Unflinching Mic

I really don't like recording myself, although I can see I need to do it more often.

I recorded myself playing the first movement of the Mozart Concerto and all of my excerpts yesterday. I hate recording myself, because when I listen to the playback, I am forced out of my little fantasy world where I heard what I wanted to hear, and confronted with the actual sound waves that came out of my bassoon, and pummeled the microphone on my Mac.

Results? First and foremost, I found out the standard rule of expression always applies to my playing: You have to exaggerate whatever you want to be heard by someone else, or they will never hear it. Any time I thought I was playing over the top robust, or with great dynamic range, it always came back as "kinda loud" or "sort of crescendoed". Also, some slight droops in pitch came across right in the middle C to E range. I'm hoping that's the newness of the reed I used talking, but good to realize that problem, regardless. Technique came across pretty darn clean, actually. My ever present rushing seems to be beaten down for now, at least.

Overall, not bad. Not going to win me a gig in, say, Portland with that playing, but it's coming along. The audition for the one year principal spot in Colorado Springs is coming up at the end of this month. I'm hoping to have a decent shot at that. We'll see.

So, lessons learned: Exaggerate! Play in tune! Or, as a friend of mine always use to jokingly put it, "Just play all the right notes and don't choke. That's all there is to it."

Words to live by.