Listening and transcribing is an excellent thing to do. But it would be terrible advice to say it's the only thing to do.
Also, I would argue that if you really want the benefit of transcribing, don't write it down until you have memorized whatever chunk you are transcribing - the act of memorizing it and learning it solely by ear is where the real value is.
On the other hand, this is not a good way to learn technique or the fretboard, as the easy keys will be vastly overrepresented, and you don't need to know where you are. That's a challenge that's almost unique to guitar and bass, and getting over that hump requires learning material by note name (whether from scores, tabs, or just chord symbols).
(my bonafides: 35 years playing, gig on sax, bass, piano, and percussion, currently doing an interdisciplinary PhD in music and CS, and running a jazz club night where I perform weekly)
"Keys" and "note names" literally only come up on the guitar when playing open strings. When playing fretted notes, the guitar is a completely relative instrument. You should focus on learning diatonic patterns of tones and semitones on the fretboard directly, not individual notes. It's a completely different method than the piano keyboard, which involves working within a fixed diatonic framework, and altering it to make "transposition" work. This meshes well with solfège and even more so with historical solmization, which are also highly relative methods (being intended originally for the voice).
> "Keys" and "note names" literally only come up on the guitar when playing open strings.
That is a false statement and stated boldly.
While it is possible to not know the note names, it is such a simple thing that takes very low effort (5 minutes a day for like 3 weeks) and it helps simplify, find and simply understand the instrument better. I would advise any player to just do it.
I play electric and uptight jazz bass. While what you describe is possible for some genres, not knowing keys and the fretboard the same way you know keys on the piano is a non starter for jazz. All the competent jazz guitarists and bassists I know have this down cold. It's table stakes in my world.
Hah. Bass player here, too. Although I only play the electric. Haven't had a chance to do the upright (or uptight even!). Needless to say, I only play rock / blues stuff, though I do love listening to Jazz. Brubeck is a perennial fav of mine.
Hi, yup on Vancouver Island. They have a combined music + CS undergrad, a Masters in Music Technology (which is an MMus), and a roll-your-own interdisciplinary Masters and PhD. The INTD is the grad ticket for people who want to do CS heavy stuff, though you can do it in the MTech if you want the MMus. I did MTech and now INTD PhD with CS as the primary. I'm the author of Scheme for Max, which puts an s7 scheme interpreter in Max and PD, and work on that platform is my research area, including creation of algorithmic music works.
UVic has some great profs in the combination. My supervisor George Tzanetakis is internationally respected in music information retrieval, and Sarah Belle Reid just got my retired music supervisor's job too (Andy Schloss).
Feel free to email my user name @ gmail.com if you want to know more.
Also, I would argue that if you really want the benefit of transcribing, don't write it down until you have memorized whatever chunk you are transcribing - the act of memorizing it and learning it solely by ear is where the real value is.
On the other hand, this is not a good way to learn technique or the fretboard, as the easy keys will be vastly overrepresented, and you don't need to know where you are. That's a challenge that's almost unique to guitar and bass, and getting over that hump requires learning material by note name (whether from scores, tabs, or just chord symbols).
(my bonafides: 35 years playing, gig on sax, bass, piano, and percussion, currently doing an interdisciplinary PhD in music and CS, and running a jazz club night where I perform weekly)