hats off to you video makers

For about two hours for the last two nights I've been trying to make a video of myself playing "Pretty Boy Floyd" for the Woody Guthrie tribute channel that someone here is putting up on YouTube. When I read that thread I thought, this is such a cool idea. Then I started going through old Woody Guthrie songs that I could play as an advanced beginner (isn't that an oxymoron, maybe I should say as a "haven't learned to pick yet, player"). One thing that was so cool, yet kind of depressing, about looking through the songs was how those depression era songs resonate today. So I went and found a version with fairly simple chords and practiced a bit (not enough it turns out) and spent two hours trying to get a single unblemished "take". I should have saved the outtakes, they would have been much more amusing then the unblemished version but there were a few four letter words in there. Last night I tried again with the same result. I called Woody Guthrie Woody Allen in my intro, and messed up either fingering or words. Sheesh. Ego aside, as a professor who teaches a class every fall with 150 students and has a 4.4/5 rating on "Rate My Professor" I know how to work a crowd but I just had no idea of how difficult this was going to be. So hats off to those of you who put all those flawless videos up on YT. As I become a better player I'm sure it will get easier. I'm not really looking for advice here just kind of sharing experiences.

I am the same way. I think most of us are. I am a perfectionist by nature, so I want to do my best. which is why very few people have ever seen a video I have made. I bet every musician out there can pick apart their videos and recordings.
I hope you will share because I love seeing musicians play. Plus keep a copy so you can see your improvement.

Good luck getting that video done...

Well I was thinking that I probably should just do a song that I know well just to get over the video jinx <g>. And perfection, he!!, I'm just trying to get through the song once without a gaffe <g>. Thanks for the support though, it's good to know that I'm not alone. g2

When I made my first video back in August, I thought I'd just turn on the camera and noodle around like I normally do and that would be a wrap. It took me 3 days to get something I thought was good enough to put on YouTube. I have 20 up now and find it has gotten easier with each additional one. In my most recent, I made two tracks, one playing rythm and another picking, and put them together. It was an ambitious project for me. It probably took 3 hours to shoot both videos, which was much less than I thought it would be. It is getting easier. It is encouraging to look at my first and last videos and see how I am getting better. I don't even think about getting it perfect, I'm just having fun with the process and getting my songs recorded.

I don't teach to 150 at a time, but I do have forty new ones every 45 minutes...never miss a beat. Turn on the video camera and all h$@l breaks loose. Never know what I am going to get, and often it is less than satisfactory. I think it is the mind melting powers of the green light. Keep at it though, it will get easier.

fitncrafty said:

I am the same way. I think most of us are. I am a perfectionist by nature, so I want to do my best. which is why very few people have ever seen a video I have made. I bet every musician out there can pick apart their videos and recordings.

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John Lennon was once asked, post-Beatles, if he ever listened to Beatles music and he said he couldn't because all he could hear were the things he wished he'd done differently.

garyg said:

For about two hours for the last two nights I've been trying to make a video of myself playing "Pretty Boy Floyd" for the Woody Guthrie tribute channel that someone here is putting up on YouTube. When I read that thread I thought, this is such a cool idea. Then I started going through old Woody Guthrie songs that I could play as an advanced beginner (isn't that an oxymoron, maybe I should say as a "haven't learned to pick yet, player"). One thing that was so cool, yet kind of depressing, about looking through the songs was how those depression era songs resonate today. So I went and found a version with fairly simple chords and practiced a bit (not enough it turns out) and spent two hours trying to get a single unblemished "take". I should have saved the outtakes, they would have been much more amusing then the unblemished version but there were a few four letter words in there. Last night I tried again with the same result. I called Woody Guthrie Woody Allen in my intro, and messed up either fingering or words. Sheesh. Ego aside, as a professor who teaches a class every fall with 150 students and has a 4.4/5 rating on "Rate My Professor" I know how to work a crowd but I just had no idea of how difficult this was going to be. So hats off to those of you who put all those flawless videos up on YT. As I become a better player I'm sure it will get easier. I'm not really looking for advice here just kind of sharing experiences.

