How come there is never anyone who makes a mistake in a video? I may have played a tune thousands of time, like the Kesh jig for example, but when I'm in front of a camera or a computer mic I can't play it anymore, and mess up the whole thing, no matter how many times I do it. But it seems like everyone else can just play the thing spotlessly from the start? I can't even try to learn a new tune in just a week, when I can't even play the old repertoire without mistakes. How do you people do it? I mean, in audio files you can always cut and paste away your mistakes but it's not as obvious in a video... is it just that people know all the tunes since ages ago?
I can't play without mistake even when the camera isn't rolling. But to get even the medicore versions I'm willing to post here I do several takes with the camera on. And "several" generally means 8, 10, 12 or more at one sitting. Interestingly, the next-to-last one is most often the best. Once I get one "close enough" to post if I keep trying for a better one I lose concentration and start making more mistakes. I don't think I've ever posted a tune here that was the very first time I had hit the RECORD button. About the third try is the minimum.
I need to do many takes sometimes - but I do not aim for the mistakes to disappear (trying the impossible leads to frustration), I just wait until they sound like licks/variations/features. The bad lies in the listener's ear only (honi soit qui mal y pense). Then I found that the difference between camera on and camera off is an artifact of my own imagination - suddenly I want to pretend to be perfect. But I haven't practised pretending, I have practised the real thing. Therefore, just being myself would be the easiest guard against cam fright, BUT... Like many people, I tend to let myself sleep deep inside and let my brain take control instead (which is a silly thing, because I can't survive without myself); good news is, being myself can be practised, I can try it at every moment of the day. You might say that's crazy talk, but you might want to check with yourself first... Proof: Listen to my last post on Harvest Home - it's full of mistakes, but hey, they are my mistakes, mine only, and nobody can take them from me, and I had real fun in the only take I needed. Make peace with your mistakes, invite them for coffee and start a band together.
I think the reason you're not hearing mistakes, at least in my takes (if that's even possible), is that listeners are a lot more generous to our own recordings than we are. Often, like Bertram says, I record a version and am frustrated by parts that aren't sounding like I imagined. Sometimes the next day though, I'm removed enough from the recording process to hear it in a new light and the mistakes really don't sound that bad. Sometimes, I have two takes to decide between, one that is more perfect in technique, and one with a few mistakes that shows a few really bright spots of personality. I usually pick the latter because it's more fun to listen to. Believe it or not, even Micheal P actually sent me a recording once and asked me to please ignore the flubs. Needless to say, I didn't hear any, and even went back for the express purpose of searching them out. It just goes to show, you'll never get past making mistakes, so the best plan is finding a way to live with them. Glad you're back, and I hope the inevitable mistakes don't keep you from posting.
Marcelyn's mention of letting some time go by is a very important point. It is possible to paint your own perception into a corner until you hate everything you play. That's a good moment for dropping everything, taking a walk, sleeping a night. Everything might sound different the next day. Caveat: this can work out the other way round - I have posted videos in a tune-drunk elated state of mind, then was dismayed how bad they were the next day. One or two I have secretly re-recorded and exchanged on YouTube and in the SAW links.
I can't think of a single video I've posted that didn't have a clam hiding somewhere. As others have said, most people listen more critically to their own creations and also know where the clams are buried.
I can only think of one or two occasions when I've gotten a tune in the first take - usually it takes me MANY takes (I seem to remember 28 takes for one tune awhile back!!) Then there was the time I was flying through a tune, about two measures from the end of an error free take, and my wee pup Wilson decided to start swatting at my hand (because it was moving and he's a terrier mix and terriers find movement extremely stimulating....) so of course everything fell apart and I burst out laughing. Should've kept that take actually....
I love terriers but tell wee Wison if he wants to be in the band he'd better learn to sing...or at least play bass!
I seem to remember me posting a video somewhere along the way, with my cat, Snowball, headbutting me during the tune! I've yet to record anything 'error-free'.... but that doesn't stop me! I've gotten to where, when I'm videoing a tune (not something that I've created already in GarageBand)... that I just have my webcam rolling, and eventually, end up with something usable. The video I posted this morning... Black Mountain Aire... I see I had the camera rolling for 25 minutes before I got a usable take!
