Afinar

Practice guide · Listening back

Why recording yourself
belongs in your practice.

You’ve just played a song you love. How did it go? Record a take, listen back, and give yourself a chance to hear it.

Some days, you finish a song and think, “That felt pretty good.” Other days, all you remember is the change you stumbled over. Listening back gives you a chance to find out what actually happened. You might hear something to work on. You might also hear something you really like.

And you don’t have to wait until you can play the whole song perfectly. A verse, a phrase, or a few bars is plenty to start with.

Play first. Listen afterwards.

When you’re playing, you’ve got your hands full. You’re finding the notes, following the score, and trying to stay with the music. It’s a lot to keep track of.

So press Record and let yourself play. You can come back to the details afterwards, when listening is the only thing you need to do.

What should you listen for?

“Was that any good?” is a hard question to do much with. Try something smaller. Did you rush that entrance? Did the phrase flow? And remember to notice the bits that went well.

  • Timing: Are your notes landing with the beat? Listen for places where you rush or fall behind.
  • Clarity: Can you hear every note in the phrase, or do some get missed, cut short, or blur together?
  • Dynamics: Compare the same passage with the recording. Are you getting louder or softer where you intend to?
  • Note lengths: Are you holding notes long enough and leaving the rests? Listen to where each note ends, too.

If you’ve recorded video, you can look at things your teacher has pointed out, like your posture or a hand movement. Or look away from the screen and just listen. You don’t need to check everything at once.

Try it in your next session

Try this with a song you’re playing.

  1. Record a short take. Choose a few bars or a verse and play along with the music.
  2. Listen back. Find something you like, then pick one thing you’d like to do differently.
  3. Work on that detail. Try it slower, or go over the change a few times.
  4. Record another take and compare. Can you hear a difference? What would you try next?

That’s enough. You don’t have to fix the whole song today.

Keep a few takes. You’ll be glad you did.

Before you move on to another song, save a take. Come back to it a few weeks later and listen again. Is that awkward change easier now? Does the groove feel steadier? It gives you something real to compare. And keep the takes you love, even if they aren’t perfect.

Takes are useful in lessons, too. You can play a short example for your teacher and ask, “Why does this bit feel rushed?” It’s much easier than trying to describe what happened at home.

There’s a teaching idea behind this.

Teachers use this approach, too. In Berklee’s self-assessment lesson featuring professor Leo Blanco, students record themselves, listen for things to work on, and talk through the next steps with their teacher.

Researchers have looked at listening back, too. A study of 112 young instrumentalists by Silveira and Gavin found that listening back changed how students rated parts of their playing. That tells us a second listen can change what you notice. It doesn’t, by itself, prove that recording makes you a better player.

Make it easy to press Record.

Start with your phone.

Your phone is a perfectly reasonable place to start. Put it somewhere it can pick up your playing and give it a go. The sound doesn’t have to be perfect for a take to be useful. If you’re playing along with speakers, though, the phone picks up your instrument, the music, and the room together. You can’t turn just your instrument up afterwards.

Want more control over the sound?

A common next step is a laptop, an audio interface, and a recording app such as GarageBand, often called a DAW. Plug in your instrument or microphone, choose your input, check the levels, and set up your effects. Import the song onto its own track, put it at the right starting point, then record your part on another track. Afterwards, balance the two, save the project, and export a file to share.

If the music is playing in a browser instead of an audio file, you may also need an audio-routing tool to get it into your recording app. And your PDF, tabs, or lesson will usually be in another window. You can get great sound this way. There are just a few more things to get ready before you play.

Want video too? If you film yourself separately, you’ll need to bring that clip and your finished audio into a video editor, line them up, then export the result. It’s all doable, but a quick practice take can start to feel like a production project.

Berklee’s GarageBand walkthrough shows the steps for setting up, importing music, recording, and exporting audio.

Or keep it together in Afinar.

With Afinar, your music, score, sound, and recorder are already in the same Mac app. Choose your input and tone, bring in your music, then press Record and play. Afterwards, turn your instrument up against the song to hear it more clearly. The take stays with the music, so it’s easy to find next time.

You still need a way to capture your instrument: an audio interface for a direct electric instrument signal, or a microphone for an acoustic instrument or your voice. Your Mac’s microphone works, too. Afinar brings the rest of the workflow together. Record audio or video takes, so you can capture yourself playing without putting a separate video project together.

You’re already playing. Keeping a take should be the easy part.

Explore recording in Afinar →Listening controls and setup →