Reacting to my old concerts (2004-12!) | Team Recorder

hello everybody i'm sarah and i'm a recorder player so i found a pile of ancient cds recordings of my performances from long times past i thought i'd listen to them with you and yeah some of these are nearly 20 years old and who knows what's on here i'm slightly worried they're going to be terrible and embarrassing but i'm actually more worried that they're actually really good and that i realize that i've not improved at all in the past 15 years and that i hit my peak somewhere in my early 20s never mind shout out to today's sponsor philharmonic loudspeakers i'll be listening today on my beautiful handmade desktop speakers more on that later i wish i had recordings of me playing as a child but i just don't it's another era i know that there is an older recording from my high school music exam but to get a hold of that cd i'd have to contact my shitty high school ex-boyfriend and i really don't want to 2004 what have you got for me come on little cd player reading reading can you hear this it's taking so long this is why we went digital this is the only cd player i actually have this ancient drive that's going [Laughter] conclusion i think this cd is damaged record a concert first of march 2006. this was when i was a student at birmingham conservatoire okay opening of the concept [Music] so [Music] the pavan lacremade by john downland one of the most beautiful consort pieces in the world um yeah it sounds really calm it wasn't in tune i think i was on the tenor line and i definitely heard 2006 sarah jeffrey playing some very high thirds the thing is with a recorder console if you don't get everything super in tune it's really noticeable because it buzzes um i still had a while to go it was nice and flowing hmm here we go this is a piece i performed for bass recorder and live electronics called pipistrelli gialli by benjamin thorne this was the first ever piece i played with electronics however i had no idea what i was doing [Music] my base recorder playing was also not that clean i'm cracking lots of notes i still had to learn that there's a difference between interpreting music so that it sounds noisy and dirty and crackly as a choice and just leaving it that way because you think that it doesn't matter because it's contemporary music when i was performing it i remember that i did not listen to the electronics at all when you're playing with electronics you're meant to listen react it's like another performer that enhances what you could do as an acoustic player so i was just kind of doing whatever on the whole this concept from 15 years ago not too terrible well done baby sarah [Music] oh my god in 2005 i applied for a scholarship to go on a music summer school and this was my application i got the scholarship by the way should we hear some talon [Music] me [Music] [Music] me [Music] okay i'm gonna stop there like many people i find it intensely uncomfortable listening to myself playing so if i'm making a facial expression that's that's why i'm really struggling not to tear myself apart what did i like about it i i was putting emotion into it i was feeling the music and i can hear that i was going for it however i can hear that i was really using my breath to shape the sound like a flute player would i came to the recorder very late after learning flute for my whole childhood so here at this point i'm still playing like it's probably not how you meant to play flute either and also my tone is very like nasal i'm playing quite like [Music] and now i play more like [Music] okay bit of fast movement [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] i messed up the whole passage and i still put that on a scholarship cd maybe they gave me the scholarship because they thought that i really needed the the lessons uh yeah lots of mistakes lots of messy fingers but you know hey that's not a bad thing i was learning 2005 what a time to be alive let's see should we are we going in chronological order 2007. this was when i got to amsterdam so this was me playing some medieval dancers with an italian singer and percussionist that i met at a party and i remember my critique after this concert we got critique from the teachers they said the only good thing about it was the singer by the way i haven't listened to this since 2007. [Music] ah [Music] ah okay i really have to learn how to relax when i'm listening to myself i don't know why i chose to play this so high in the range of the recorder and it sounds like it's difficult i'm making it sound difficult why am i doing that skip skip skip i like it [Music] [Applause] nice nice it's a bit um yeah in dutch you say breath a bit goody-goody i think i was really struggling with i know that at this time i was really really really worried about what my teachers thought of me and i can hear that in my playing i'm trying to be myself but trying to please others at the same time it's a normal part of being a student finding a place as a musician but i can hear that oh sarah don't worry one day you'll be a youtuber what else we got 2008 i was in an opera by greek composer tanya sicalanu the opera was madea very uh happy subject i could not watch an opera about madea now like after having a child it would literally kill me uh just try and skip through and find a bit with recorder [Music] singers sound great i can't hear the recorder at all i was there playing the whole time [Music] so i remember i was so