Dear Damian,
Sorry I'm a late arrival to this discussion - and I agree with what has
been said already. It was Rob who got me started on this recording
business: his MP3s of Fuenllana sounded as though they must have been
produced expensively, but it turned out he had just plugged a cheap mic
straight into his laptop! It didn't work for me, so I bought a Zoom H2
and it's a very handy machine. There are better machines out there,
like the Fostex, but they are much more expensive, and if you really
want to make a CD there is no alternative but to bring in the
professionals. However, like Rob, I decided that a higher priority was
simply to get some music on my website. My approach has been the same
as Rob's, the aim being to produce something interesting but not
necessarily perfect. If someone hears my recording of a piece and is
keen to play it themselves, that's great. It's also useful for
illustrating points about different types of lutes, performance
practice, etc. and I'm sure there's much more mileage in this,
especially if we add video it has great potential for teaching and
learning too.
As for using recording as a practice tool, I'm in two minds. It's so
important to learn to listen that I fear there may be problems in
letting something else do the listening. On the other hand I take
David's point that however good you think you are at listening while
playing, the recorder listens even better. Perhaps it also allows you
to experiment with aspects of phrasing and expression which you can
evaluate more dispassionately when hearing it later.
Just an aside - the small size and built-in mics of the Zoom make it
ideal for field recording. I recently used it to record the carillon at
a church in France, and it came out really well, complete with birdsong!
Best wishes,
Martin
www.luteshop.co.uk
damian dlugolecki wrote:
I recently bought a ZOOM digital recorder. It's a small package and
keeps everything simple
and the sound I think is very good.
But I wonder if those of you who record your playing have some thoughts
about how you use
recording. There's a lot of information about equipment out there, but
not much on the
creative asplects of recording.
Do you use recording while you practice a piece? Or do you refine
every note before
pushing the record button? Do you practice a number of pieces and then
have a session
where you record all of them; or rather do you take one piece at a time
spending hours
and many takes getting it right.
For me it is difficult to put together a large chunk of time. I
practice when I can
grabbing 20 minutes here, an hour there. But perhaps recording demands
a different
regimen.
Damian
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