Spotlight Guitarcade: Hurtlin' Hurdles and day 36

Hurtlin' Hurdles

Hurtlin' Hurdles is a game in which you use Tremelo to cause a robotic runner to outrun an approaching robot destroying spiked roller of death.  It is a sort of relay race where you change robots when you change strings.  To keep ahead of the spike roller you have to collect certain power ups that will increase the distance between you and the death roller.  I felt like a picture did not accurately show what the game was like, so I included a video above.

There are two games that this Guitarcade calls back to.  The first is a blast from my personal past called "World Class Track Meet".  There was an old addition to the original Nintendo Entertainment System called the "Power Pad" and it came with a game, the only game I ever played that used the thing, called World Class Track Meet.  You "ran" on the pad and "jumped" to avoid hurdles in the track meet.

The second game that this calls to was Base Wars, a baseball game where they players were changes to robots.  Similar robot games also came out where they took sports and replaced the humans with robots and added power ups and such.  You mix Base Wars with World Class Track Meet and you get Hurtlin' Hurdles.

I do not play this game as much as the others.  I'm just not a tremelo person, but I can tell you that if you need to build up familiarity with the base technique, this game will do it.  If you need to build up the muscles that let you play tremelo for long periods of time, this game is a must, and this game will do it.  It is entertaining to watch, but very stressful to play.  The graphics, music, and style fit the influences perfectly and again, whoever put the time into making this game did a great job and really looks and feels like something they were passionate about.


Day 36

Today I worked on getting my "rock" tone better in Rocksmith.  I started with a JCM800 marshall amp, this is pretty much a standard in Rock.  I got the overdriven sound, but felt like it needed a little something extra.  I ended up putting the OCD clone pedal(Custom Overdrive I think it is) in front of the amp at a lower gain boost setting and that sounded pretty good.  There was something missing, and I couldn't quite figure it out.  I think what I realized is that my stereo's speakers are just weak in the treble.  I'm not a trebbly kind of person.  I prefer motown bass sounds and crunchy distortion in general, but when I put that treble booster in the signal chain, it made the sound come alive.  So it is something I would not use in real life through my amp, but it compensates for whatever is missing in my stereo speakers.  So when you're doing some tone shaping in Rocksmith, try out things you normally would not think you'd want to use.  I'm about 75% satisfied with the sound.  I had to put a noise gate in there because the treble boost is also a "junk" boost.

I have just about gotten "play effortlessly" in the easy, medium and powerchord version of Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd.  These are not Rocksmith categories, I'm learning this from watching youtube, but the skills to play this song are something I learned in Rocksmith, and that I am actively practicing in Rocksmith's Guitarcade and lesson practice tracks.  Next I need to start coming up with how I'm going to do my 1-2 minute "can you play Simple Man?" sample version.  This means I have to listen to the song in its entirety each day...  I have to reiterate that I'm not a huge Skynyrd fan lol.  This was simply to work on my technique.

I know that Simple Man and Everlong have featured a lot in these posts.  I am deliberately trying to be "light" on learning songs during this 60 day challenge.  I'm focusing on what I feel I am weakest on, and that's technique.  I feel like if I get diverted by learning 5-6 Beatles songs, 5-6 Black Sabbath songs, etc etc; that I will slack on my pure technique practice.  Sometimes I find songs that seem perfect for practicing the technique I'm working on, and that's the ones I feature here a lot.  Everlong helped me on Power Chords, timing practice, song section changes, and stuff like that.  Simple Man is teaching me chord changes, the balance of power chords with regular chords, and improvisation inside chord structure.

Tomorrow though... I'm thinking of investigating the basics of funk strumming.

Requests and Day 35

"Play something you've come up with"

That's what every newer guitarist would want to hear.  The reality is that when you sit down to show someone that you're learning guitar, they instinctively want to hear something they recognize.  Its only human nature, they want to compare you to something they've heard to be able to judge your skill.  If you can play something they perceive as a good song, they're going to think "oh wow, my friend can play this popular song!".  I'm guilty of it as well.  I used to ask "can you play Sweet Child of Mine" and in the later years, "know any Pantera?"