That's my method too. And to save money, I quit using batteries in the camera an dopted for the plug instead. Basically, I play until I make it all the way through fairly well, hit stop--then hit record again. This way when I load the footage onto the computer, I can find the complete versions easily right at the end of each take.
I do almost all my videoing with the built in camera on my Mac. Its way easy to just open iMovie, and start going. I like starting and stopping it with the mouse... my life is mostly in front of this computer, so it's all pretty easy! Then, when I'm done, find the best (usually the last... once I think it's good, I usually don't keep going!).. and just delete the rest. Since its a webcamera, there's no downloading it to the computer like when I video with my camera. This webcam has it's disadvantages, for sure... there's no zoom adjustment, so I have to place myself where it looks best. But, ease factor wins hands down!
Unlike some people, when I play placing the webcam where it looks best means pointing it at the ceiling or floor! But seriously the big disadvantage of all these cameras whether built-in or a separate webcam is that getting a decent picture and getting the best sound capture require totally different positions.
20 something takes is all that it takes for me.
I let the camera run (which is in fact an i phone) and play. I never made it under say ten attempts but I stopped going angry about mistakes and learned to see it as pactice time. Today I posted the Kesh Jig on my new (for me) Plectrum Banjo I tried it 15-20 times because I couldn't reach the high "B" note correct, that was short before going angry. And as you can hear I didn't manage but posted it. Bernd
I usually do that too, and then cut off all the bad parts...
Camera fright has been with me from my first recording. So how do I do it? Let's use this week's Kesh Jig as an example. - I sight read it from the Fiddler's Fake Book and play it through slowly. - I switch on my metronome and play it at slow speed, practicing some harder parts separately - I crank up the metronome in 3 to 5 click increments until I get to MY speed. - I start recording - Even if I have played a piece through faultlessly several times without camera ............ you guessed it .. - I need at least 20 takes - Sometimes when I get frustrated I put down the mandolin and try again after a while or the next day. And then I have often succeeded in recording with the very first take.
I can sometimes get really difficult tunes in 1 take - and sometimes simple tunes take for ever! My guess is that, with simple tunes, even the smallest slip might stand out, and difficult tunes might disguise them. I don't get 'red light' nerves these days, any more than I get nerves while performing in public, because I've been doing it a long time. On the other hand, a lot of of my stuff has improvisation within it - and my stance on that is: I accept what occurs spontaneously, because that is what a live audience would get. So, most times it's a risk. And a lot of my videos are done in that spirit. If you want to see an extreme example of this, here's a spontaneous recording of the Holy Modal Rounders version of "The Year Of Jubilo" - chock full of mandolins and erratic playing - right in the anarchic spirit of the Rounders. I couldn't have created this a second time... just went at it hell for leather - and the devil took the hindmost!
Some excellent answers here, Susi, and I hope you will realise that we ALL fall to pieces whenever the red light comes on, no matter how well we know the tune already. With the SAW group I have often found a tune that is new to me and I get the music, run through it a few times then try to record it while looking at the music (one of the reasons for leaving my head out of the camera shot!). This causes problems as I do not know the tune well enough and suddenly there is that moment when I forget just where it goes next and there is the stumble! I never really know a tune till I can play it without the music. When I did the California/Harvest Home medley I posted earlier today I knew the tunes well before, so did manage to get them recorded via my laptop and Reaper with no music, turned this into an mp3 which I then put on my wee player and played along to this while filming myself. This only took two takes - far fewer than usual, and the syncing was quite easy as all I had to do was line up the tune file with the music from the video take on my video-editing software, then delete the video's sound track in favour of the better mp3. So, it is all down to cheating, really - we film till we are happy with the end product then release this on an unsuspecting world.
That's so awesome, Will. I'm adding it to my MP3 player. I think the take away is that no matter how far we come, we'll still make mistakes. But on the bright side, as we get better and better, even those mistakes will sound better and better.
Well, Marcelyn, it's a pretty rough take! But I'm honoured!
