Use the audio trace on a recording as a practice tool

Recording yourself is a great way to hear what other people hear when you practice.  And listening back is a great way to hear what needs work.   However you can also use the phone visually to work on timing and dynamics.  All you need is a simple app that displays the audio trace and you can  actually see whether something is working or not.

Here's an example from a piece I'm working on right now -     This was recorded on the phone (the mistakes are deliberate, honest!)

Looking at the trace (left) you can see that there are obvious phrases, with  decrescendos at the end of phrases. But there are no equivalent crescendos at the beginning of phrases - they seem to start off loud and stay that way.  I'm sure I didn't intend that, so I'm going to have to go back to the score and decide where I would like it to start off quietly and get louder.



Here's another example from a simple duet we were working on last week.  We thought we were doing a really good job on the dynamics until we listened to the recording and looked at the audio trace - which looked like a tube ...  We had to do quite a lot more 'loudness' variation until we were hearing (and seeing) the result we wanted (at left).  Unlike in the Pavan above we are starting quietly enough to allow a crescendo... and behold! there it is on the audio trace..

Now back to the drawing board AKA phone display !