I've been on the other side now though, and I regret being that way.  When you're new and you're learning, you're focusing on technique and practicing.  In all reality, you probably know some pretty good sounding things to play that uses the techniques you know, but you might be missing one technique to be able to play ACDC, or Guns N Roses.

You also might know a few genres.  You might be tempted to say, "well I can't play that, but if you tell me a genre of music you like, maybe I can play something in it for you in that style".  Seems like 90% of the time they're going to say "I like J-pop" or "know any Skrillex?", or something equally as un-guitar or something you just don't know the style of.

That's just how life goes.

So if you're reading this, and you have a friend that is practicing and learning guitar, remember what I've said.  There are 10 million-billion songs out there, and chances are your first 20 you can come up with aren't going to be something they can play.  Look at them, smile a little bit, and say "just play something you know or something you've come up with yourself".  You're going to hear something new, don't be scared, you might be the first person ever to hear a new piece of music that never existed in the world before.  It could be great.


Day 35

I have pretty much decided on 4 "tone" categories that I like to play in.  Clean for acoustic/chords work, light overdrive for bluesy stuff, British Crunch(my favorite) for ACDC sounding rock, and high gain "High on Fire" tone for metal.  Today I played with the Tone shaping section to try and get two of these:  high gain metal and low gain overdrive.

I have to say that low gain overdrive is the hardest to get "right" with the sound in my head.  I think that's why there was so much fuss over the Tubescreamer pedals that Stevie Ray Vaughn popularized.  He sort of gave everyone a "base" to start from.  There's a billion tubescreamer clones and light overdrive circuits in the pedal world.  Am I happy with what I"ve done in Rocksmith to get the sound?  I'm about 75% happy.  I would like my natural tone to get out a little bit more, but none of the low gain pedals have a mix built in to run a dry signal through.  I may have to go to the regular drive category and just really roll off the drive.  My real Marshall amp does not do this sound very well, I need to break out my amp modeler and test out some stuff.

I am about 90% satisfied with my high gain metal tone I have though.  I looked up Matt Pike's amps and found that there might be a clone of it in Rocksmith.  So I chose that amp, maxed the gain, and then put a high gain distortion pedal in front to boost it even more.  Its pretty awesome sounding metal bliss.  There's a lot of Matt Pike inspired metal guitarists out there these days, so I can cover a lot of ground with his sound.  Take away some bass in the signal and you can get a lot of Mastodon's sounds, for example.  I'm not a squeally diddly diddly dealeo doo kind of metal fan.  I'm more of the Black Sabbath heavy riff kind of metal fan, and Matt's tone is sort of an Iommi on steroids kind of sound.

Wahhhhhh and Day 34

The Wah, the Auto-Wah, and the Envelope Filter.

These are some of my favorite filters for just having "fun" with.  If you are new to instruments, you can sound like you know what you're doing if you have one of these to play with.  Its the funk "wick wicka wick wah" sound, the "bow chicka wow wow" sound.  To the new, they all seem the same, but to someone presented with the 3, it becomes a little more clear.  So here's what they are, and consequentially the differences.

First off I should talk about the origins.  The origins in modern music is thought to be traced back to the 20's and 30's when horn players learned they could manipulate the horn mute in and out to create a "wah" kind of vocal sound to their playing.  Later this was reproduced in electronics in the form of a Wah Pedal, later came the envelope filters.  Sitars are known to be able to make this type of sound too, but the influence in modern rock is from the horn players.

A wah-pedal is a filter that let's you change the filter's "Peak" by using your foot.  Where the peak is determines where the sound gets highest or lowest in the signal modulation.  You can hear it very noticeably in Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child(slight return)".  The Wah-pedal makes every performance a unique experience, with slight changes in how much the player uses the pedal affecting how the song sounds.  The performance is not standardized, but there's much more "expression" from the player.

