Wingin' it by Ear

[Kevin]

james, I used to put in 6+ hrs/wk during my first 2-1/2 years of learning. This last April is my 4th year milestone, and with the busy-ness of life/career I now only manage to put in 3-4 45min practices/wk. I used to put much more effort into learning a song and making a recording as error free as I could (or as my skill level could muster), but for now I’m not able to put forth that effort.
This exercise sort of unfolded to be a “timed event” challenge for me as well as being a “play it by ear” exercise(no score to follow or memorize from). The song was simple in how it was structured chord-wise and verse-wise, and it was familiar to me from hearing it when I was young. It took me 3 of my practice sessions to put it together-
Session-1
Get the instruments, recording gear setup and ready to go. (5min)
Determine the key for the song and for the Bass guitar. (3min)
Select drum track and record to Track-1 (12min)
Record Bass part to Track-2 (15min, deemed 3rd take usable)
Played melody line along to the recording to get the notes “under my fingers” (10min)

Session-2
Attempted Alto melody recording to Track-3 (15-20min)
Session was a bust- Cold/Rainy day, no inspiration, tone sucked…
Switched MP’s/Reeds with no satisfaction (10min)
Practiced Overtones, called it a day… (10min)

Session-3
Recorded Alto melody Track-3 after an inspiring warm-up (20min, deemed 3rd take usable)
Noodled around with a Track-4 Alto harmony (15min, deemed 3rd take usable)
Listened to the result and adjusted volume levels to liking. (10min)
Mixed down final take to Laptop and uploaded to SoundCload. (30min)

[Anonymous]

@Kevin – lots of interesting info, thanks for sharing.
In my case 20 mins to unpack everything and set it up in another room – set up mic stand, set up music sheet stand, connect 1st mic to mic stand, connect 2nd mic to music stand, open laptop, connect audio interface to laptop, connect headphones to audio interface, connect 2 mic’s to audio interface,plug in audio interface, plug in laptop, switch on audio interface, switch on laptop, start up audio interface program, startup logic pro x software. Spend 1 hr warming up – mouthpiece exercises, mouthpiece + neck timing exercises, tone exercises checking pitch of each key, 12 different chromatic exercises from low Bb to altissimo D#, play all 7 overtones on 5 low keys, play 7 major scales (2 to 3 octaves) + arpeggios. start practicing piece to record.

Another 20/15 mins – set up 1st trk as mic 1, set up 2nd trk as mic 2, do sound checks on both mic’s with voice/sax and ajust audio interface knobs & mic positions. load backing track onto trk 3 – finaly ready to record.

then spend another 30 mins dismantelling everything and putting it all away in another room.

So yeah – i can appreciate the effort put into recording, even worse in my case, when you have to put it all away.

[Author]

Posts