Recording yourself, View on top of the system and from inside.
The idea of record yourself was all the time around me. When I did any sport, the teacher said record yourself. But, when you learn to play. Is recording can change something and why?
If you read my blog, I set a goal to record 3 songs. In the first moment, I thought why? Nobody really wants to hear me playing. All the classical repertoire is already recorded by those superstars.
After some time I started to doubt myself. Am I moving forward in my learning curve? I put so much time into practice. But, I don’t see improvement. At that moment I wanted to go back and listen to myself.
I tried to record myself on my phone. It worked, I could hear my mistake clear. I didn’t like what I was playing. I recorded myself after half a month. The difference was huge. So huge that now I record myself on a regular basis.
It seems so basic. You can tell somebody else that he isn’t playing well. But you can’t do it for yourself while you play.
I think it’s because when you are playing you are part of the system. Seeing only the small part of the picture. But, when you step back and listen to a record. Especially If you give it a day or two after you record. You are not part of the system anymore. You are a listener to a record. Or if you recorded a video. You are not performing, you are watching a performance.
I met this phenomenon when I was learning queue theory. It’s a mathematical field that analysis the behavior of a queue.
Did you wonder why when you try to find parking you searching 20–30 minutes. But at the moment you exit the car you see there is parking all over the place.
This situation we meet on a daily basis, and we attribute it to Murphy’s laws. But in reality, Murphy doesn’t apply here. It is the point of view on the system. As a driver who looks for a parking space, you are inside the system. You only see the 2 parking spots that you can park in. You drive a little forward and see another 2 parking spots. But when you exit the car and walk. You are looking at the system as a whole. You see all the free parking spots.
This happens a lot when analyzing a system of any kind. What a participant feels or sees is not what the system manager or designer sees.
If we use this idea in playing we could be our own teachers. And have a critic view on our playing. The points we could give will be of great value and certainly our playing.
