Recording. . . SUCKS!

[Essyne]

How do you guys record and just. keep. something.?

I'm wayyy to hard on myself and spend hours in the studio to no avail. It's never good enough.

This is vocal rep I'm talking about, but I think the same would probably go for piano.

So, what's up w/ recording? lol. Do you just hit a stage where you give up and just keep a track? I know that the whole "not being perfect" thing is inevitable, and that "imperfections and vulnerabilities are what bring the Humanity to the performance," but I want my recordings to seriously own!

Ugh.

[Petter]

I agree, it sucks but it´s good practice. And if you keep it and listen to it at another time when you´ve forgotten about it you will hear it differently.  .

[Essyne]

Yeah. I guess that that's probably a good idea. Just record a zillion tracks of the same rep and then save it for a couple of days. Get your mind off of it and come back. Don't be so bloody OCD  .  .

[richard black]

Employ a producer.

[Bob]

Practice it so it's as good as you can reasonably make it.  On the day of the performance, give it a reasonable shot, but if it's just not happening that day, that's how it is.

Be comfortable with where you are as a perfomer.  You're only going to improve so much.  If it's not perfect walking in, you probably won't get it perfect for the recording.  Maybe see it as a new highpoint instead with even better things to come in the future.

The super hearing you can get being on the spot is a plus.  That can go away later and you'll hear the recording more from the audience side of things later.

When you're recording, just focus on performing.  Being overly critical isn't going to help the performance come out better.  The nice thing about recordings is that you can always to do it, so you can be as free as you want.  You don't have to be extremely careful in case someone hears a mistake.  The nice thing is you can always redo the recording.  The bad thing is... you can always redo the recording.  I'd give it a few times, 3... 5.. something like that, and call it day.  If it's not going to happen without mistakes, then it won't happen and you probably need to practice more.

After the piece falls out of your mind a little and you start hearing more like the audience, the recording might sound a lot better to you.  You can get lazer ears while you record, but later on the minute details you heard don't actually appear much on the recording. 

And don't worry about the recording if you're doing that yourself.  Just set it to record and start performing.  Worry about all the editing garbage later.


Just take notes on what to improve on later.  There's always something.  And if you really don't like the quality, go practice more and stop torturing yourself like that.

[rc]

Here was my process:

Learn a piece  ->  record a dozen times and discover I keep making mistakes at certain points  ->  practice out those mistakes  ->  record a dozen times and make random mistakes, which I figure is due mostly to the mental game (nerves, shifting focus)  ->  Keep working at it until something comes out that seems acceptible.

I would usually do a couple takes each sitting, mostly to get used to the feeling of having that machine recording my every movement and thought.  Spooky machine.

At the end, it starts getting closer to what I want.  It's not the perfection I'd like, but I eventually run out of patience and accept that it's what I'm capable of at this time...  To me, recording is more of a record of my progress than anything.

Still, I found it a frustratingly fun experience