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How do you use recordings?

Repertoire: Do you use recordings to help solve problems?

From Jay Azneer
Posted January 10, 2008 at 02:31 AM

I'm curious, how much do recordings figure into your thinking as to how to solve certain technical or interpretive problems?

From Sung-Duk Song
Posted on January 10, 2008 at 02:39 AM

I prefer to listen to many recordings as I'm learning a piece. Not necessarily to imitate, but to generate ideas. When I listen to like 20 different recordings of a same piece, I synthesize the information then different possibilities get generated including fingering, bowing, phrasing. To me, the phrasing dictates the fingering and bowing.

From Anne Horvath
Posted on January 10, 2008 at 02:49 AM

Like Sung-Duk, I like to listen to many recordings of a piece that I am working on. I also like to listen to other things the composer wrote, like symphonies, operas, solo piano, chamber music, lieder, etc. Listening to a variety of the composer's repertoire helps me get a feel for the style.

From Stephen Brivati
Posted on January 10, 2008 at 03:52 AM

Greetings,
I really stres swhat Anne wrote about exploring the whole ouvre. Time as always, is the problem.
Cheers,
Buri

From Oliver Steiner
Posted on January 10, 2008 at 02:56 PM

Mr. Azneer raises a very valuable issue: To some students of the violin, it may not yet have occurred to them that they may take lessons with great violinists, both living and dead, by merely asking a well framed question and listening for the answer on the recording. I believe this thread implies that, and I heartily agree. When one encounters a musical or technical problem, wouldn't it be wonderful if he could phone Heifetz and get his advice? Carefully framed questions together with careful observation of a video or audio recording will often constitute a demonstration which shows one how the problem may be solved. Sometimes I think I remember exactly how a particular passage in a particular recording sounds. Then, while practicing that passage myself, I ask: What does Heifetz do in this fast scale? Does he group it in threes or fours? Does he speed up? Does he slow down at the top? Which note does he accent? Then I feel somewhat embarrased at not knowing the answer, despite the fact that I have heard the recording countless times. Next comes the humbling realization that often what stays in one's memory is *how one felt while listening to the passage*, rather than the objective details of what one actually heard! That's where going back to the recording and asking it: "I was thrilled when I heard you play that brilliant scale in Zigeunerweisen, but how did you do it?" Heifetz will answer you!.....and best of all, if you don't get it on the first listening, he will patiently play the scale for you six times or more...as long as you repeatedly push that button on your CD player!

From al ku
Posted on January 10, 2008 at 02:54 PM

From Sue Bechler
Posted on January 10, 2008 at 02:58 PM

Oliver Steiner's answer is wonderfully written.:) I use recordings as the primary source for the old Cajun fiddle music I love playing. There is essentially no written source. Cajun music is still almost completely an aural art. There are two books, and people doing transcriptions, mostly as labors of love. A player still needs the aural example to get the rhythm, accenting and sense of bowing to sound stylistically correct. Sue

From J Kingston
Posted on January 10, 2008 at 06:40 PM

A different kind of recording but...When my kids are practicing for a performance I ask them to record the entire piece (no stops) on our video camera or on the computer and then analyze what they like/don't like. This way they don't have to stop and "fix" things or try to remember details. They listen to the recording with the sheet in front of them and plan what to work on. After that they listen to recording(s) of the piece by great players and try to undertand the sections they have marked on the sheet they will work on. I try to provide at least two good recordings (minimum)of a professional player so they are not just copying from someone's style. The goal is to understand what they want to do with a section they are working on. I think sometimes "hard sections" are technically difficult, but also difficult to understand. What the composer might have had in mind is not always clear. If the goal is not clear in their minds they find it far more difficult. Almost half of a conversation that doesn't make sense yet. This helps them. It also helps them learn not to stop all the time to fix little things or keep starting over all the time. Being a perfectionist is appropriate when you are drilling your trouble spots, but doing our own recording and then referencing different recordings shatter the childs notion that there is on definitive way to do things. The most interesting is if we rent the old b&w videos from the '30s and '40s showing great players. It is a very interesting excercise but takes a lot of time.

From Oliver Steiner
Posted on January 11, 2008 at 09:43 PM

J. Kingston wrote: "I ask them to record the entire piece (no stops) on our video "

That's so helpful. It very quickly instills in the student, the realization that preparation for a performance means preparation to play the piece *once*. When someone re-plays a missed note at a lesson with me, I remind them: "How many chances will you have to play that note during the performance?" I want them to make a very clear separation between practicing and performing, as the more they understand what performing is, the better informed will be the practicing.

From J Kingston
Posted on January 12, 2008 at 12:18 AM

Oliver,
For a holiday gift I bought a USB microphone called "The Snow Ball". I just plug it in the computer and away we go.

The children sometimes get into bad postures. Video is good for that.
Regards.

From Mendy Smith
Posted on January 12, 2008 at 04:38 AM

I use recordings of my own playing ALOT to review what is in need of some work. When I listen to my own recordings, I do so with a pencil and my sheet music in front of me to make occasional notes. My little Sony doesn't make the best recordings in the world, but it does what I want it to do for me - capture the moment so I can self critque.

As far as listening to recordings of others, I do that as well, especially when learning a new piece I've never heard of before, or with a new composer. When I do this, I do it again with my sheet music in front of me. It helps me get the piece "in my head" so I can sing it, thus helping actually playing it.

When I do this though, on my personal recordings, I can hear myself humming along with the music. I need to break that habit - at least when performing solo :)

From Leonid Sushansky
Posted on January 12, 2008 at 05:10 AM

I love listening to recordings while on the treadmill or elyptical machine at the gym. Usually it is to hear the whole score of a piece. That is just as useful whether its a solo work or an orchestra part. It is an especially useful way of learning orchestra parts, and it saves alot of time so by the first orchestral rehearsal you know how everything fits in.

From howard vandersluis
Posted on January 13, 2008 at 05:03 AM

I've been visiting Youtube.com a lot lately. There are a surprising number of good videos of great violinists on that site and it's a great resource. Although audio only recordings are helpful for many types of violin study, there's nothing like actually SEEING how somebody is producing the sound, or phrasing or bowing you like. I have been surprised a number of times at the difference between what I THINK or imagine is happening technically, based on the audio only, and what the video actually shows. Very humbling for a teacher!

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