(video above is my favorite pedal of any type for any instrument of all time, the Bass IQ from EBS)

Technically an Auto-wah is an Envelope Filter.  A pedal uses an Envelope follower to create a voltage from the volume signal of the guitar.  This volume signal changes the peak of the modulation of the signal.  The difference is that an Auto-wah typically stays set at a fixed position that you choose and creates a much more consistent sound.  This is useful for recording or freeing the player from having to manipulate a pedal and focus on playing.  The notes will always trigger the auto-wah at the same spot and make the same sound.  What is typically known as an Envelope Filter allows the intensity of your playing to alter the sweep.  If you play lightly, you sweep slower, lower, longer and softer.  If you play hard, you'll trigger the sound to make a fast, quick, snappy and short sweeping sound.  It brings in the "expression" from a wah pedal, but frees the player from having to mess with a pedal just like an auto-wah.

I am a huge fan of Envelope Filters on bass guitar, though my enthusiasm for wah of all types on guitar is growing.

Day 34

Wow.  Some days.  Some times there's like this thing in the air.  Your state of mind, the atmosphere, the guitar is tuned just right or the knobs on the amp are tweaked to some kind of point... Today I had the most metal practice session ever.  Like, I would not mind playing in front of some people kind of playing.  I needed extra arms to make the lml etal horns while I played.  I was playing so metal, I am pretty sure that I accidentally bumped into actual parts of Black Sabbath songs.  I would look up those parts to see how close I was to them, but then I'd be so excited I'd play 3 more hours and I just can't do that right now lol.

Its snowing outside, and I'm pretty sure I was playing the Viking raiding anthem.  I dare not entice them more.

The ironic thing is, I was like "ok, today I'm mastering the next tier of "Simple kind of man".  A song that is decidedly un-metal.  I just don't know what got into me, but I kinda wished it did so more often.  Anyway, I have began noticing people playing chords that I know while watching TV, movies or youtube.  Now I'm starting to recognize when people are playing a bunch of power chords.  I was watching some really good pedal demos today, demos done by the people that make the pedals, and they sounded really good and all they did was play power chords.  I experimented with power chords which lead to my metal practice today.

I know there's a hipster sort of thing going on and has been for a long while, where if someone is playing a lot of power chords, some smart ass says "pfft, they're just playing a bunch of power chords" and frequently its by people that a power chord is just about the only term outside of "note" that they know.  Come on.  People are better than that.  Music is music.  Do not become a snob of technique, because let me tell you, unless you're Bucket Head, Joe Satch or Malmsteen, there's always going to be someone that can put your skill to shame.

Appreciate the simple and complex.

And never be ashamed of the music you make(I need to listen to this advice myself).

Hand stretches and day 33

Don't be a hero.

Everyone should be warming up their hands and arms for use before playing.  I am surprised this is not gone over in Rocksmith.  When I first started bass, I had to find ways of keeping my fingers and arms moving at work throughout the day.  They would get tired and ache all the time while I was playing.  Now that has not been an issue for years.  Since I very much play notes and I arpeggiate chords with bass, I never really had to stretch my hands.  I stopped doing the stretching exercises.

I have had to start that again.  My arms do not ache(maybe my shoulders, but that's already stopping only 33 days in), but I know that my fingers could stretch for chording a lot easier if I started up a stretching routine.  While looking on youtube for some recommended ones, I came across 2 different people that talked about not stretching before playing guitar, getting carpal tunnel, and having to not play for 4-5 months because of it.   It doesn't even take you 5 minutes to do the adequate stretches.  Here's a stretching vid, it is more comprehensive than the "for guitarists" vids I've seen, and I have found it is really really good.

The results are immediate.  This is not something you have to do a few times before you see the result.  Now, over time you'll be able to stretch further, yea, but immediately your chording should feel a lot better after doing stretches like these before you play.


Day 33

Split my playing in 2 today, so I got more Guitarcade practice in than usual.  This is because I really do use them to warm my hands up.  I guess its a good time to do a post about hand exercises, you've probably read it before this then, even though I'm typing it after, so I'll not go into it here.

