Does anyone get depressed or even semi-suicidal when they hear

[Mark Gunter]

By now, we all have a friendly, relaxed threesome.

The man has a way with words. Recording myself & playing against a metronome are two of my favorite tools. I use both of them a lot, and neither of them enough.

[re simmers]

I don’t like metronomes. I’ve tried several. They all speed up and slow down while I’m playing. 😉
Bob

[yankees1]

I don't record myself playing, listen to myself playing or look at myself in the mirror anymore ! Too stressful !

[Bob Buckingham]

John Lennon did not like his recordings, and neither does Buddy Guy. I hear my fiddling on the radio and shudder. It's just part of life the ideal in your mind is never what you do. You record, and then grow and well it happens.

[Frankdolin]

If I judged my vocal ability based on my opinion I would have quit singing some 55 years ago, and I have great pitch and control. Now wouldn't that have sucked for me and everyone else that's got some enjoyment from my talents, such as they are. Sometimes we have to get over ourselves.

[Steve Ostrander]

I have the opposite reaction. When I hear a recording of myself or my trio, I'm amazed that we sound as good as we do. So I guess as I am playing the music live I'm much more critical than in retrospect.

[Hudmister]

Just another modern affliction, this depression from listening to a recording of yourself. Before Thomas Edison no one ever had such a problem. Ah the good old days.

[Bertram Henze]

Just another modern affliction, this depression from listening to a recording of yourself. Before Thomas Edison no one ever had such a problem. Ah the good old days.

Has anyone ever tried not to look into a mirror for 24 hours?

[LadysSolo]

I don't record myself playing, listen to myself playing or look at myself in the mirror anymore ! Too stressful !

I look in the mirror and think "Who is that old woman in my clothes and in my bedroom?" Then I realize it's me, and I think "When did I get older?" In my mind I am still young enough to get everything done I want to do. That's in the magical land called "tomorrow."

[OlDanTucker]

My Wife and I have a vocal/instrumental duo. When we met Steve Gillette and Cindy Mangsen I was very interested in how they worked together as a couple. Cindy said: " We don't rehearse. We record. Recordings don't lie."
And that's true. Usually my singing is worse that I thought, and my playing is better than I thought. But it does allow for improvement. In a studio recording you hear every little thing. In a live recording I am always amazed at how no one seems to notice the glaring errors in my playing.

You think it's bad now. Wait 20 years and listen to it again...

[RustyMadd]

Many decades ago I was in another band (not the one from my prior post) and we played at one of our favorite venues to a packed house. It was a really fun gig. A friend made a decent cassette tape of our performance. We all arrived for rehearsal and we played parts of the tape. It, of course, sounded a bit rough but within a week two of our members decided they didn't want to play in the band. They felt that our vocals were not strong enough. They were probably right but I think that listening to that rough tape was not the best decision. Still it was not the ending of any of our interests in music. Every person from that band is still playing years later.

Wow! That's ringing in the soul. I think there is some lesson there and I struggle to understand it.

[RustyMadd]

Wow, for a while there I was very very appreciative of the considerate nature of your responses. Next thing I know I guess I'm packing my bags for a guilt trip. I love Ivan and pray for him. His crossroad I have stood at 3 times so far.

I just wanted to thank everyone that took the time to respond here with words of enlightenment or encouragement. I see that many do indeed suffer the same kind of shock with respect to hearing their own voices.

I was not joking nor taking lightly the subject. I used the phrase semi-suicidal because I am religious and cannot kill myself. But that doesn't change nor cheapen the absolute lowness that my spirit was experiencing at the time of posting. I had just got out of bed after 16hrs.....not my typical rest period.

The words of those that did find meaningful improvement by seeking training and lessons was and is very helpful, as is all of your humanity that you have shared with me.

I have been immersed in this depression and trying to find a way to encourage myself back out and into performing again. I did remember a recent solo performance of a song that after performing it, my host lauded the way I "rocked that tune!" I had to ask what that meant because it wasn't a rock song. He explained that I played and sang it with more power than he ever heard it sung with before. After packing up and while carrying my gear out, some incidental and unrelated staff approached me to say how much they enjoyed that last piece.

Now as perplexing as it is, obviously I don't always sing poorly or even badly. So now I am back to the drawing board to understand better where my strengths and weaknesses lie with respect to my own singing voice.

As many have stated already, we have to work harder, smarter, and more efficiently.

Now not to be morose or morbid but even religious people commit suicide successfully every day, so it is never completely impossible. But with that said, I wish to assure you all that I am re-balancing instead of checking out.

Thank you all so very much from the bottom of my heart. I think I'll be alright after all.

Blessings

[Brian560]

Yes, recordings can be harsh and unforgiving. They highlight every flaw, which makes them useful for learning. Making good recordings also takes some knowledge and practice.

[Dave Fultz]

It’s the mirror / photograph effect. I see myself in a mirror and think, “What a handsome dog”.
But I see a photo and can’t believe I’m that ugly.

if if I hear myself recorded, I wince, but use it as a positive opportunity to make adjustments.

[Matt DeBlass]

My trick, when working with a recording of myself (either my own albums or work I've done with other folks) is that I have to put it on repeat for a while, till I stop hearing ME and start hearing it as a bit of music. Once I get over the "do I really sound like that?" phase, I can be a bit more objective about what works and what doesn't.

