I've never liked being in front of a camera, but since I began learning piano I've discovered the benefits of submitting pieces to the quarterly recitals. However, this has raised some issues: 1) the dreaded "red button syndrome", causing slight panic and brain freeze when attempting to play a piece well; and 2) unwanted background noises which I'm usually unaware of until I play back the recording.
I have managed to reduce the first issue by learning a piece very well before I even attempt a recording, so that I feel more confident about my chances of hitting the right notes. Also, I've become slightly more relaxed about the whole process over the past few months, and I've learned how to do basic edits on my videos, so I can record a whole practice session then stop recording if I manage to play something nicely, which then means I can remove the front section of the video, to leave the decent bit. 🙂 However, I'm struggling with poor sound quality as my laptop and tablet both have very sensitive inbuilt microphones which pick up a lot of background noises. I'm not great with gadgets and don't want to create a home studio set up, so I'm trying to find ways to reduce/eliminate some of these noises.
Here are a few things that have cropped up:
1) Creaking piano bench. This is partly remedied by regularly tightening up the bolts which attach the top to the legs, but the recording seems to pick up every movement of my body on the seat. I try to keep my butt still but find myself swaying about a bit with the music and all this is audible. Perhaps putting a rug beneath the bench would help dampen down the effect of this?
2) Breathing/sighing. I have a habit of holding my breath during tricky measures, then find myself taking a deep breath and the mic detects it. Then there might be a small sigh of relief at the end of a piece, which is also audible - so embarrassing. It gets worse - on occasions my stomach has gurgled and that has been audible too! 😬
3) White noise/electronic whirring of laptop or piano. There seem to be several different reasons for these sounds. I don't yet have a tripod so have been balancing my laptop or tablet on a nearby wooden table, but I think sometimes if it's touching the end of the piano there's too much vibration going on. I bought a little case for the tablet, but it has a metallic sheen and seems to create a sort of rustling sound - maybe I need to put it on a place mat or something else to muffle the sound of the case against the hard surface?
The piano is in our living room, which has hardwood floors and no rug at that end of the room. Maybe I should install a rug under both the piano and the bench to reduce vibrations/echo effect? Or will using a decent tripod eliminate most of these issues? I'd be grateful for any tips, I'm willing to spend a few pounds to improve things but I don't want to have multiple microphones/cameras set up - I'd like to keep things simple.
