Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

I was wondering how Rocksmith recommends songs today. I did a google around and it seems to be some kind of magic. At first I thought it might just be a formula based on difficulty and mastery but maybe not. It keeps recommending the new songs I have downloaded over and over again.

I am also taking exception to the difficulty setting on an Oasis song. I keep hitting all the chords (and most of the other stuff too) but then because I miss something else, it downgrades the entire song. Then I get a few 93% and 95% accuracies and it upgrades the difficulty. Then the cycle repeats. Very annoying.

I also tried connecting my guitar up to my Mac to see if I could use Garageband as an amp. It is far too quiet though. I have to max the gain on Garageband and my speaker volume just to get it heard above the sound of me strumming. I had a look at the input devices that let you connect it to iOS devices but they are well expensive.

Long term I would really like to run my guitar through one of my devices though. This way I can test out different amps and FX pedals before I buy them so that I know which ones I want.

Yesterday I finished playing all the songs on the rhythm path. The songs seem to vary in how different the two versions are. For some, the lead and rhythm are almost the same. In others they are very different. You also need strong hands when an entire song is basically the same chord over and over again.

Today I spent some time working on playing in position. This is where you keep your hand in the same place and use different fingers for the different frets. Of course this limits you to four frets, so it all goes tits up when it moves outside of this. However, I think I have made a good start.

I am still having problems with the E string not registering on Heart Shaped Box. I had a google around and at least one other person is having the same problem. The forums suggested that I try and strike the notes more softly, which seems to help.

More bitching about the Play Station Network. I tried to buy The Smashing Pumpkins pack, however it said my credit card was invalid. I logged on to try and edit it and it would only let me enter a 3 digit CV2. American Express has 4 digits and they clearly know this because they have a picture of an AMEX showing the 4 digits.

I tried deleting the card and re-add it. This time it left me enter a 4 digit CV2 but when I submitted the form it insisted the card number was invalid even though it was not. Irritating.

In the end I used my MasterCard and finally managed to add the credit. For my £9.69 I got five songs. However, when I went to play them I found that two did not have lead guitar parts. I guess the two songs are single guitar acoustics but I felt a little cheated as I did not see it mentioned.

As a positive consequence though I then had to switch to the rhythm guitar path which got me thinking I could do that more. When I get tired of not being able to do the flashy solos I can switch to rhythm and spend some time not being able to do all the chords.

Thinking about it, they come with a bass track too…

The game was definitely having a problem registering my E string today. I was playing Heart Shaped Box and it kept saying I missed the third fret. It was suspicious, so I stopped doing anything else and just played that note. Most of the time, even when I was playing it perfectly, I would say I missed it. I tried it on the forth fret too and one time it registered it correctly, then went back to saying miss.

I tried re-tuning to no affect. That adds up somewhat as I was playing Temple of Bends earlier and it kept failing to register my bends. Other strings were fine – I just got my bends wrong on those, but E did not even show up.

I also played some Harmonic Heist for the first time today, which seems fine.

Learning guitar seems a lot like learning to drive. At first everything moves so fast that you cannot really do anything but try and keep up. Then as you acclimatise to it, you can work on the finer points. So far it has been madly stabbing at different strings to try and get the right note. But as things seem to move a little slower, I have been able to think “maybe I could just use this other finger here for that one.”

I have now reached the 60 hours that the 60-Day Challenge promised me I could play guitar by.

I still cannot play guitar. It is almost as if Ubisoft lied to me in order to get me to buy their product. I did complete one of my challenges today though. Reach master on a section of a song. I managed that thanks to Tom Petty’s “Last Dance With Mary Jane”. Part of the song is just E minor several times. That is the whole section. Apparently I am now an expert at that.

I am still finding the auto-difficulty a bit annoying at times. I spent ages practising a section in Black Magic. Then, when I went back to the song, it had made it even more difficult and basically everything I had practised was now useless. I did raise my mastery to 50% though, despite missing loads of the notes.

I spent a lot of time working on the fingering for R U Mine? I still have not managed it. Tricky thing I realised today. It is not just that you need to be focused enough to spend an hour doing a tiny thing over and over again. It is at the end of that hour you have to have the the self-control to stop, admit to yourself you cannot do it yet, take yourself out of the situation and move on. As Ms Adler would say, know when you are beaten. You have to be a perfectionist, but also turn that part of your personality off when it is not working. No easy feat. My guitar almost went through my TV. Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean…

I went some time today trying to play the F chord.

Turns out it is completely impossible. Most chords you can easily make the shape with your fingers, it is just a case of practising and getting there fast enough. Not the F chord. It is not even possible when you take your time and carefully position your fingers. It just cannot be done.

I spent most of the time playing songs and made some progress. Some of them were at around the 20-25% mark and I have now got them up to 40%. This is probably because I have reorganised the list by difficulty and have not played them for a while. I did not move up on my old favourites. But progress none the less.

I have started to hit more two finger jobs. Things that I would just miss entirely before. I even hit the C chord when that was thrown at me. Time is running out though. Ubisoft promised me I would be able to play guitar with four hours more practice.

I finally beat the boss on Scale Warriors! I think this only proves my point that the boss is proportionally too hard though. After beating him, I went onto scale set 2. I completed the first two levels, straight through, in one go. I have not even tried level 3 yet, I could have gone on. It seems very odd that it would take 2-3 hours to beat a boss, then you can just whizz through the next two levels straight away. Maybe it is designed like that though and starts easy again on each scale set.

On Danny’s suggestion I am going to spend more time doing the songs. I am still finding the automatically adjusting difficulty a little annoying. It adds extra stuff, and then when I miss everything as I try and hit the new stuff as well, takes it away again. Still, will press on.

I spent most of last night’s NFL game working on my fingering for the chords to Losing My Religion and Blitzkrieg Bop.

Today I spent an hour and a half trying to beat the boss on Scale Warriors. I still haven’t. Fed up.

I was about to come on and bitch about how it is impossible to complete any of the bosses and you just get stuck for hours. Then I beat the boss on Return of Castle Chordead. Good times. I am still stuck on the boss on Scale Warriors though. I was a little disappointed to see the Castle Chordead scales just re-use the same virtual world for the other scales too.

I reached 50 hours today, which is not too far off the level required to complete the 60-day challenge. Of course I have been doing it for 18 days, but one hour a day for 60 days equals 60 hours. So I should effectively be nearing the end of the challenge in equivalent hours.

I still cannot play the guitar. Of course there is always the chance it will all fall into place at the last minute, but this seems very unlikely. I still struggle to pick out the right note (without looking) and chords are hit and miss. Even though I feel I am making progress, and I might be, I have seen what is to come and I am a million miles away from it.

That is not even the song I wanted to learn. I was looking for information on Cold Company by Minus the Bear, which is way harder.

I actually ended up on that video because I wanted to know how you were able to play fret 19 and then hammer-on on fret 12. My hand simply is not big enough to do that. Turns out that you have to use both hands. That makes sense now because the notes are taps. But as I have not got to the taps lesson yet that did not occur to me. I do not know why it gives me taps if it does not explain them.