What’s your recording process? I don’t mean the technical details in terms of what recording devices, mics or software you use, but more like, how many takes do you do in one recording session? How do you keep track of each take? How do you decide if something is usable or not? That kind of thing.
I’ll start.
Number of takes: I usually limit the number of takes I do in one session to something around four or so, because if I haven’t gotten something usable, after multiple takes my concentration goes and I start to get frustrated. I also don’t stop between takes, except to hit start and stop recording, but I don’t stop and listen to the take I just made while I’m doing the recording session.
Evaluating: here’s something I started doing more recently to evaluate the usability of a take. After each take, I stand up (because my iPhone is up on a tripod above my head), and open the video in the photo app. iPhone has way to add info to the metadata for photos and videos, so I’ll write my initial impression in the info field. It might “usable” or “maybe useable” or “fatal flaw” or even “listen again.” But I don’t listen to the recording at that point. I just hit record again and sit down to do another take. I might listen after I have finished all the takes I’m going to do, but usually I try to leave the listening and evaluating for later, or even better, wait until the next day. Then if I evaluate and decide none are usable, I try to figure out if I need to do more focused practice, or if I can just do another recording session soon.
Handling mistakes: if I’m playing and I make what I consider a fatal flaw, I don’t stop playing, I play through and finish the piece. Even if I decide right in that moment that the mistake will make the video unsharable. Years ago, (I think while recording for a PW ABF recital), I got in a loop where I would make a mistake, stop and restart, over and over again. It felt horrible and frustrating, but most importantly, I started to realize that I was internalizing “mistake = come to a complete stop.” So I just made a rule for myself that I would treat each take as if it were a live recording, which means playing through mistakes, and even if I had a “fatal flaw,” I would still play through (or, if I came to a complete stop, pick up and keep going). Doing this made recording session much less frustrating, and I realized that it actually helped my performance preparation a lot. This approach made the recording sessions themselves part of the learning process. So I still do it that way now.
Btw I should add that I one big thing I look for when I’m making mistakes is whether the mistakes are in the same place or they’re in different spots each take. If I’m making the same mistakes each time, then I put recording on hold (e.g, for a week maybe) until I can correct that mistake. But usually by the time I’m recording , those issues are ironed out. (If they’re not, I have generally started recording too soon)
Frequency, length of sessions: I usually don’t do more than one recording sessions in a day, but I do sometimes do them two days in a row, depending on how good the first session went. It also depends on how close to the recital deadline I am! But ideally, I like to do one session on a weekend, and then continue practicing for the week, or for several days, and then do another session. This allows me to continue refining and polishing and I usually get better results if I have those practice days in between sessions. Sometime it just doesn’t work out that way, because of my schedule, but that’s the ideal.
One other thing to add here: I know that some people record every practice sessions, but I never do that. (It would be too much data to deal with!) I only record when a piece is polished and I’m recording it for a specific purpose, like a PT recital or to share on YT etc. I also don’t hit record at the beginning of a session and keep the recording going across multiple takes. That would make it too hard to find usable recordings. I start and stop between each take.
Fatal flaws: to me, a fatal flaw is a mistake that makes the video unusable and unsharable. I define a fatal flaw as a mistake that is glaringly obvious or distracting to a casual listener or a listener who doesn’t know the original. So usually I don’t consider a wrong note here or there to be a fatal flaw, and a dropped note also isn’t a fatal flaw, especially since a casual listener probably wouldn’t even notice it. So more a mistake that disrupts the flow of the music, that kind of thing is what I consider a fatal flaw. Generally, if a recording has a fatal flaw in it, I won’t share it.
Good enough: I always want to have a shareable recording that is better than “just good enough,” not only a recording with no fatal flaws, but also no noticeable errors. And more importantly, a recording that has a good tempo, good musicality and dynamics, that kind of thing. But more often than not, what I end up with is a “just good” recording. And that’s ok. 🙂
Btw @TulipAcid ’s thread and @Simonb ’s comments got me thinking about different approaches to recording for the PT recitals, so that’s why I started this thread.