iServalan Music School

The Power of Recording Yourself

A short, high-impact practice habit for string players and pianists that accelerates progress, sharpens timing, and cleans up intonation.

Today’s focus: simple phone recordings ➜ rapid feedback ➜ smarter practice.

Listening Back Reveals What Playing Hides

Fresh ears for intonation: You’ll immediately hear notes that are consistently sharp/flat (especially at string crossings).
Timing awareness: Spot rushing/dragging once you’re not busy playing.
Technique check: Weak fingers on piano, heavy thumbs, lazy bow arm, tip-of-bow drop-off — they all show up on playback.
Faster progress: Build a fix-list every session; you’ll improve in a fraction of the time.

Tip: Phone audio is compressed (lower ambience/reverb), but that’s perfect for hearing pitch, balance, and articulation clearly.

Open strings first: If they’re out, everything else will be out.
Bow contact: Keep the hair perpendicular; listen for scratch vs. core tone.
Weight map: Are you too heavy at the frog? Too light at the tip?
Gear matters: Old bow hair or harsh strings = harsh playback. Try the same tune on one string, then another, and compare.

Finger equality: Which finger is always soft (pinky) or heavy (thumb)?
Directional accuracy: Missed notes often come from approach angle and excess force.
Acoustic vs digital: Acoustic pianos must be tuned regularly; digital is set-and-forget.

Record one verse of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” (Suzuki Book 1). Then write:

1 win (what sounded good)
1 fix (what needs work)
1 plan (your next step: e.g., slow string crossing, open-string tuning, bow-weight drill)

Tomorrow: Piano & Cello — whole-bow control, relaxed tone, and clean phrase endings using Twinkle as our canvas.

Members get structured lesson plans, bonus practice trackers, and access to iServalan’s full music school archive.