I had simply shrugged it off. But this time, it made me stop and think. As it turned out, I had stumbled onto one of the most important lessons I would learn about music: What made me want to learn that solo wasn’t as much the notes as how Armstrong played them. In comedy, this is known as delivery. In — that elusive element imbuing notes with a special personal quality that makes you want to listen again and again, even though you already know the “punchline.”
