I agree to everything you said. However, I have to first overcome my aversion of recording as I think I suck! I don't even play when my neighbours are in ? The only persons who have heard my playing are the piano tuner, the electrician ('cos he noticed my beautiful old Steck and he requested I play something if I wanted him to fix the smoke alarm) and my best friend (who comes round once in a while). I am a self learner for 3 years now, can't afford lessons and am 69 years old.
You definitely don’t suck. Are you in the free Facebook community? If you want the link, let me know. Every Friday we do a thread where people can post videos to improve at this very skill.
Great tips! (as always). Next time I record myself (something I rarely do to prevent my neighbors being terrified...😂), I will introduce the written evaluations (flaws & qualities of the practice). This will be a powerful tool to improve the next practice(S).
Brilliant observations. Some things that jump out from this lesson are: When I record myself, especially when I try to go through an entire piece without stopping to correct mistakes, my concentration is on playing without stopping; something quite different from my usual practice sessions. That increases the stress level, of course, but it's worthwhile noticing that, and also forces my hand to add an additional layer to my practice. This is crucial for me, since I don't typically play through. Furthermore, the act of listening back to my recording engages different aspects of my brain. Like learning a language (currently learning Japanese), there is passive (silent) studying, and there is the output, the speaking part, which are quite different. Listening to my recording puts my brain in a different mode, the confrontation, the analysis, the imperative to find at least three positives in the recording, then focus in on what I'd like to change. Like mispronouncing a word, getting feedback on the correct pronunciation, then practicing it.
This is so thorough and comprehensive - I love all of your takeaways - thank you for taking the time to share them. I know others will benefit from this comment as well.
I have to make sure my neighbours aren't home, but I'll do this and let you know. Too bad the time difference doesnt' work out for you classes. Just a comment on your 3 versus two tutorial. Worth it's weight in gold, and the pattern isn't a problem. But I'm trying to incorporate into my 5 note scale warm up pattern, where I play , then 2, then 3, then 4 notes against each other. But the 3:2 rhythm is really a challenge to try with finger movement. It's slowly getting better, so I'm slowing it down. Merci beaucoup.
Hahaha great idea! And yes it is too bad! I do have a couple of people joining from around the world and watching the replays because they can’t make the live classes :-) just in case that strategy interests you ;) but I totally get it! I’ll look for that comment!
One thing I noticed is when I’m just doing a chord progression, I want to make up a song and sing something and it’s really hard for me. Singing along with my ukulele playing was pretty easy by comparison. Compounding the difficulty is simply thinking of words to sing at the same time.
