[NewMusic] Recording improv (was "Can't get enough of them

[Matthew Goodheart]

On Aug 22, 2007, at 10:42 AM, grobair at emusician.com wrote:

> Yes! That's what I have my students do. Record everything, then  
> talk about
> it at the lesson: what worked, what's not working, and where the  
> habits are
> that you want to break through. It's extremely helpful if you feel  
> like your
> playing needs to get to another level. Of course, the other part is  
> having a
> "teacher" pointing out the uncomfortable parts about your playing.  
> Someone
> being brutally honest. (My two favorite teachers were the ones that  
> told it
> like it was....

Yeah, this is great stuff. I used to record my lessons, as well as  
bring in rehearsal tapes to my teachers. I still have piles of  
cassettes from Julian White, W.A. Mathieu, african and cuban drumming  
classes, ad nauseum. . . Hearing the comments again and again really  
helped  try get to the root of their perspective.  I still record  
rehearsals sometimes; not only for the music itself, but hearing  
folk's comments can be really great, sometimes there's some off the  
cuff remark that is really insightful.  I'll also record when I'm  
practicing new material sometimes- especially since a lot of the  
things I'm interested in now have to do with how microtonal sounds  
interact in space- the tool of recording and playback has been  
invaluable.

mg