Yo Susi...that's so flattering to everybody that posts on here to say that nobody ever makes a mistake. What a nice compliment to everybodies playing...including yours! I have always admired your videos....like your recent St. Anne's Reel. I watched mine after yours and was thinking how much better yours sounded. Don't be so hard on yourself, though we are always our worst critic. I tend to never post a tune these days on this group the week that it comes out and typically do it WAAAAY later than when it was first posted. For my latest posts (St. Anne's Reel and Charleston #1) I've played those tunes over and over and over and over constantly trying to work on the parts slowly that I have problems with. Unlike others on the group (whom I admire greatly) I just can't take the time to take a bunch of takes 'til I get it right being a stay-at-home dad and all. My last video session I just was playing for awhile and really warmed up and turned the camera on. I was going to try and record Clinch Mountain Backstep and post that but the 2 vids I took of that pretty much sucked...still haven't gotten much better at that tune to where I feel comfortable posting it yet. But, I did randomly video a bunch of other tunes that I felt overall comfortable with and luckily got a couple of decent videos (to me at least...and ALL of them with flubs). Doing it this way I felt a lot less pressure and was just having fun playing tunes that I was familiar enough with to maybe pull off a decent video without doing a bunch of takes. If you watch my Charleston #1 you'll notice the obvious mistake of me missing sliding up to the high C and on St. Anne's Reel when I watched it again after posting it seemed a little hurried between the ending of the B part back to the A and there were obvious clams in there. The main thing that's great about this group is that even though it's really easy to feel pressure and get nervous when recording a video and make mistakes (it's obvously a very common thing amongt most of us here) it's a very low pressure environment and anybody and everybody that contributes a video frequently or infrequently (like myself) is bound to become a better player because of it. This group has been one of the single most important things that has actually caused me to want to improve as a mandolinist. There's just SO MUCH talent here and it really is humbling and inspiring at the same time. Anyways...I would say more but I gotta clean the house, take a shower, blah, blah, blah...I don't know if any of this helps or not but...just have fun with it!
I make mistakes all the time. The important thing is to keep going without missing a beat - then the mistakes become ornamentation/adaptation/harmony...
Wow Rob, I could never imagine that anyone was admiring my videos!! Now that's a compliment that will keep me going for a long long time!! I'm like you, I think a week is too short to learn a tune, and do the tune-of-the-week way after it was the tune of the week.. now I've been away for a long time but this group has always been as you say, humbing and inspiring at the same time... sometimes I've felt very intimidated by some but it has ALWAYS been a very friendly and encouraging group and the feelings of intimidation have probably just come from my own imagination. You are very right that I should realize that everyone makes a lot of mistakes and do a lot of takes before the actual recording. Just that I don't notice other people's mistakes... maybe it's true that you only notice your own. Now I have a very busy day ahead of me - will be back later this week.
My piano teacher, long ago in another life it would seem, said to me, "Play through the mistake as if it never happened. those who are not familiar with the tune or aren't listening carefully will never notice. That's most of the audience. As for the rest most will think it was deliberate ornamentation. The very few who know that you messed up don't matter.
And the ones good enough to really tell what happened will recognize that you at least avoided the newbie mistake of stopping every time you messed up! My guitar-teacher buddy said no matter how many years he teaches, he still hates the sound of that speed bump us beginners make that screams "OOPS I JUST FLUBBED THAT NOTE".
Susi, music is not about making mistakes or not making mistakes, music is about communicating the feeling of the music and your videos always have the right "feel" for the music. No one pays any attention to mistakes when you get the feel right. I myself make lots and lots of mistakes and it sometimes takes me as many 40-50 takes to get it to a passable level. Still I'm never quite satisfied with the end result but other people seem to like it, so it's better I defer to them. We all are our worst critics but no one here is noticing mistakes.
I once asked my jazz guitar teacher how come he never made mistakes and he just smiled and said, 'I make mistakes all the time, you just don't notice them!" He then proceeded to show me that every wrong note was just half a step away from a "good" one -- that is, a note that is part of the scale you're working from. So slide or hammer or pull into a good note. I asked him what should I do if I hit a really bad note, you know a real stinker, and he said never stop playing or break time because that's a dead give-away you made a mistake. AND to repeat the same mistake again right away! You'd be surprised how often the mistake turns out to sound correct the second time. He even went so far as to show me how to 'recover' from bad notes by actually hitting them on purpose and then 'fixing' them using a slide, or a hammer or a pull. If you practice these techniques they will become second nature!
