David's Tip of the Day: Video Record Jam Sessions, Rehearsals & Shows

The video recorder is your absolute best friend for bettering your skill set. After each jam session, rehearsal or show sit down and study what you hear and see on recording and make notes of how you can better yourself. Audio recording is fine, though sometimes without a visual reference it can be mysterious why something happened the way it did. In many cases, signals/cues... or lack there of... cause issues on the bandstand... and thus in the music; this can be seen and analyzed from the video recording. So, the tip... it's the music you hear, as well as the visual signaling on the bandstand (from others and you)... all of which creates the complete performance.. that can be analyzed and worked on with the tool of video recording.

Sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eED4nvkmvo
This was never intended to be published (and will not be up there for long), but here's the first rehearsal of two with students before the performance that was last weekend. I published it on YouTube, but made it hidden so that only the students and I could see it. Through the study of this recording, and practicing those elements that needed work at the next rehearsal and individually right before the performance, the final performance was substantially better.