Why Recording Yourself While Practicing Is an Awesome Progress Hack
Did you know that recording yourself while practicing is a cheat code for improving your saxophone playing in the least amount of time? Here is why this works. Every time we play the saxophone, we only hear a filtered mix of vibration, bone conduction, and what we internally perceive our sound to be. Beginning saxophonists tend to overestimate their progress, and pros tend to underestimate consistency. Recording our practice (and performances) closes this feedback gap, and it forces us to face the reality of our playing. If you are not recording, you are guessing!
Time alone spent on the horn does not always equal improvement. If we are not recording ourselves, any bad habits, such as fuzzy articulation, unstable time, uneven tone, and sloppy releases, will remain unfixed. If your practice doesn’t produce evidence, it’s not progress; it’s a futile exercise.
Recording does three things that nothing else can:
Externalize your playing: you stop “feeling” and start hearing.
Creates objective comparison - Today vs last week vs last month
Forces intentional listening - listening is the practice
There are three things you actually hear when you listen back. First is tone, specifically consistency across registers and sound concept vs reality. Second is time and feel. Are entrances rushed? How are long notes? Are subdivisions or swing time consistent? Third is articulation and clarity. How do tongue heaviness, smeared notes, and sloppy releases really sound?
Record without overthinking it; this does not have to turn into a gear rabbit hole. Your phone is enough. Record everything, scales, etudes, excerpts, full tunes. You can even record your concerts; think of all the professional athletes who review post-game film to improve their strategy. When listening back, be specific about what to scrutinize: tone, time, or articulation. Write down any fixes that can be worked on. Re-record to compare and confirm the change worked.
Challenge: record one full take of something, write down one thing to fix, and apply it tomorrow!