Getting it together....ha! Part 1 in a series

Funny....now that I finally have the energy to post again, I had to run away and join the opera (orchestra). We're playing Madama Butterfly this weekend and it should be great. How's that there is all these fantastic singers around this area lately? And I get to sit in first stand....yay me.
Meanwhile my youngest son is still like glue and now that he's two, he exercising his right to throw a temper tantrum every day. (Actually make that six.)

But onto other things.....

My plan for the summer of 2007 is thus: to become a better player though observing my playing objectively. And how to do that? Ha ha... through tape recording *every* single week for the months of July and August. Yes I like to suffer. But I would like to improve a certain facet of my playing. Namely rhythm. Namely dotted rhythms of all types.

Note to reader: If more than three people say the same criticism of your playing (whether it's intonation or rhythm or something else) , then maybe it's really time to focus on that aspect and just fix it without getting emotional about it. As I say "honour your strengths but work on your weaknesses."

So I have a mini disc recorder from 2000. However it really annoys me since it's almost impossible to get the discs for a good price. And I would like to record a lot. So I was planning to buy this.

Quite expensive. But I was planning to get it in a few weeks.

Then last week via the Music Teacher's Helper blog I was able to get a freeware version of Audacity. And it's fun. Just stick the mike into to the computer and record away. The best part is if you don't like what you record (for me about 75%) you don't have to save the file. No more deleting files on mini discs which I hate to do even if they're terrible. This technology thing is fun. (Probably everyone in the inter web world uses this program already. However I'm a little slow....just figured out how to subscribe to RSS feeds only two weeks ago and don't know how to IM though I would like to try.....hint hint.)

Time to practice. Many new things to practice (but more on that later).

Have a great day!