Wondering how you can get the most out of your recording rig, in terms of enhancing your creativity and deepening your musicianship? It all comes down to being resourceful and finding how to do very much with very little. This is how a boy of 9 years of age can spend the first 13 years of his musical life finding ways to jot down ideas, achieve lo-fi multitrack recording, and go from a neophyte to an accomplished musician all with nothing more than various tape recorders and ‘ghetto blasters’, coupled with boundless imagination, inventiveness, and an insatiable desire to grow by any means possible. Then finally, by age 22, with more advanced recording equipment at his disposal, even the sky is no limit to what can be accomplished.

Experimenting with additional tracks, jamming over/along with what you've already recorded can open up new and pleasantly unexpected ideas. Even if you end up trashing most or even all of them when it's over, the process can be invaluable and rewarding. And if you happen upon a new part - a bridge idea you were lacking, a solo concept, chordal variations, unusual but fitting riffs, etc... Well, then consider that a much welcomed bonus! Even guitar melody that can be converted and/or expanded into vocal melodies. But as always, it is good to realize when less is more. When silence is as important as sound. When doing nothing is more meaningful than doing something. (I'm waxing mildly Taoist here...). As opposed to what we are barraged with from all sides to the contrary (specifically in music, and guitar playing in general), SIMPLICITY is a good thing.

Sometimes it is far more profound than overwhelming complexity.

I guess the exact details and particulars depend on one's unique situation, but for me, I've always looked back fondly and viewed recording as an often therapeutic exercise. Even if they're goofy ditties, or funky, corny sketches (or like when I first got going - not even knowing what a chord or a scale or a note or even what being in tune or out of tune was!...), just the raw creative act is not only exhilarating but liberating too. Especially if you approach it with the mindset that there are no mistakes.

Having a good, like-minded friend to musically experiment with also doesn't hurt. I had the good fortune of having such a 'soul-brother' during those early years and still credit the core of my musical identity to the zany and innocent times that we shared during those halcyon days of creativity.

Unfortunately, most of those tapes have not survived the ravages of time. Although bits and pieces still live on in my memory, immortalized as pillars and pinnacles of obscurity...