Learning Tech

My students and I are having fun with Soundforge’s free sound recording and editing program, Audacity to record, overdub and ultimatly upload onto SoundCloud or share with their friends using Skype’s “send file” function.

Among the many benifits of recording oneself and perhaps the reason why these sessions with my students completely flew by this week:

1. The realization that capturing your work and saving the result as a file (and especially seeing it in a folder entitled something like “Aaron’s Beastly Guitar Awesomeness”) and being able to play yourself back on itunes, reinforces a sense of ownership and pride in the time spent practicing
2. Recording a solo you’ve memorized over the accompaniment riff you just recorded on track 1 requires mastery of both sections of that particular song and also attentive listening
3. The focus of playing to a click track is unrivaled

Some of my students are now realizing a new found control over computer settings they had no prior experience with (input and microphone level settings on their soundcard for example).  A few are now finding creative solutions to overcome a delay or “lag” in their processor speed, and all enjoy the ability to send files and links over Skype.

I feel a fresh urgency with my students to fine-tune or perfect all those stray ends that get lost in the back of the riff-book.  Forty five minutes later, we’re on our ninth take of this Metallica solo and haven’t thought of doing something else.  Now that’s practice.