Looking for an effective way to improve your musical ability in a relatively short period of time? There is a simple tool that can work these wonders for you.

This tool is a microphone.

There is nothing quite like recording and playback to evaluate your progress. As we run through our songs, we get used to how they sound as we play them. If we are duly diligent, we probably even have some trouble spots we work to improve over time.

However, when we record a song, we hear what our listeners hear. And it is amazing what a difference that makes!

While we may have been sweating to perfect left-hand finger independence or to memorize every note of a solo perfectly, we may have been missing the forest for the trees. We may have overlooked a few muffled notes, a slight hesitation before a difficult lick, or perhaps even an obnoxious buzz from the fretboard. Fortunately, simply getting out of the driver’s seat and listening to our own music as an audience would can show us areas where we can improve.

For this application, we don’t need an elaborate setup (certainly not as elaborate as in the image above!). Room noise is okay as long as we can hear ourselves clearly.

Give it a try!