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Ahahahaha! I gave up EVER trying to be able to do a perfect video! I'm almost 100% certain that every one of my videos has at least one flub in it. But I refuse to do more than a couple takes. It gets so wearing! Today I did get to the very end of the song and messed it up. I was doing a cover of a friend's original song, so I really *did* want it to be as right as possible, so I did it over. I have an awful sneaking suspicion I speeded up a bit somewhere along the way, but it is what it is.

So I try to mostly just have fun with my videos. I do understand wanting it to be really good for the Woody Guthrie tribute channel, though.

Mousie

I got a bunch of recording stuff, but I doubt at this point that I'll ever make a vid. Firstly, I suck, and secondly, even if I didn't suck, I'm too much of a perfectionist.

A UUer once had a go at me in PM for saying the above, like I was some kind of elitist looking down my nose at the meer mortals making vids, judging every mistake with a red pen.. and I was just.. .. I tried to explain that it was a failing in myself, but this UUer would have none of that, being an expert on a complete stranger, apparently.

What I actually think is that the people who make the vids are very brave to work so hard at it and post it to the wilds of the internet for all the trolls to see. Without their courage, youtube would be a boring place for us uke players. Please everyone, keep making the vids!

I think on my last one, the lyric on the chorus was "Somebody robbed the Glendale Train/ This Morning Half-past nine/Somebody robbed the Glendale Train/I swear I ain't lyin'"...


So of course, while singing the the fourth go-round of the chorus during the recording, I sang "Somebody robbed the Glendale Train/This morning half-past five/Somebody robbed the Glendale Train/I think it was half-past-nine"...

I left it in. Not close to perfect, but then, I'm doing this for fun, not as a pro. Do I want to get better? Of course. But the only way I can do that is to show the product, warts and all, and hope that people will be honest about critiquing it.

I plan to redo the video in the future, when I figure out how to mic it better, control the sound better, and maybe do something about the horrendous ambient lighting.

In any event, the final product is still better then the first couple I did - which I am leaving up. I hope to show improvement, and even if I'm not that good, maybe I can encourage others to post their videos, and we can all learn from each other, and just get better and better.

I certainly know of at least 4 or five video posters I look to for technique and encouragement.

Like the OP, I was used to lecturing to large numbers of students, though I am retired now. I have also performed music (as an amateur) to an audience and there is a world of difference between getting up in front of an audience and recording.

When you are performing live, if you make a mistake it is past, gone and mostly forgotten before you get to the end of the song (even if it's noticed at all by the audience), so you learn to ignore your mistakes and carry on. Often you are not even conscious of them.

With recording, if you make a mistake, it's there to haunt you later. And, anyway, when you hear yourself, you sound pretty horrible to yourself - at least I did. So you first have to get used to hearing yourself as others do. Not easy. Then you have to cope with those mistakes. There are three possibilities:

a) You record over and over again, take after take until you get it absolutely right.
b) You do as the professionals do and you keep all the out takes and cover the mistakes by inserting a short section from another take to replace the section with the mistake. Not easy as it has to fit in seamlessly.
c) You say "sod it" (to yourself of course ) and put it out anyway.

I tend to be somewhere between a) and c). I will carry on with takes until I have something reasonable then live with it. I can't be bothered with the "faff" involved with b) and I find that if I go on making more and more takes, the number of mistakes steadily increases and I usually end up with one of the early takes anyway.

I don't think it does any harm to learn to live with minor mistakes. It makes you more human to your listeners and, anyway, it's the content of what you record that really matters. As long as you can convey that clearly, then minor mistakes will be overlooked.

I hate making videos so much. By the time I get a track I'm happy with, I'm usually aggravated and all my commenters notice how emotionless I look. :B I have so much respect for people who can throw together videos without getting discouraged.

It takes me hours to get a decent take. That's why I have only done a couple of videos. It seems I can know the song in and out, but as soon as the camera light is on, my brain connections don't work right. I, too should have saved the outtakes, cause sometimes they are pretty funny. Usually the camera is getting turned off just as my head shakes and some foul language is being mumbled under my breath.

Canoe Lady said:

It takes me hours to get a decent take. That's why I have only done a couple of videos. It seems I can know the song in and out, but as soon as the camera light is on, my brain connections don't work right....

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It gets easier with practice. Knowing the song certainly helps and you are doing the right thing there. Keep trying and you will find over time, you get less anxious and more relaxed about the whole process, and as you do, you will find you need fewer takes to get a decent result.