Quick Recording, Part 3 - Songwriting

Another great value of having a recorder handy is to document your progress when songwriting. After a session of working out ideas for a new instrumental I'll grab my iPhone and use the memo app to do a quick recording of my performance (solo or with a jam track). It's common for many days to go by between writing sessions and it's very easy to forget prior progress. I start a new session listening to my past recording, sometimes even playing along to it. I stop the playback and then get to work. At the end of that day's session I erase the old recording and record a new version so that I have a recording that represents my most current efforts. This way of progressing elevates clutter (no need to keep old material) and increases productivity by not having to waste time recreating the thought process that lead to the improvements you made at the prior session.