Hi, how you doing?
Justin here with another quick tip for you
and this week it is why you should record yourself.
Now, it's pretty easy these days
to get some sort of recording equipment.
I'm not suggesting that you go out and buy a full recording studio,
but anyone with a Mac has probably got GarageBand installed,
and that's perfect for recording yourself.
If you haven't got access to that
even using like a little dictaphone or whatever.
Anything that you can in order to record you guitar and listen back to it,
particularly being able to record it against some sort of time
whether it's a metronome or a drum groove or whatever.
Now, it's one of the things that I think changes most guitar players
when you can hear yourself back, 'cause all of us, when you're
actually playing, you kinda got a lot of stuff to think about,
getting your chords nice and clean, your rhythm tight,
listening to the click track or to the drums or whatever,
there's a lot lot of things going on
so it's easy to lose the proper perspective and
when you record yourself and listen back, you will notice stuff.
You'll notice stuff that you might never have picked up on.
I remember one of my earliest experiences recording myself
I was recording some classical guitar pieces and I had no idea
that I was breathing really loud and it was really funny
listening to this stuff and hearing (inhales, exhales)
going on over the background, you know
and I never would have noticed, I never would have known
while I was playing by myself
but recording it, made me go "oh wow that's something
I gotta fix, right?" I've got to start breathing through my mouth
And just being aware of keeping that quiet.
Other things that really, really help is rhythm guitar
Listening to yourself playing rhythm guitar, particularly if you can do it
against a groove.
Now, those of you with GarageBand will know
that it's really easy to just drag and drop drum loops
into the kind of arrange window, set it up on a continuous loop
and play some rhythm guitar along with it.
Now, just doing that a few times, playing rhythm guitar
for two or three minutes and listening back to yourself and hearing
how well you lock in with the groove is an incredible teaching tool
and it's the one that you can teach yourself, you know, because
you'll notice stuff, you'll hear when you're slightly drifting and your time's
not so good. You might hear good things about yourself.
So, you know, if what you hear is not
so great, then it gives you a chance to fix it 'cause
if you don't know it's wrong, you ain't never going to fix it, right?
So, it's kind of a big deal.
But if you hear that it's right,
It's good cause it gives you a bit of confidence as well.
So, like yeah, I'm kind of doing this, my rhythm's pretty solid.
So it's such a great thing.
For lead guitar, a lot of guys get really worried about the fact that they're
not playing enough, you know?
I'm always preaching about how important it is to leave space in your solos
and not try and overplay stuff
but a lot of people don't really believe it until you do it.
So, if you try to do one and leave loads of space and then listen back to it
You'll probably listen back and go, you know what, that sounds right
that's not too much space
It feels like ages when you're doing it
but when you're listening back, it's alright
it's really incredible
Pitching, like string bends, when you're doing all your string bends
sometimes if you're in the flow of stuff
you might not notice that your bends are out of tune.
Happens to me still, sometimes, if I'm doing a lesson or whatever and
I'm thinking about doing the teaching thing or whatever, then
sometimes, you know, that little part of my ear that's dealing with that goes awol
and it goes a little bit wonky.
So, listening back to yourself will fix that sort of stuff.
"Yeah, really gotta concentrate on on getting those string bend in time."
String noise, you know, having strings ringing out when they shouldn't be.
When you're doing your scales and stuff
If you put your amp on and practice playing scales with a metronome
you're hearing whether your timing's good and whether you've got extra string noise
that you shouldn't have.
There are so many, so many more examples
You know, it really is a big deal recording yourself
So, no matter what it is you got access to
Whether it's a little dictaphone you know, put a metronome on there
near to the dictaphone, play along with that stuff
and listen back
If you can, it's a great thing to get into recording yourself generally.
It's a lot of fun, recording yourself
with GarageBand or Logic or ProTools
or whatever you can get your hands on.
It's fun to create something, being able to record yourself and
listen back and do different layers, you know?
You can't really learn about layering yourself unless you can record a part.
You can kind of do it with a looper but it's quite different
when you're doing it for real.
I'm just thinking of all these different little things flooding in
Red light fever, the fact that when you start recording yourself things change
I still don't really understand why it works like that
it even works for me, you know,
If I'm recording myself or doing a lesson or whatever
as soon as the red light's on, you're recording, things change
There's something a little bit different in your body that makes you play different
Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but
Getting used to recording yourself will kind of open up that door a little bit more
So if you ever get a chance to record yourself for real
with a band or whatever, it's not quite so freaky.
So I think that's probably like fifty reasons off the bat.
If you just think about
All of the different things that you'll learn and try it
So, when you actually try recording yourself,
you're going to find loads of different things, that,
things that I haven't mentioned that you notice in your playing,
Your sound, what is your sound like, is your sound good, is it breaking up a bit?
There's all sorts of things going on with this. It's a real big deal so,
If you can, find a way to record yourself
Doesn't matter what it is, don't get all hung up on, you know,
getting a posh microphone and posh preamps and all that sort of stuff, you know?
It's cool to do that, if you can afford it and you want to,
But you don't have to.
For the lesson part, for the learning how you play part, just recording yourself
is a fantastic way to improve your guitar playing. So, uh,
Hope that helps you on your journey.
I'll see you for plenty more lessons and songs and more tips
and all sorts of stuff very soon
Take care of yourselves, bye-bye!