I've been neglecting going through my session mode missions.  I pretty much figured out everything on screen in the first couple of times playing.  I'm not someone that can ignore something and say "I'm sure I'll be told what it is later".  No, when I'm presented with something I don't know, I instinctively find ways of figuring it out if I can't figure it out myself.  So going through those missions were tedious, but there is one saving grace: the recommended bands part of the missions.  I probably would not have rocked with a kazoo, something I do just for "fun" in the past few days, if I had not been given the band as a mission requirement.  Session mode continues to be very important for me, as I wish I could jam with people more than I do.  Nothing helps more than playing with other people.  Playing by yourself in your room or garage, you can develop an isolation syndrome where you think you're improving, but you're not really doing anything useful to anyone but yourself.  To your ear its a neat new phrase, but without knowing how it fits in with a band, it may be kind of bad.

I am seriously about to give up on the "learn a song" section of the game.  I have yet to learn any skills for playing other things while playing a song in this section.  When I'm playing, the song is broken up into so many small chunks, and the difficulty swings wildly from easy to hard at the drop of a hat, and I focus more on doing the thing instead of learning a song.  Seriously.  I think I'm done with that aspect.  It does not help me.  I only get angry.  Not because the songs are too hard, that would never make me angry, but the way the game adjusts and chops up the songs, its useless to my brain.  It helps zero.  Maybe time will change it.  I've several times said "ok, today I'm going to play a crap ton of Learn a Song" only to get so angry I have to walk away from the Tv for a few hours.  I'm not an angry person, its not easy to make me angry.  If I focus on Lessons, Guitarcade, and Session mode, I can play for 2+ hours and not blink.  Five minutes into Learn a Song and I"m ready to break stuff.

I guess I"m a little harsh on the Learn a Song thing.  There's plenty there that can help people.  Its not bad for me due to Ubisoft's lack of trying.  I think I've just convinced myself over the years that Guitar Hero is a waste of effort if its not for a room full of people, that playing tiny bits of songs that don't make you sounds like a song is a waste of my time.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted if this changes.  I hope it changes.

Legendary: Bass of Doom and day 32

It is no secret that Jaco was a troubled man.  Mentally unstable and an abuser of drugs, Jaco's reputation for being troubled was only matched by his virtuosity as a bass player.  In a spark of this inspiration, he pulled the frets out of his Fender with a butter knife, filled in the holes with plastic wood, and then coated the board with epoxy.  He had just invented the modern Fretless bass.

I waited to talk about this bass till after I had said something about the "Tool" vs "Art" views people have on instruments.  Jaco definitely fell in the "tool" category.  All he cared about was the sound that it made, and so he had several basses over the years depending on the sound he wanted.  His most famous though was a 1962 jazz that he defretted, now called "The Bass of Doom".  Jaco was reported to have drug it around by its headstock, letting the body scrape on concrete and tile floors.

In the mid-60's, the broadcast company CBS bought the Fender company and started running it like any other business.  They started gutting out the higher quality parts and started substituting bulk supplies of wood, cheaper grade hardware, and cutting corners on assembly.  The 1962 that Jaco played was a Pre-CBS Fender, of which the Jazz bass is the rarer type, as the P-bass, Stratocaster, and Telecaster had been made in the 50's, and in higher numbers.  It is of the most valuable and expensive bass types in the world.


Shortly before Jaco met his death, his bass was reportedly stolen from a park bench in New York.  Jaco was never one to cherish the instrument, and simply left it there while he did other things.  The bass disappeared for many years until someone brought it into a shop in 2007 to sell it for some cash.



How did the bass disappear so easily?  Well it was almost always photographed in its 70's and 80's condition.  In 1986 the bass was broken into chunks.  For five months a luthier put it back together.  They had to use maple vaneers on the top and back of the body to add stability.  This radically changed the look of it.  There were also other rumors.  There was confusion over if the bass had been lightly spray painted purple by the mentally unstable musician in his later years.  Also, there were many look alikes by the early 90's, as the color was common, and so were the modifications that Jaco had popularized.

