Are You Listening to Yourself?

Listening to the sounds in our heads, taking action to coax them from an instrument, and then listening to them as they emerge—that’s pretty much what playing music is about. Unfortunately, listening to yourself as you play is a skill that you may give insufficient attention to when you’re learning something new. If you neglect that skill though, your playing is likely to suffer from incorrectness and lack of expression.

How do you improve that skill?

The more you grow as a guitarist, the more adept you’ll become at hearing and tweaking what you’re “saying” on your instrument. The listening process is really the same as the one we employ in everyday speech, but it may initially require more awareness. After all, you learned to talk when you were really young and you’ve practiced it a lot!

You can improve your skills over time simply by giving your attention to listening to yourself during practice. But there are steps you can take to not only speed up the process, but also become more specific and accurate in what you perceive.

Record Yourself!

One of the best ways you can hone your ability to hear, assess, and instantly respond to your playing is to record yourself. When you’re able to direct your focus to listening and can stop thinking about where, when, and how to place your fingers, you’re free to hear more of what’s going on. A fuzzy note, a slightly out of tune string, or an occasional variation in the rhythm will become more evident—and once you’ve heard an issue a time or two on a recording, you’re more likely to detect the same issue in real time.

How much trouble is it?

Don’t let it be a lot of trouble to record yourself, or you’ll raise the risk of avoiding it completely. It’s not necessary, or even desirable, to produce a high-quality sound recording for practice purposes. Your practice  recordings are only for your ears. Try to remember that the recording you produce is not supposed to be great, it’s supposed to be informative. Any device that reproduces pitch clearly, holds time accurately and is simple to use will enable you to hear and critique your playing.

Is it chronically disturbing?

No. But it is initially disturbing. You’ll discover that you stop or hesitate more than you realized. Your voice may break, or your strings might screech. And, after a few listens, you may decide to unearth that metronome you’ve long had stored away. But listening to a recording of yourself is a game changer.

You probably wouldn’t leave the house without checking a mirror to catch any grooming mishaps, and it makes sense to regularly check your sound, as well. When you do, you’ll find that your recordings, like your mirror, increasingly reflect the person you want to present to the world!