One of the best things a musician can do is to record their practises, rehearsals and performances and learn from them. In performing music it can be very hard to objectively evaluate what works and what doesn’t but being able to listen back both to the details and to how it sits in the overall performance may at times be sobering but is always educational. I started doing this the best part of fifteen years ago using a minidisc recorder. Before too long, I upgraded to a Zoom H2 field recorder, which offered a combination of massive potential recording time and fast transfer speeds onto the computer, and that served me well for a decade or so. However, a couple of years ago it became obvious that it was getting worn out and so I’ve done without for a while but decided it was time to get back in the game and I decided to get one of these:

That is the Zoom H1; basic but inexpensive, lightweight and with all the functions I need. So far I’ve recorded a rehearsal with The String Project (I’m pleased with the bass playing there; just a few details to polish from the songs we did on Tuesday) and also the music from this morning’s church service. The bass playing was alright for that one but the singing could do with some work; it isn’t very helpful to start a song an octave too high!

Don’t expect releases of these things – they are for my own development – but they should feed into learning and improving, which is an ongoing process.