Teaching Studio = Recording Studio?
A few years ago, back when I used to travel to my students’ homes to teach lessons, I tried an experiment. I thought it might be fun to be able to hear themselves playing or singing a piece they had mastered, so I brought alone my laptop computer and a USB microphone.
The results were mixed; while most students LOVED the idea of recording themselves, not all of them enjoyed actually hearing themselves. But what I discovered was that no matter how much they enjoyed or disliked it, having my students listen to their performances was an excellent teaching tool.
When students listen to a recording of themselves, they hear all the things that go unnoticed while they are singing or playing. Of course, I’ve probably mentioned all of those things to them during practice, but sometimes they need to hear it with their own ears before making the extra effort to correct small mistakes.
Now that I have my own studio, my recording equipment has improved and I have more options for capturing my students’ performances. I stick with mainly audio recording for my voice students, unless they are preparing for an audition and we need to work specifically on stage presence. For piano and guitar students, I like to use video recording in order to capture posture, finger positioning, and other visual aspects.
Here are the pieces of equipment I use for recording:
- Blue USB Snowball Microphone
- Macbook Pro (utilizing GarageBand and iMovie)
- iPhone 4 (for capturing HD video)
- Basic camera tripod for mounting iPhone 4
- Glif (tripod adapter for iPhone 4)
In addition to being a fantastic teaching tool, recordings are also nice ways of documenting student progress. I know that my students enjoy listening and seeing how they have improved over time, and parents love receiving the recordings — especially those parents whose students are too shy to sing and perform for them at home.
If you don’t have much experience with recording, the learning process can be a bit tedious at first. Start with the basics, as I did, and you will most likely achieve the same positive results in your studio.
