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Amen, right on point!

Hear hear. We always talk about doing this for auditions to perfect excerpts, but it's useful everywhere.

bloke wrote:Back off the creativity (no...not any really "wrong" notes, but stuff that - probably - I was playing to entertain myself more than to entertain those who were paying to be entertained) on the bass lines and do a better job of supporting the band. ...and no, this doesn't mean to avoid little "flourishes" etc. used to emphasize certain things...but it DOES mean - as just one example - to (more often) define inversions of chords that people are more accustomed to hearing in particular contexts

This this this. It depends on the audience (if it's a show where the audience expects to be challenged vs. just want some music), but in general that has always been my self-criticism at gigs that involve some form of improvisation/freedom. I never listen to myself and think "Boy, if only I had drawn MORE attention to myself..." Unless the bass voice is called on for a feature, people are more comfortable with a solid foundation that they don't have to think about so that they can enjoy the lead voice.

bloke wrote: 2/ You NEVER know who (else) is listening.

This is always in the front of my mind, especially during the summer. One of the main industries in town here is tourism, so most of our public shows during the summer are for people arriving or leaving on cruise ships or planes. We have thousands of tourists in town every day from May through September. You never know who is just getting into town for a vacation.

In general: Think about your context. Who is there, why are they there, and what will the expect in an ideal world? As the person doing it, it's hard to put yourself into those shoes, since you have a front row seat to your own thinking in the moment. Listening to recordings of yourself is the only way to fix that.

In addition to my applied teaching, I'm also the "Arts Technology Coordinator" at my gig, so I teach courses in the recording arts. "Engineers" (and some musicians) are beginning to take note of two important issues regarding listening to recordings. The first is the "Doctrine of Dual Transduction", which basically states that you (or anybody else) can never really hear a recording of yourself exactly as it was originally heard because the recorder captures the original acoustics of the performance, and then when it's played back NEW acoustics are added. This explains why studio recordings are usually preferred over "live" recordings - if there was a large, echo-filled hall to begin with, the playback adds even more hall (unless the engineer is savvy enough to minimize that).
While Dual Transduction has more or less been proven, the theory of "Psychoacoustics" is a lot more dicey. Sound is sound, of course, and our ears all basically transduce it the same way, but once it travels through the auditory nerve our brains are an interpretive "free-for-all". So now lots of aestheticians are working on understanding the "when, where, and why" a performance seems so great - or not so great. One look at most of the created visual images of the most successful pop artists pretty much substantiates psychoacoustics - music videos don't really enhance the sound of a musical performance - but they "sound" better to their target audience who drool over the way the artist looks.
Which leads us back to the "target" audience in this case. My colleagues like to kid me that when they like a recording of themselves it's because they play well, and if they don't - then the recording sucks. That's because they're smart enough to kid about it. We hear what our brains tell us to hear. For that reason, I only recommend recording to my students for lessons or in controlled, artistically favorable conditions. When they hear themselves in my studio, or a practice room, or in any situation where the microphone pickup is going to be brutally close and unforgiving, every "wart, clam, pitchbend, spit sound, etc." is going to stick out like a sore thumb. Give the same performance in the Grossmusiksvereinshall in Vienna, and it'll sound totally different. So recordings can have two purposes - they can either tell you to go back to practicing because it sucks, or "Hey, not bad.."
Bottom line - recordings made in a practice situation are going to be revealing - professionally-made recordings are (hopefully) going to be encouraging. We can learn from both, but in different ways.

Supremely insightful -- we're learning more about how subjective the listening process actually is and it's really exciting to know about more variables that can affect our performances, whether live or recorded. I've read about psychoacoustics and I didn't remember that there was a word for it until I read your post.

I used to record myself all the time when I was in college -- everything sounded HORRIBLE to my ears! I did much the same thing in blaming the recording equipment and telling myself that I had budget sub-standard hardware. Then I started looking for how the recording could be beneficial even if it was on "bad" equipment. I stopped listening to the audio and started listening to the music. My playing started getting MUCH better. I stopped complaining about bad equipment and started analyzing my own contribution to the sound.

Arnold Jacobs had a great story about how he would practice where world-class musicians could hear him. He explained how he was always mindful that he was performing, even if he was the only one in the room. The thing to remember is that we can be our own audience. It's actually very helpful that we are also our own worst critic in that situation. Analyze your sound relentlessly and you know you've earned every "Hey, not bad...".

I like the "on top of the beat" comment. I play some jazz, sometimes on tuba, sometimes bass guitar, sometimes guitar. If I am on the bass line, I reckon that I am the beat and will get a few comments about "laying back", or would I please "get behind the beat". I have no answer for that, as I see my own role is to create that beat.

On the drum subject, as a bass guitarist I try to make myself one with the drummer. The quality of the drummer might vary, but unless something is very wrong, I am welded to them. The sort of music that would have a bass guitar lends itself to simplicity anyway. If I grabbed my horn I think I would still be in this habit.

This is an excellent thread. I think that many of us don't do this regularly because we perceive it to be a "hassle." However, I was reading Toby Oft's blog the other day (for those who don't know, Mr. Oft is the Principal Trombone in the Boston Symphony), and he recommends doing this daily. He believes that even a two minute recorded practice session, if done regularly, will reveal a lot and will result in obtaining faster improvement.

The instructor with whom I studied would record students in his studio on a reel-to-reel deck. Then he'd play the recording back at half speed so that you WOULD hear

every wart, clam, pitchbend, spit sound, etc.

Yes, that analog recording of your tuba playing would be an octave down, but the student would certainly get the point.

Even those who don't know me will recognize the instructor by virtue of this practice in his studio lessons.

Had an audition coming and had avoided recording myself while practicing for decades but this time I did and was very close that I sold my tubas that day.

After wondering what the hell have I been doing all these years and still sounding like that, decided and said f**k it, I'll just record more and continue as long as it sounds bad at any way.

Audition was ok, didn't win but made finals so could call it ok. The growth with the recording was huge. Still hate my sound but I try to improve.