In this post we look at an old but very relevant article by Ben Edwards from the early Jamorama days in which he discusses why it’s important to keep track of your progress.
An old piano teacher of mine used to record my playing at different times throughout the year. At the end of the term she would give me a tape that contained a selection of pieces that I had played running from work that I had completed early in the year to the things that I was working on at the end of the term. I would take this tape home and I would play it to my friends and family. People listening to the tape would say, “Man, you’re getting good”.
This did two things for me. First of all, it made me go back to my teacher for more lessons, so it was definitely a good move on her part. Secondly, it made me practice more because I could see the benefits of working on something over time. Basically, the progress that I could hear on the tape motivated me to get even better.
I strongly recommend you to start recording your practice sessions for future reference.You will be surprised of what you hear and how much you improve with the past of the time!
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Hi Ger,
Luis here from Jamorama.
We might have some more posts about recording later in the track.
Recording yourself is the best thing you can do either for noticing improvement but also to notice where your mistakes are, We do believe in the power of recording too and hopefully we will have some more content related to this topic as it is very extensive but very important too.
hi lads yes I have always used the tape recorder as a teacher and as a music teacher i fully believe in the power of recording–I would love to hear more from you about this as a guitar teacher.
Yours in music–Ger Mooney