Recording is a very important part in the music creation process.
Now I’m not talking about recording in the sense of paying thousands of dollars, going into a studio and going at it until you’ve recorded and produced an entire album.
I’m talking about using some type of recording medium to document ideas as they come into your awareness. It doesn’t need to be a highly
complicated and expensive recording setup. Just a simple system that can allow you to capture ideas as they arise.
What’s the problem with not using a recording system as you play, and create?
Well, the answer is: If you aren’t recording while you play there are several things that can get in the way of the music creation process. The first thing is that if you don’t record as you go, you are trying to do too many things at once.
• You are playing your instrument, searching for new ideas
• You are paying attention to what you’re playing, and whether it’s worthwhile to document any of the ideas that come up
• You are using much energy to try and remember what you’re playing as you play it, so you don’t forget any good ideas that occur to you. Your attention is diverted in too many directions.
Considering that your best musical ideas come from resources beyond your conscious awareness, and these signals from your unconscious can be subtle, you need to be paying attention to them. When you’re trying to do
everything at once… playing… judging what you’re playing… and
remembering how you’re playing it… it becomes almost impossible to pick up on these subtle signals coming from beyond your awareness, telling you about a new idea.
That’s why recording is an absolute must in the music creation process. Instead of playing, judging, remembering all at once… just play.
With a simple recording program capturing your every move, you can “let go” and just play. As you do this, your mind becomes relaxed… blissful… and all of a sudden the floodgates open. Ideas begin to flow, and because you are capturing the whole performance, you don’t need to try and capture them mentally at the same time.
You can simply relax knowing that you can return to each idea later and then judge, re-learn, etc…
While you are creating, your job is simply that. Just to create. Recording allows you to do this because you don’t need to concentrate on anything else. You simple play and pay attention to the ideas that “bubble up.” And in this course you will learn some incredible methods to encourage the most wondrous ideas to pop up again and again. You are indeed an incredible creative force…
Here’s Another Very Important Reason to Record Every “Creative Session”
While your brain is an amazing thing, with almost limitless processing power, it does have flaws.
One of them is this: Every memory you have is inaccurate. While you may think you remember things pretty well, your brain actually deletes and distorts all of the information that comes in through your senses.
This means that by trying to simply remember musical ideas as you create them is going to be flawed, because your brain can’t remember them accurately.
And with music it’s usually the subtleties that surround the idea that gives its magic. Things like: the tone of your instrument; subtle little note bends; the delicacy with which you play each note.
You may be able to remember the notes and in what order you played them. But it’s unlikely you’re going to pick up on all the subtle features of the idea that gave it its magic.
Here’s an example of what I mean when I say that your brain deletes and distorts much of the information that comes through your senses.
In this example we will be dealing with your visual senses and visual memory.
Here’s how you can do the exercise.
Look around the room you’re in. Pick out an object and stare at it for a few seconds.
Now, close your eyes and picture this object in your imagination. Can you see every little detail? Is it as clear and vivid as when you were looking at it? Of course not!
At every moment there are literally millions of pieces of information coming through your senses. Your brain is not designed to store all this information. It is designed to delete much of the information and also distort (make changes) to the information that comes in.
This means that all your memories of people talking, seeing things and most importantly, hearing things, are very different from what actually happened in the world.
Just another reason why you shouldn’t have music creation sessions without recording them! Firstly, you shouldn’t be diverting your attention from the creation process, AND you won’t remember these ideas completely
accurately anyway!
So fire up that recording device!
One More Thing…
Mozart, the great musician, was renowned for his musical memory. In a letter he wrote that his “musical memory” was perhaps his greatest asset and he thanked his divine maker for blessing him with this skill.
Now as you know, Mozart employed various synesthetic ways of thinking (representing information with more than one thinking modality) as he composed music. This is the reason that he had such a prized “musical memory.”
When you are representing a piece of information to yourself with more than one sense, it’s very likely that you won’t forget this piece of information.
The great thing is, with modern recording technology, you can replace the need to have an incredible “musical memory.” Instead of holding all your compositions and ideas in your head by developing advanced synesthetic relationships, you can simply hit “record” and let the technology do all the remembering.
