Listening to Yourself: You know you like it (and at the same time you don't, which is the point of this blog entry, who's title is too long to...)

Right now I am listening to a song a friend of mine wrote and recorded. She put together a CD and put the songs on Myspace. The song I am listening to features me on trombone throughout the song. And I love listening to it. This puts me in the minority in terms of enjoying my own sound played back at me. Does this mean I am a totally egotistical little bugger, or is there something deeper to it? There probably is nothing deeper to the issue, but I am going to pretend there is and bs my way through a couple of points that probably have some truth to them when a smarter man takes a good look. First off, it is a farce that I say I enjoy listening to myself. It is in fact not true at all. Recently I have been recording rehearsals of my high school band and playing them back to the group to listen to their mistakes and accomplishments. Every once in a while in the recording you will hear my voice coming through the speakers, and holy crap particles is it hideous. H-I-D-E-O-U-S. So why can't I hear the awful sound of my own voice, but I can find all the positive aspects of my trombone playing? Before I give you the answer you are panting for, I should pad it a little first. I am not that great of a trombone player. I'm not saying I suck; I can certainly hold my own in 80 to 85 percent of the musical situations on the planet. But I know I am not a virtuoso-- I don't put the work into it, and I would probably fall a little short of great even if I did put the work in. Parenthetical insert after the fact: (I was going to put something in that last paragraph about how I was graduated from the IU Jacobs School of Music which must mean that I am worth something as a player [trombone not the ladies], but let me tell you right here and now that it doesn't mean jack if you are graduated from there. It is such a big school that, once you're in, you are on your own and they almost don't care how you come out. Some absolutely awful musical talent has come from IU in addition to all the prodigies. I consider myself in the middle of the pack because I hung with and played well with and was respected by the best trombone players going through that school). So what the face plant is this all about? I have CONTROL over my trombone playing at a certain technical level. My ears are not so warped with modesty, self-loathing, or a bloated self-image that they don't know the difference between what sounds good or bad. The trombone playing on my friend's tune is pretty good because I have academic control over the sounds that are made. There is one other reason why I can stand some recordings of myself and not others. I am emotionally detached from what I think sounds good. There was no emotional or personal risk in recording 7 different notes in various combinations ( D, C, Bb, A, G, F, Eb if you were wondering and I know you were). Go in. Play notes. Fix notes. Producer fix notes without telling player. Go home. Easy. But when something is recorded that I am emotionally invested in-- something I wrote, or worked very hard on-- I can barely stand to hear it. I become offended and appalled as I am sure most people do. But most people don't have enough recorded work that they don't care too deeply about. I do. So the part of me I like to hear the most is the part that doesn't care. To be honest that makes me kind of sad. I don't care and that is what I want everyone to hear? That's East coast-style philosophy and that just is not me. I hope no one finds out that I have feelings. That might make people care, think, or sympathize. And we simply can't have that around here. --QA