Record away!

Rockers!

Wow, I hope everyone's been enjoying the approaching autumn season! At the risk of sounding severely un-rock 'n roll, days like this make me wish I were a butterfly.

Wait wait, I can explain! Really!
I was out on my morning exercise, and it's literally a walk in the park. I passed a Monarch butterfly feeding at a fall flower. That buddy goes all the way to Mexico! On his little spangled butterfly wings! He doesn't have to worry about marketing and border crossings and all the madness that is life. He just flies on the wind.

Then I came back to my old self, Rammstein songs filled my head, and I kept on plotting to take over the world.

Here's one thing that's been helping me in my journey so far - recording ideas. Yep, yep, I've mentioned recording many times before, but the technology has changed significantly since I got up on the recording soapbox! (I actually own a separate voice recorder. My iPhone makes it obsolete, but I have it anyway.)

If you have a cell phone, especially a smartphone such as the reigning iPhone or any of it's lesser rivals (passive-aggressive punch at my Android-owning brothers here), you've most likely got the capibility to record sounds. Speaking as the top dog, an iPhone owner (smirk!), I can use the stock voice recorder, or many apps available. I use FourTrack. It was ten bucks, but you can record four tracks (unfortunately, not all at once - it's not multi-tracking.) The app lets me mix them together, and send it to my computer. It rocks!

The point is - recording is extraordinarily helpful to musical progress. Be it perfecting shredding, or capturing the latest idea for a folk song, it's there, and it will help you. I like to use it for a.) listening to the track fully (I can't when I'm playing), b.) capturing ideas, and c.) charting progress. It's cool to look back a few months and say "wow!"

Since you probably have a recorder on that phone, use it! How much easier does it get? (I'm yelling here.)

I was just telling a client today how helpful it is for soloing. So - Arnold Schwarzenegger voice - Don't be a girly man! Get da recorder app! Yah yah! Use it! Yah yah!

Rock on!

- Josh