I've been having fun lately recording my practice. Not that I'm so great to listen to, but I've found that listening to it helps me identify issues with timing (among other things).
I recently bought an audio interface that lets me interface a microphone or an electric instrument (guitar) into my computer (a Mac) to record directly into garage band. Garage Band is amazingly cool, and there are lots of other similar programs out there.
Garage band, like many other recording programs, will let you change tempo or pitch after recording. What this lets me do is to record a song at a slow tempo and play it back at pro speed. I recorded the opening break of Foggy Mountain Breakdown at 72 bpm, 4/4 time, key of G. When I played it back at 216 bpm, I was amazed at how much it sounded like the real thing. Sometimes playing something slow it's hard to hear the song you are familiar with. This was really encouraging.
Does anyone else try any home recording? Let me know how you do it and what you try to accomplish by it.
-Chris