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Now please take this comment as part of my own experience and not a flame, as I've been there too:
If it really takes us so many "takes" to record the lesson, maybe we should actually turn the camera off and practice it a few days more, until we master it and try to record it again. It will take just a few takes then. Doing that makes it much easier to record!
Or maybe we should choose an easier level lesson for REC purposes. So many takes only goes to show that we might not be ready to try that one yet.
Again, this is my humble opinion only smile.gif
Point taken, Fran. However, I'm of the school of thought that we should record everything. That is the only way to get comfortable with recording. Only speaking for myself. I can play the lesson, right up until I record it. Then I make a series of minor mistakes in it that take my focus away from playing and then the entire thing unravels.
Now, with regards to REC. If a student wants feedback on a lesson, I don't really think that the REC program is necessarily the place for it. Recording the lesson and asking an instructor, via his board or whatever, is generally more helpful during the learning phases of the lesson.
The REC submission should be for the point when a student says, "There!" We should not be humiliated or have such a fragile ego that we can't take the opinions of those we're asking. If you've ever been adjudicated, you work for sometimes months on a piece. Then you play it once. Then you get some combination of praise and nitpicking that can wound the odd person. Mostly, in my experience, people are wounded by comments that reflect things they already knew and chose to ignore. It's more due to embarrassment than anything else.
While playing other instruments, I had adjudicators that made me want to crawl under my chair and hide. I've also had adjudicators that blew smoke at me. I didn't care for either. However...you get what you get.
At GMC, the instructors are in a difficult conflict sometimes. They want to give feedback. They want to be critical. They want to be encouraging. They want to be helpful. They want to be instructive. They don't want to offend or wound. They don't want to mess with Kris' business. They are generally writing something to you that we can't see their facial expressions or vocal tones. So, we can take harmless comments and blow them out of proportion, or get offended by a grade that says, "This just isn't good enough." The nice thing about feedback is that we find out what we can work on to fix it. I think they are generally walking a line, with critique, that can't be walked. That's the line of finding
something,
anything to commend about a take. I've submitted takes like that. I'm no SRV.
Frankly, I think the REC grading has been too easy. I think that there have been instances where the instructors go out of their way to try and commend a player on some element of the take, even when it's not up to a passing standard as represented by the original lesson. It's not like we just get a music score, interpret it, record it and submit it. We get an actual version with audio, video, fingering, slow versions, multiple backing track tempos, Guitar Pro files, tabs...You get the recipe and the a version of the final product with each and every step dissected along the way. Then we are graded against our ability to reproduce that lesson. It's fairly specific set of criteria, really.
For me, after 10 submissions to the REC program, I'm consistently reminded of things that are deficient in my playing. There are some instances where, after I see some comments, I shake my head as to why I didn't see/hear that. Or I have also lamented on some comments that were made about stuff that I knew I did wrong, yet submitted it anyway. This goes back to Fran's comments on spending a few more days with the lesson vs. rushing it to the REC. I used to think that the REC program was my way of working on a lesson, recording it, submitting it and getting clear of it. I no longer feel that way, because honestly, by this point, those same things that I should be working on are going to be glaringly obvious if I don't correct them soon. If I'm not going to work to correct them, then why am I submitting to REC. I can just continue to jam into my headset the way I have been doing...ultimately getting nowhere.
I'm rambling now, but the program needs to have meaning. Therefore, somewhere, sometime, someone is going to have to fail a lesson. If the REC program become like getting a Karate belt, then there isn't any reason for the program to exist. (No offense to anyone who has recently gotten a Karate belt.)
Just my opinion.
Cheers!