excited and i remember that i spent the entirety of the rehearsals and concert looking at the conductor like this you can't hear the recorder in the mix that is something for composers i think we've got like six singers piano harp cello with percussion and then recorder gotta make sure the recorder is mic'd up because i do not hear a thing well that was fun i have this sarah jeffrey promotional cd who i was planning to give this cd to i don't know guess this is from like 2010. okay we've got some we've got some different things let's listen to jesse by barrio this has always been one of my favorite pieces to play [Music] [Music] today [Music] [Music] when i listen to it back on a recording i'm reminded of how much i rely on the theatricality of the piece when performing the listening to it doesn't give the full picture i think if i make a recording of this again i have to concentrate more on how it sounds a bit more rest maybe a bit more space it's hectic and frantic i can take my time i was very comfortable with this piece let's listen to something i was not so comfortable with french baroque music [Music] [Music] [Music] you know when you give a performance and you think that it was really bad and then a long time later you listen back to it and you're like actually that was fine okay if we're gonna be picky is this the pinnacle of french baroque interpretation no uh i definitely needed to get more into the style and not and again not use my air to push the notes so much keep it think of these horizontal lines rather than again this was an example of me performing something that i felt so insecure about i did not know if what i was doing was the right thing i think that's why i often fled into contemporary music i really felt like if it's new no one can tell you you're doing it wrong i felt uncomfortable not knowing what i was doing i felt uncomfortable making mistakes and i didn't yet realize that that is such a necessary part of learning those are definitely things that i've learned over the years as a professional musician so you know you don't have to have it all figured out in your student times so this is meant to be like a light-hearted react video i'm getting again so let's listen to one more thing next up we have a student concert from 2012 what i'm playing here i don't know oh it's video it's me playing sin descanso by roderick the man that i later played in my master recital have a listen to this shall we [Music] i'm so serious [Music] okay i'm just going to pause it here whoo i played that yeah so a lot of work went into this piece oh my okay there's this whole tanner section [Music] do i feel threatened by my former self i could not pick this piece up and just play it today i would again need to put some weeks or maybe even some months of work in to get it up to this standard the only thing i would change about this performance is that i'm so serious i mean this music was my was everything to me and i was so wrapped up in my exam and my study i feel in the years since i've graduated i've just had a bit more of real life and perspective and i can have fun with this kind of music as well i think a lot of people find that they have much less time to practice after graduation work i've got a family a lot of responsibilities and the days of being a student where i'm in a practice room all the time are long gone so i think i always i'm gonna get real with you i think i always worried that my technique had gotten worse but i don't think it has it's just different i remember preparing for this recital and being so focused on this fast and accurate fingers playing all the notes but of course music's about so much more than that i was very serious and i was very worried now i definitely play music that i love so i just feel like my world is a bit bigger now and you know your music develops in so many other ways than virtuosic fast notes of course it's always good to have the the adequate tools to express what you want to musically that's why technique's important uh but back then that was the only thing i was focused on now i feel much more peace and confidence when i play that's really nice uh don't get me wrong i'm still definitely hearing a lot of things that i still do i still have the tendency to be pushy with my breath and make it go a bit out of tune i still have the tendency to rush and not take space in my playing i still have the tendency to get way too serious and focused lose sight of the bigger picture music is a lifelong journey music is a lifelong journey now let me take a minute to talk about philharmonic loudspeakers the sponsors of today's video i have the dt1 desktop speakers they're handcrafted in marble and stainless steel with no plastic and the sound quality is of course the most important they have a corrective network and high-end 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video thanks for watching and have a great day

Channel: Sarah Jeffery / Team Recorder

Views: 8,577

Rating: 4.9541984 out of 5

Keywords: recorder, team recorder, blokfluit, flute, flute a bec, flauto, flauta, blockflöte, audiophile, loudspeakers, speakers, philharmonische lautsprecher, lautsprecher, music lesson, react, reaction, music tutorial, music teacher, throwback, blast from the past, sarah jeffery, dowland, berio, telemann, early music, contemporary music, opera, composer

Id: V9T0CFvLW8I

Length: 19min 17sec (1157 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 23 2021