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For the 40 pieces a year challenge I committed to recording myself and posting them. Recording myself is brand new to me, I never did this before. Few questions about this.

What methods did you use to relax during recoding or does it just come with time? I'm hoping if I make recoding myself a habit that eventually I won't notice the camera? Right now it's "Don't mess up, don't mess up" then when I get a good run going wow do the nerves and pressure build.

Since I'm having a hard time making a good recording of a piece I'm spending way more time on it than I want to for the 40 pieces a year challenge. For example, I played it well for my standard but I keep saying "lets practice one more day and keep recording until I get a good recording to post" Do you suggest just post best recoding I can and move on?

Thanks!

Don’t try for the perfect recording! Record for the experience but not the result. You’ll learn that most people do not even hear the mistakes that to you sound like a sore thumb. The whole point of the challenge is just to get a ton of experience— and keep moving.

Could not have put it better!
Ian

Will do, thank you for the tips. Recording and the challenge are new to me and I'm happy it's putting me out of my comfort zone and usual routine. I will follow your advice and stop thinking I need to get a better one recorded. Like you said the purpose is to get more experience not to perfect pieces.

Make recording yourself part of your practice routine. You can record just sections of pieces that are in progress. The benefits are that routine recording gets you used to the red dot, takes pressure off of making a perfect recording (mentioned by above posters), and helps to develop your critical listening skills.

I get nervous whenever I record—but I have been making recordings now for eight months or so and it is getting better. I make mistakes in my recordings that I don’t make in my practice…but I have discovered that those were spots that needed more work that maybe I wasn’t aware of, so it is useful like that. For the challenge, I am taking it in the spirit that dogperson described above. The perfectionist in me would like to have just one more day, just one more week…but a perfect recording will never happen anyway. I look forward to hearing your first recording soon.

Just recording yourself on a regular basis will help get over as we used to call it "Red Light Fever". Second you're going to be overly critical of yourself and that will work against you. Great players make mistakes all the time AKA finger flubs and lots of other names. The different they have two approaches they use. First, is to simply ignore it and not let it throw them off. The typical listener will either not notice it, or will forget about it in a few bars and that included other musicians listening. The other approach is to turn the mistake into a correct note. As they the next note you play determines if it was a mistake. Now to prove this to yourself play one of your practice bits for someone else and see they don't notice the things you do.

Recording yourself if your best teacher. Do it a lot, listen now and then, and make notes. Repeat and repeat.

Yes, I now plan to do this regularly not just for the 40 piece challenge. Sometimes there was parts of the recodings where I sounded better than I thought that was god feeling.



Glad to hear. I was hoping to hear that with time it does get more comfortable. It's funny how critical we can be of ourselves in our homes just from a camera or even a close friend watching. Agree, no recording will be perfect as we'll always find something we can do better or different just like playing a piece you can always polish a little more or add a slightly different dynamic.



I had no idea how valuable it was. It's fun to watch and hear it. I'm late to the party with metronomes and recording but better late than never.

Ooof, you can relax during recording? Is it possible? Even the best pros have a hard time relaxing. Even the best pros do a dozen takes of a sonata and the engineers stitch it together. This is just as an over all perspective on recording.

I will have a very challenging piece learned very well up, down, and backwards. As soon as the recording starts, then a Grade 1 piece suddenly becomes impossible. It happens to all of us. It's called "red light fever" as others have mentioned.

The first step is to do it A LOT. Do not try to get a perfect recording because it doesn't exist. But the more you do it, the "easier" it gets. Maybe. I have recorded 100s of pieces and I still feel like it's my first time every time, though. Oof.

If you start to enjoy it, then you will probably want to get into editing so that you can stitch corrected audio under a single video take. The editing becomes a completely separate yet more difficult skill than the recording eventually. With this last statement, "recording live", "performing live", and "recording" are all very different things.

Happy to know it's a normal part of the process and sounds like we all have some sort of 'red light fever'. I'm happy I finally started recording thanks to joining the 40 piece challenge. But I will also plan to do it more often in general and not worry about every little mistake. It was amazing the amount a self pressure and nerves I was able to generate.

I wouldn't worry about that at all. It's not a binding contract.

I once sent a private message to another forum member, complimenting them on their recordings. They were always flawless; such high quality performances. I won't quote the number of takes they told me was common for them...but I will say that I 'ain't got time for that!'

It certainly put things in perspective for me. I just started recording in the fall. I don't necessarily feel nervous, but I do think things like "don't screw that part up again" and "you're almost at the end, hold it together." I rarely do, LOL. I'm using recording mainly as a tool to help me improve - I hear a lot of things in the recordings that I don't catch while I'm playing. Once in awhile I do get one that goes really well and that's exciting...but I can't expect it regularly. I set a limit - if I can't get a recording that I'm proud of in 5-6 tries (usually over a 1-2 week period), then I figure that piece just isn't ready for showtime and I'll move on to something else.

Got it! Sounds silly but I thought those spot on recordings where just cause they play the song so well each time didn't think of editing. What I also noticed when I was recording myself there was a good 2-3 spots I thought were huge mistakes then when I watched it I couldn't even find those 'mistakes'. I will keep at it and get more confident and comfortable.

I know what you mean as in not a binding contract. I think it will help to push me out of my comfort zone while I agree that I don't have to record each one. The main thing was no rules just have fun and get exposure to more pieces and playing.

I wasn't implying editing...just redoing it many times until perfect. I would love to present a perfect recording of anything, but based on my results so far, that would require anywhere from 15 to 50 tries! I do have a job that requires my presence, unfortunately LOL...

Ooops. I misread/mixed up with the previous post. Thanks for clarifying.

If you record every time you play/practice the song you want to record you'll get used to the camera. Maybe one of those practices will be the take! :-)