[fatt-dad]

On the Journey to Excellence, Enjoy Mediocrity.

f-d

[RustyMadd]

I am finding some healing and maybe even some callous-building by recording myself often and listening with headphones so there is no escaping the reality of my own voice. I will get desensitized to it eventually and then as Matt said, soon I'll just judge the musicality of the recording having come to terms with my recorded voice quality. I guess almost getting bored with being that focused on such an obvious ego trip. There are better ways to spend time. Blessings

[RustyMadd]

Hey just want to let anyone despairing out there like I was know that this life and existence is so mysterious and confusing. Couple that with the fact that we each get an ego to manage or be managed by.

Following advice given me here to keep my chin up and get back out there and play more and work harder, I did just that. I went to an open mic the other night and just played and sang as if they were my best friends. In the end I was not only encouraged and invited back, but received such compliments that were not expected. It seems we are our worst critics and our most unforgiving slave drivers.

But that doesn't mean that our hyper-sensitive and perfectionistic egos are right and correct in their self deprecation. If anyone has ever complimented your performance, use that as evidence you don't wholly suck. And if you happen to hear a recording of yourself playing and/or singing some unfamiliar, new, or something you haven't quite worked out yet, don't despair. It turns out that you will be just fine. As long as you take it serious and take a somber but serious approach to your own improvement.

Please know that your ego is jerking you around and it is most certainly NOT THE TRUTH.

Blessings all, and special thanks to those of you that took the time to counsel and encourage me. You're great!

[Bertram Henze]

Following advice given me here to keep my chin up and get back out there and play more and work harder, I did just that. I went to an open mic the other night and just played and sang as if they were my best friends. In the end I was not only encouraged and invited back, but received such compliments that were not expected.

Congrats to the double achievement: courage! and real music!

[Br1ck]

No matter what the endeavor, some are going to be blessed with natural talent, others with incredible work ethic, a few with both. Those who rise to the top have a combination plus are most likely attractive and lucky. Could be baseball players, artists, actors, or musicians. Only a very few reach the pinnacle of success, and even then, if you are not in line with the taste of the masses, you won't end a career with hundreds of millions in the bank. Worlds best hammered dulcimerere vs. finest concert violinist.

So, what in our natures drives us to expend huge amounts of time and energy on an endeavor where we, very early on, understand we will be somewhere in the middle of the pack? We either have succumbed to the most extreme case of self delusion, or more simply cannot help ourselves.

I'm focused, at age 68, to be the best I can be on an instrument I took up at 65. Getting very proficient is perhaps out of the range of possibility, but my goal is very modest. I want people to want to play with me. My ace in the whole is that I've learned to sing, and can sing harmony. I learned from being in a classic rock band how people react to a great vocal sound over a band with weak vocals and a great lead guitar player.

But I digress, upon much reflection, I do what I do because I can't not. I wake up with a tune in my head, drift off with a tune in my head, pull weeds with a tune in my head. You get the picture. I played scale and arpeggio exercises for an hour yesterday before I realized I hadn't played a fiddle tune. I was enjoying it. My teacher made a comment you just had to slog it out. I replied I'd never in forty years thought I was slogging it out. It's has always been a joy having an instrument in my hands. When I had left hand carpal surgery, I worked on tremolo for three weeks. Literally could not help myself.

So, being who I am, there are but two paths, enjoy the process using the most of my natural abilities or be forever morose knowing I'll never be that one tenth of one percent at the top. I'm shooting for the top third, and that may be a stretch.

But last week someone told me every time he heard me on mandolin, I sounded better. Isn't that enough?

[kegcrowe]

I have an opinion on singing/playing for yourself and family/friends these days. Not just relating to the OP, but for folks in general. When I was growing up, playing/singing together was normal, no one was perfect, sometimes it was awesome but it was always fun. no one cared that it was 'lacking'. It was shared learning. We weren't critical of each others off-keyness or missed chords. It was something MORE than just playing and singing together. I can still see and hear my daddy playing/singing "Walking the Floor Over you" and love it. would someone have paid to hear him? Probably not, especially since he liked to sing in his PJs.

Now today, artists are in the studio and redo, redo, redo or autotune until 'perfect", so we think WE should be able to sing just as perfectly in our livingroom. This also applies to the listener; perfection is rarely obtainable. But singing is easy, right? and we want to be perfect and can't accept that WE AREN'T. I think the 'not perfect' or 'I sound crappy' should be replaced with 'this is me, warts and all' and I love music, not an autotuned perfection .

Possibly this opinion is mostly for the layperson, but I think it is also applicable to artists as well.

[jim simpson]

As painful as it is to listen to oneself on a recording, it is also very useful. I remember hearing a live recording of a band I was in when I just got started playing mandolin. I screwed up a break that I was sure I had down. I still have the tape, lol! Earlier this evening I was doing tape to digital transfers when I listened to myself filling in with another band. It was about 25 years ago, I listened with critical ears and thought that I played the breaks more simply than I would now but I was happy to not hear any clams! One always learns from listening, either to a recording or to your bandmates while playing.