With one fairly basic recording device, you can replace Mozart’s highly prized “musical memory.”
Now it’s still very important to strive to develop similar ways of thinking about music as the geniuses that have come before, but whilst you are still developing your musical software it’s very helpful to free up some of your resources by letting technology step in.
Back when Mozart was creating music there were no ways of easily and cheaply recording music. The composers of that time had no choice but to remember every idea they had. Paper was the only way of documenting their ideas, which was and is time-consuming and not as accurate a transcription as actually hearing the music.
However, in the present day, recording is easy and cheap. It’s very worthwhile to replace this “remembering every detail” with a simple recording medium.
Instead of focusing energy on remembering every small thing about every moment of music, you can focus on becoming intimate with the way that you create musical ideas. You can become a master of your creativity, and document your results with a recording medium.
You can then organize these ideas into spectacular full pieces using the suggestions in this course.
With this combination, you can get genius results.
Once you’ve recorded your music session you are in a much better position to judge the ideas you’ve created.
You will find that you listen to your ideas very differently when you are simply listening to them rather than playing AND listening at the same time. Here’s the reason…
When you are performing, or creating music, you are fairly “chunked
down.” A portion of your focus is on things like hitting the right notes, with the right tone, and so on.
You are also paying very close attention to the ideas that are popping into your head, and noticing the fine detail of these ideas.
Listening to the music while you are creating is not the perfect way to judge the quality of ideas you are creating.
When you are “chunked down” in this way, you can’t listen to it in the way you’d hear a full piece of music. This is because your attention is being taken up by concentrating on your performance, noticing and bringing out new ideas.
The state to listen and judge the quality of your musical ideas is when you’re fairly “chunked up.” This means that you are more focused on the big picture. You’re listening to the music more as a “full piece,” rather than concentrating and “chunking down” into the details.
What’s The Best Course of Action Here?
The point I’m making here is this: When you’re creating music, you should record every second of it. And while you’re creating this music, focus on stretching for new ideas, and playing the ideas the best you can.
While this process is going on, don’t judge what you’re playing. This is not the best time to judge the quality of your ideas. Just keep playing,
searching and stretching for new ideas. There are some excellent
procedures to follow that will guarantee you will discover some amazing ideas in your music creation sessions.
Once you’ve finished playing, and stopped the recorder, take a break. Have a glass of your favorite beverage, go for a walk, or exercise a little.
The reason for taking this break is this: because you’ve just been
performing, and been fairly chunked down in the details, you now need to “zoom out” and focus on the big picture stuff.
As I've mentioned before, you’ll find that after taking a break you will
automatically “zoom out” and become more focused on the big picture. You will hear the recording more like a full piece of music. In this state you are much more likely to be open to possibilities. You will notice potentially great ideas much easier because you are hearing it more like you would hear your favorite CD or a song on the radio.
If you were to listen to the recording immediately after recording it, you’d likely be too “chunked down” to notice all these possibilities. You’d still be focusing on the finer details, such as wincing as you hear when you didn’t hit a note properly and then applauding yourself when you hit the notes perfectly!
But “playing perfectly” isn’t the most important thing here. There is something far more profound to notice here. And that thing is noticing the musical concepts that you have just created, and picking the ideas that are full of potential and excitement. This is much tougher to notice when you’re “chunked down” and focusing on the details.
With practice you can learn to “chunk at will” and choose where to focus your attention. This is a practice is something I would encourage you to undertake!
As I said earlier, the ability to “chunk at will” is a sign of a highly intelligent person.
Many people have great troubles because they don’t understand the concept of chunking, and they are either always down in the details, or only focusing on the big picture.
For example, do you know someone who is one of those “perfectionists” types who never seems to get anything done?
Well, the reason for this is they are always very “chunked down” in the details. They don’t have the ability to zoom out and look at the big picture. On the other hand, someone who is always in the big picture never has the discipline to complete the details necessary to fulfill their big picture dreams!
Bottom line?
Recording every creative session is vital to the creative process. It frees up your resources so you can focus on discovering creative new ideas.