90+ recordings and I'm not happy with them

[KarenB]

First off, Doug, you are to be congratulated for being brave enough to make recordings and share them. It's like baring your soul. Many people want to do it but run away.

There's a big difference between criticizing ourselves and critiquing. Criticizing is finding fault with. It can lead to beating ourselves up emotionally. We can learn from critiquing ourselves, looking for what can be improved without punishing ourselves.

Keep going. Learn what you want to improve. Focus on that.

And I will take that advice for myself too.

Thanks for posting and opening up this conversation.

Karen

[Malcolm Kindnes]

First of all, I agree with many of the others that you are being very hard on yourself, I make very few recordings, and when I do I'm generally disappointed.
However when I sing and play publicly, people are generally very complimentary, we musicians can be very self critical.
One thing I would suggest is, perhaps try to be more yourself. I listened to a few of your soundcloud recordings and felt that even if the notes were perfect there wasn't much feeling coming across. Also you're playing songs but not singing, I think this is a mistake. Either play pieces written as instrumentals or sing. In my experience, people would rather listen to mediocre singing than very accomplished guitar playing.
Overall I think your playing is very good if you've only been doing it for 4-5 years!

[jkilgour2000]

Originally Posted by J-Doug

You've hit the nail right on the head.



It's my performances.



What gets me down is my performance while recording. I make mistakes, get lost, flub fingerings and my timing goes completely awry. When I record I'm totally stressed out and my performance greatly suffers. You'd figure this wouldn't be the case after 90 recordings but it still is.

It's called "red light syndrome" and it happens to everyone. We sit and play, and then as soon as the red recording light comes on, we tense up. I found that I just let the recorder run and run as I'm practicing, and eventually I loosen up, and forget about the machine running. And don't forget, even the pros mess up in the studio, and everything isn't done in one take. That's why we have multi tracking equipment and overdubbing processes. It's natural.

[stephenT]

You know, playing and recording/engineering are right brain/left brain activities. I've found it difficult to do both at times. You get all set up and the creativity is gone.

Maybe get a friend over to mash the buttons (press record and stop), might free you up to play more to your liking.

Thank you guys for all the kindness and support. The response has been kind of overwhelming in a good way. It's helping me feel better about this.

[reeve21]

Originally Posted by J-Doug

Thank you guys for all the kindness and support. The response has been kind of overwhelming in a good way. It's helping me feel better about this.

Great topic for a thread Doug, and you expressed very well what a lot of us sometimes feel to one extent or another. I know I've learned a lot just by reading the responses. Now, to take the knowledge and apply it!!

[devellis]

Doug:

Two things going on. One is, as others have noted, we all (well, most of us, at least) choke when we hit the "Record" button. I'm amazed at how true this has been on the few occasions when I've tried recording myself. I can feel the tension increasing and I make all kinds of flubs that I usually never run into.

Two, I think we're our own worst critics. We know what we want to sound like and thus whenever what we play doesn't fully achieve that, we're acutely aware of it. I play some of the same stuff that you do, so I know the tunes very well. And I completely enjoyed how you played them.

A friend of mine who plays out extensively does mostly Irish traditional music. What he used to tell his audiences at the beginning of his set was that folk music is more to be shared than performed. He likened it to a conversation. He would go on to say that what he wanted to recreate was the feel of an informal evening of music in someone's home, back when that sort of thing happened more often than it does now. He explained that perfection was less his goal than just creating an atmosphere of sharing the tunes together and having an enjoyable evening. I think that context is really appropriate for blues and the sort of bluesy ragtime pieces that you (and I) play. Gary Davis, in live performances, made all sorts of little flubs and mistakes. But it never detracted from the overall experience. I've had the opportunity to play with other really accomplished blues and folk players in informal settings and mistakes, forgetting parts of a song, and other little goofs are part of that. I honestly, didn't hear your goofs or mistakes but if you did, consider them as true to the musical form and totally appropriate.

I don't play out, I don't record myself. Part of the reason is that doing those things changes my perspective to being more of an observer. Obviously, that observer perspective can be useful for someone who wants to perform. But for me, it's just a distraction. I'd rather enjoy the playing experience in the moment. Sure, I try to correct things that I notice are recurring mistakes. But I'll still make the not-so-occasional mistake in a place that I've never had trouble with before. If I'm in my observer mindset, that's going to cascade into making additional mistakes. I'f I'm just enjoying playing, I won't give it a second thought unless it's something that I notice happening more than once.

Even if you are acutely aware of little things you don't like about your recordings, I for one enjoyed them a whole lot and I wasn't struck by any errors or problems. And obviously, others feel the same way.

[FrankHudson]

Originally Posted by Willie Voltaire

I share your same sentiments about my own recorded work. I'm a decent enough sound engineer, but I hate my playing and singing -- way too stiff.

But here's the thing: To the listener, your song is an entire thing. It is complete. There has been no process, as far as your audience is concerned, and so none of the decisions and effort and angst that went into the final product are at all apparent. It's just there, where there wasn't anything before. So they are going to have a completely different experience listening to it than you are, and to presume that they will even hear the same things you do is egregiously unfair to your material.

Think about when you listen to a new record. If you're like me, you just hear a song. Not a performance. Just a song. And you either like it or you don't, but probably not because of the performance or the recording. After 38 years as a songwriter and musician, I have come to believe that we are all too close to our own material to be reliable critics of it.

So let it go. Put it out there. Let it be what it is, not what you think it is.

