stuarthooper:
The seeeduino music shield needs to be reset to activate the record mode.
There is a bit of a disconnect between a ten line demo program that decides whether to record after a reset, and the conclusion that the shield has to be reset in order to record.
I'm not convinced that the shield does actually have to be reset, but if it does then the music library gives you a soft reset function which would seem adequate. If that doesn't do the job then there is a reset pin on the shield which would enable you to hard reset the shield without resetting the host Arduino. But so far I don't see anything to suggest that you do actually need to reset anything.
In other words, I think you're going to extraordinary lengths to solve a problem which doesn't exist.