listening to my younger self play

[Tash]

my teacher has a thing where every year she records her students playing onto a tape, so for some kids it can go back to when they were like 5 and stuff! i started with her when i was 14, and have finally managed to fill the whole tape up so she gave it to me yesterday, and i was listening to it and it was so funny! like until my pieces from this year i was almost about to yell at the tape CALM DOWN AND BREATHE because i have discovered that i have a great tendency to speed up and it sounded quite rushed and what i thought were decently lengthed pauses were in fact not so. so i've found it quite fascinating hearing my playing develop the past few years, and listening to it has made me more aware of the things i need to fix,
so anyway, does anyone else have a tape of them playing from years back? i think it's a bril idea and wish i'd started with her earlier!

[rachlisztchopin]

well i have only been playing two years but i have a cd of myself playing fantasia in d minor by mozart and an invention by bach from a year ago....the fantasia sounds AWEFUL...well good at some parts...i was also very nervous i remember

[Ludwig Van Rachabji]

I have a tape of playing the Grieg Concerto when I was 14. It is quite interesting to see how you develop over time. Wow, I play that so much better now.....

- Ludwig Van Rachabji

[Stolzing]

like until my pieces from this year i was almost about to yell at the tape CALM DOWN AND BREATHE because i have discovered that i have a great tendency to speed up and it sounded quite rushed and what i thought were decently lengthed pauses were in fact not so.

Maybe you need to say that to yourself when you post too

[Tash]

LOL oh yes my tendency to write incredibly long sentences! hahaha

btw ludwig you'd hope you'd play it better now or there may be something wrong with you!

[julie391]

yeah i love this idea!

gettin an idea of your progress, and being nostalgic.

its really fun, and funny sometimes 

[chromatickler]

yeah i love this idea!

gettin an idea of your progress, and being nostalgic.

its really fun, and funny sometimes 

and sad 

[julie391]

for some maybe, not me luckily 

[Shagdac]

Funny you should bring this up...I have several reel-to-reel tapes (no laughing please) of me playing at a choir recital about 32 years ago! And several older than that I believe. It really is fun to go back and listen to yourself.....as long as no one else can hear!


S

[Tash]

oh wow that's cool. i hope my tape lasts for another 32 years so i can listen to it and play it to my kids!

[ted]

I have recordings of myself, mostly improvisation, going back thirty-five years. The quality of the recording is pretty horrible because tapes deteriorate and I couldn't afford decent equipment then. Every so often, if I'm in the mood, I grab a tape at random from the pile and hear what's on it.

One interesting thing is that ideas I had thought came to me only recently turn up on forgotten old tapes in embryonic form. In other cases I am overwhelmed by my playing when young and start to worry that I have deteriorated both physically and mentally. But then I realise that some of the ideas I have now would have been quite beyond me in my twenties and I am reassured.

I certainly do not reject my younger playing; it's too full of the life force for that. Rather I tend to see time as a dimension and experience a desire to synthesise, to view everything as a compact musical manifold in time. What I was then is part of what I am now and vice-versa. I frequently use the tapes to return to old emotional, intellectual and musical  impulses.

But I suppose that is a reflection of my general philosophy; the conscious formation of a oneness has always been natural to me. Nothing I ever think about is ever really in isolation in the time dimension. So called "primitive" peoples have a word for this - "the long body" I think. In our haste to move, progress and achieve within deadlines we Westerners are becoming prone to ignoring our past, dreading the future and snatching as much as possible of the material present before the final trip to the cemetery.

Therefore, utterly strange as it seems, Old Ted can learn much from Young Ted through listening to his recordings, at least that's how I see it. Mind you this is from the point of view of a creator; I cannot say how an interpreter feels when listening to old recordings except that I play the same pieces better now. There would be something the matter with me if I didn't though, after all that practice.

[Sketchee]

I have a few mp3s I recorded of myself playing throughout the past year.  I've learned a lot listening to them actually.   I really need to do new recordings and see if I've progressed as much as I like to think