There's a lot of good insights in this thread, but this idea, also expressed in some allied ways by several posters in the thread, struck me as particularly profound and important. My own restatement of the idea: listeners care if the piece moves them, causes their toe to tap, surprises them pleasantly, or reminds them of something they hold dear. If you give them one of those things, they'll forgive a lot in note for note accuracy or even out and out musical mistakes.


Now a few, not profound, personal experiences to share.

I self produce/self engineer. Most of us here do. The good thing about it is that we control our own hours, moods, and workflows and often need to only schedule ourselves. But there's a great deal of subtle badness about it too. We can easily loose perspective. Only in certain moments do I feel I can hear myself with fresh ears. The multiple "hats-worn" can add to recording anxiety. Even with a rushed recording schedule, I often benefit from setting my takes aside for awhile for deciding on which one is the keeper or how to mix them. Lately my own life hasn't allowed this, and I think my work suffers because I'm not taking enough time between the playing and the mixing/deciding.

Doing less recording, or the allied idea of concentrating more on getting one or two pieces as close to right as possible could help or hurt. Depends on the person I suppose. Some might even do well to alternate tactics. In my personal case, recording a lot has reduced my "red light fever," but I'm currently asking myself if I could produce tracks with more impact on listeners and wider musical expression from myself if I slowed down the recording schedule.

With pieces or tracks where I know my skills will be tested, I often record three to five takes back to back. That's one of the joys of digital recording, our storage media is dirt cheap and highly reusable. At the end of the process I feel I at least know the best I can do that day with that piece. Yes, I'll sometimes "comp" parts (combing the best parts from a series of takes), but in many cases one of the takes is clearly the best, and may ask for just one or two "fixes" from other takes or a punch-in. And sometimes that's not required. Just the process of recording my swings at the part, without requiring any to be "the one" reduces my tension and frees me to be more expressive.

[scriv58]

own the song and never give yourself away

[jaybones]

Well, I'm never really satisfied with anything I've ever done either. Always picking it apart, focusing on the tiniest fault that probably only I can hear.

But people give me positive feedback (people I know are being honest with me), and I'm very much my own worst critic.

You probably suffer from the same thing, being your own worst critic. And also what I hear in my head isn't what ends up being recorded.

[TBman]

One of the hardest things about playing the guitar is accurately listening to yourself. By that I mean finding your own mistakes. Our minds sort of filter out/slide over things that a casual listener won't. After playing on and off since I was a kid I still can't do it. I just found that I was messing up on one of my favorite songs constantly without realizing it. It pays to hear multiple versions of songs so you can hear what others do with it and then see why your version is or isn't matching up on the quality and expression.

This is probably why when you (and I) go back over older recordings and it seems that the musical quality is somewhat lacking. Getting all wrapped up in the technical issues of playing a song and then the great feeling of finally getting it to a point where it can be recorded, doesn't mean it should be recorded and then shared. Let it sit for a week or two and then go back and give it a listen with a fresh ear. Doing that takes patience and discipline (which I don't always have).

Originally Posted by FrankHudson

The multiple "hats-worn" can add to recording anxiety.

Yup. It's hard to give an inspired performance when you're watching the clipping lights!

Originally Posted by FrankHudson

I often benefit from setting my takes aside for awhile for deciding on which one is the keeper or how to mix them.

Me, too. Some zen teacher I had used to say, "distance always gives you perspective."

Originally Posted by FrankHudson

I'm currently asking myself if I could produce tracks with more impact on listeners and wider musical expression from myself if I slowed down the recording schedule.

Yeah, for a long time, the studio was my notebook. I recorded everything, sometimes sparsely, sometimes lushly, but I eventually realized that I was often recording just to record, not because I had an especially inspired musical idea. So I took a good long break, and now the studio looks inviting again, but not tantalizing.

Originally Posted by FrankHudson

Just the process of recording my swings at the part, without requiring any to be "the one" reduces my tension and frees me to be more expressive.

Well said, and I agree. We should make a record!

[N+1]

Originally Posted by J-Doug

It's my performance I can't stand. The recording quality is good enough.

I've just spent the last 20 minutes listening to your music, and as others have said already, I do think you're being too hard on yourself. I believe you when you say that your recordings aren't as good as you can play unrecorded, but what you've recorded here is perfectly enjoyable. I experienced no wincing at any time. There is the odd place here and there where there's a slight stumble, but it didn't really impinge much on the musical flow. If I could play the guitar as well as you can, on the evidence of these recordings, then I think I'd be pretty happy, actually.

Have you tried playing at a slightly slower tempo than usual (which might perhaps make it easier to play the tricky bits) and then use Audacity or something to push the tempo back up? It may seem like cheating, but (a) it just might help to offset the 'recording nervousness' that inhibits you; and (b) the Beatles did it frequently.

[Shades of Blue]

My “dream” is to record a Southern Gospel album comprised of me playing two acoustic parts over each other, no vocals. Every time I start, I realize that my compositions aren’t all that interesting, and I too don’t like recording and find it tedious and time consuming.

I want to do this for my daughter to have something to keep and cherish, but recording is no fun.

[Rocky Dijohn]

To my ears, you own "Make Believe Stunt". I agree with so many others on the constructive feedback and useful perspectives offered. I wish I had this conversation 10 years ago when my disgust at what my recordings showed in my playing partially contributed (along with some personal stuff) to a decision to outright quit. I have recently resumed and these tips will help me fight the perfectionist demon.