Last night I recorded myself playing, well trying to.
got a little mic and attatched it into my MP3.
today Ive downloaded to my PC at work and emailed it around our office and our welsh office.

the results are horrific!

I sound awful, not at all how I think I sound in my head when Im playing
I think it was the worst thing I could have done for confidence levels.

On the other hand, its hilarious!
there are around 40 people laughing themselves silly and I have a fantastic photo from our welsh office with their fingers in their ears !!!
They've sent me a scan of £20 to contribute to making a CD!

I think I might put it in my diary and do it each month to see how Im getting on!!!

i have, but not through the computer, juse on a tape! i really sound bad its so funny! i have since destryoed the tape as i was so ashamed of it, if thats what i sound like then i have no hope!

I have, many times, and had the same experince as you, Nat. It's a real eye (ear?) opener and I have learned a lot from the experience. Curiously, I did not do it before may grade 6 and judging by my mark, I suppose I should have done! As with the camera, the tape never lies (unfortunately!)

Me and one of my friend improvise together quite often. He plays guitar and trumpet with a little bit of piano and drum kit. I play sax, clarinet, piano and a little bit of drums as well. One time he brought his microphone and a multitrack tape recorder round. We recorded a few songs and put them on the computer and made a CD. The sound quality was good as we were using v. gd quality microphones. It is quite annoying when you hear the part when you really messed up your solo though

I have a recording studio, so am accustomed to recording msyelf. I think it improves your playing no end, but you have to be a certain king of person to cope - it's easy to get demoralised!


And by the way - the camera DOES lie!

Well, I don't play saxophone, but I'm trying to decide if how awful I sound playing flute when I've recorded myself is the rubbish mike, rubbish tape player or rubbish me...

I really dont care to speculate but obviously prefer the blame the equipment...

Although on my mums digital camera which she used to get a ten sec shot of me playing with four others in a flute quartet, we actually sounded quite good...

QUOTE (tamsin @ Aug 16 2004, 02:22 PM)

I really dont care to speculate but obviously prefer the blame the equipment...

i ALWAYS blame the equipment!!LOL

although its probably my horrendous playing!

Try not use dynamic microphones as they don't pick up the full sound spectrum of acoustic instruments as well as condenser microphones do. Condensers are a little more on the expensive side however they can be purchased for about £100, they have to be either battery operated or supported by phantom power via any small mixing desk that has phantom power. You'll hear a big difference in the sound.

A recording device is an essential tool for practice, it will help you check your rhythm and pitch control. You should also try and play individual notes at varying pitches and little to how good/bad your intonation is.

I recorded myself again last night, playing the clarinet - absolute overkill because I used about £800 of equipment to record a single instrument... and I sounded awful anyway, since I was playing my grade 6 pieces which I only started 2 days ago

Well, in that case, I will definetly blame the exipment, as I'm using a tiny little mike that plugs into my (tiny) walkman and recording over tapes I no longer need.

Yup, definetly the equipment me thinks. Although I'm sure my playing has its moments~ notably when I catch my teacher wincing over my shoulder, which always makes me giggle- and giggling into a flute is not the most attractive sound!

Tamsin, the website in my signature has a discussion thread on music recording going on at the moment, if you want to learn more.

Funny that, I caught my teacher openly laughing out loud last nite and said she thort I will never hit a low D.
she was right for at least three huffs, then out came an almighty D which made her cat whince!
I like my teach, shes cool.

I sometimes think me and my teacher spend more time in my lessons laughing than actually playing-

especially when doing those ridiculous singing/clapping thingies in the ABRSM sightreading book. We can rarely reach the end of eack line without collapsing.

Good for you on the D~ not playing sax I dont know just how hard it is, but I can imagine it compares well to some of the high notes on flute to hit!