Dress rehearsal

I've previously written about the problems of trying to be done before you put something out into the world. But sometimes it can be very difficult to convince yourself to let go of that, especially when you know the thing you're releasing may be imperfect, incomplete, or just not good enough. Today I'd like to share a technique I've found very helpful, which is running dress rehearsals for the release process.

A while back I made a short guitar song for a friend. I'm by no means expert-level at either guitar or singing, but I can make something I wouldn't be offended to have associated with my name – which I figured was good enough. However, even after a couple hours of practice at the song I wasn't at a point where I felt confident to record it and send it. I basically knew what I was doing, but the practice hadn't really come together to make a complete performance.

So I set everything up like it was a performance, and I did a dress rehearsal while recording. Predictably, I wasn't happy with it at first, but after only two more tries I had something that I thought was good enough to send. What I'd done was remove the distinction between "this is a practice run" and "this is a performance run". The two were identical, and I only chose after the fact which it would be.

This might not be possible in every case, of course, but I've found it particularly useful for my (mostly digital) needs. You just act as if you are releasing your work, but with some very minimal safeguard at the end that prevents it from being a real performance.

When the time is right, you just remove the safeguard.