I like Bertram's advice to make friends with your mistakes and invite them for coffee ... and Eddie's technique of allowing those mistakes to become an ornamentation. Actually, I'm rereading this thread and taking everyone's comments to heart. There's a lot of heart here. Since my life is one of being over-booked, I stopped participating for a while ... because I didn't have the time to make a recording more than a couple of times. The little time I do have for music goes into practicing. So, I've just started playing a few times, then I hit "record". I'm happy just to see my recordings as a chronicle of how I'm progressing. Everyone here is so encouraging and so non judgmental, I feel comfortable enough playing, mistakes and all. That's a real testament to the quality and inspiration of this group. Thanks for welcoming me so kindly.
You know, I'm hoping that in addition to our members who actually post videos, we have many more members, who utilize all the wonderful information about these tunes, and learn the tunes, or just learn more about playing their instrument!
I haven't made the slightest mistake for about a month or two now.....because I haven't posted anything. As a relative beginner I often leave ornamentation out. If there are chords, I'll only play one or two notes (or flub them). And if you need some examples of mistakes, I haven't posted one yet that's perfect. Early on, I'd just do a song every other week and not worry about posting late (or I'd watch for clear leaders in the polls and start studying early). Being able to read music helps a lot for being able to play through tunes without spending too much time on them (I haven't actually memorized a single tune yet - though probably to my detriment). You can also find an old tune that you like and work it for weeks until it's perfect and then post it, but my preference is to get something that meets a personal goal for the week (faster, uses grace notes, clean picking, has a rhythm track, etc.) and then post it and move on. It's less frustrating that way.
Referencing mistakes, Bertram said it best "...I just wait until they sound like licks/variations/features...", OK, Eddie said it, too, and it shows a great attitude. I recently joined this group after months of lurking, and haven't posted yet because the thought of so many takes is exhausting. Now that I know it is common, and not just me, I'll be posting soon and bravely state my number of takes! You are a great group of folks.
Kay, the more videos you make, the easier it gets. I think that the videoing part is less stressful, if your set-up is such that you can just turn on the camera, and play the tune repeatedly.... like when you are practicing. That's the way my set-up is. I can see that if you are alone, and having to play and operate a camera on a tripod, and to keep the file from being too big, you have to get up in between every few times, and stop and restart, then get settled back to where you are sitting to record... that sounds so daunting that even though I have a good camera, a tripod, a better background than you get to see when I video from my computer, and the overall quality of the video would probably be much better.... I still opt for the ease of doing in all sitting here in front of my computer, with the mouse to click within easy reach! Plus, when I sit in front of my computer, and have the video camera going, it's like playing in front of a mirror. You can keep an eye on what your playing looks like from a different perspective.
Personally, I stopped thinking of it as a certain number of takes a long time ago. I need direction to focus my practice time, and a new song a week does just that. Some weeks I'm working on tremolo, some on triplets, and some on chording, etc. If the camera's rolling during my forty-five minutes of practice a night, so be it, If there's nothing keepable, it was still forty-five minutes of practice, and if I get a good enough take, that's gravy.
"I haven't made the slightest mistake for about a month or two now.....because I haven't posted anything." ... that's my kind of attitude, TenorFifths! I can't learn tunes fast enough to record them, yet ... unless they're super easy, but I like Marcelyn's style of making the recording part of the practice session. It's really what I'm doing here ... practicing and getting inspiration from others. The recording isn't stressful for me, Barb, it's getting the blasted video turned in the proper direction and into You Tube. I have to record it in PhotoBooth (only program my camera likes), suck it into iMovie (rocket science to me), flip it and then blast it out into the interwebs on YouTube. After all of that, I'm pooped!
Loretta, are you working on a Mac? Does it have a built in camera? I'm relatively new to Mac's, I've had mine almost a year and a half. It's got a built in camera. If I record in Photobooth, it's mirror image, but if I start in iMovie, then click the little video camera icon toward the lower left side of the window, it opens up the video camera, in the right orientation. I then record from there, so there's no importing it into iMovie... it's already there!
Yes, Barb, I'm on a Mac, a newer one, but it's a mini ... so doesn't have a built in camera. I use an HP webcam that iMovie simply won't recognize, so I have to record in Photobooth. I think that I need to get some iMovie help and it won't be such a struggle for me in the future.
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