The guitar resurfaced and Jaco's family went to court to get it back.  The most recent bassist for Metallica was a huge Jaco fan, and spared no expense to help the legal proceedings go toward the family of Jaco.  It is still owned by him, though the family can buy it back at any time for the price Robert Trujillo payed the family.  It is reported that Robert has let many of Jaco's famous followers come over to admire and play the bass.

Day 32

I"m continuing to make progress in my chord work.  I'm picking up the chords fast, but being able to switch between them accurately or fast enough for a song is taking time.  I am doing better than I ever imagined I would, but then again chords have always been the bane of my music progression.

I have an envelope filter that I bought for use with my bass guitar.  It is a cheap one, but regarded well among several people since it can be used for bass or guitar.  Years ago was the last time I plugged it into my guitar, and I don't think I got a single usable or musical sound out of that combination.  That's why it took me years to try it again.  I'm happy to say that my skills have definitely improved since the last time.  I had a lot of fun with it, and its definitely something I plan to do more often to lighten my spirits.  An envelope filter is sort of like an auto-wah.  It is dynamic in its execution, so if you pick hard, you get a quick and snappy "womp" but if you pick lightly and slow you get a "woooooooomphh".  If you mute the strings, you get a sort of poppy sound like opening a wine bottle.  Its an essential sound for funk.

I have begun to find power chord areas on the neck that I really like and sound decent through a clean, kind of acoustic setting.  I'm mainly saving these sounds in my head for when I don't have to substitute power chords, and use real chords.  Its a kind of "saving for later" thing I guess.  I have a few sound recordings of things from before this Rocksmith challenge started, and as I have progressed, so too have these sound recordings progressed.  They've gone from a wide open, tons of incorrect notes, to a more focused, smaller amount of incorrect notes.  Still, I think they are sounding better as time goes.

Spotlight Guitarcade: Scale Racer and Day 31

Scale Racer

Scale Racer is a game where by you steer a car through lanes of a highway by playing scales.  The highway has cars you must avoid, and also you are being chased by the police.  If you wait to change lanes till the last moment, you can make the police cars crash into civilians.  This scores you extra points on top of whatever it takes to finish the course.

I would say that this game most resembles and sounds like an old racing game that all my cousins and I played tons of: Rad Racer.  There are elements of the newer Need for Speed: Hot Persuit, and also a bit of Sega's Outrun.  The colors used on screen and the car chosen to represent you makes me feel that they mainly used Rad Racer.  The music also more reminds me of the Nintendo's sound effects than any arcade game.

Scale Racer is probably my pick for the best average between learning and fun.  Scale Warriors wants to get your used to switching between scale parts, but you're memorizing enemy patterns more than scales, while Scale Racer more easily teaches you the scale shape.  This is, of course, just my opinion.  I have barely touched Scale Warriors, but I have played the hell out of some Scale Racer.

Additions, criticisms? Aside from being able to edit your own parameters, which is lacking in most Guitarcade games, I think the main changes to be made would be cosmetic.  I think it would be really cool that if your choice of headstock, inlay, and amp skins would affect how your car looks and sounds.  Just a cool thought.

Day 31

I'm over the 1/2 way point?  I'm having such a fun time doing this blog that I'm not sure I'll stop updating at 60.  I'm getting encouraging feedback from friends, and thinking of stuff to post above the memoirs gives me a sort of satisfaction that I've missed since highschool(I'm a nerd).  I have some ideas on what I'm going to do.  We'll see how it goes.

Instead of messing around with the in game Tone Shaper section, I ended up playing with my actual amp for much of the day.  I found that it actually has a pretty good hi-gain setting that allowed me to nail "The Beautiful People".  Yesterday was the loudest I have had the amp up while doing palm mutes, and I have to say that I see why high gain amps are popular for metal.  It is not just the howl that they give, it makes palm muted notes sound amazing.

There are a few tones I'm having a problem getting set up though.  The lighter overdrive settings pretty much do not exist in this amp.  I am getting addicted to the tiny bit of dirt when doing blues inside Rocksmith, which is funny because I have always disliked the "Tube Screamer" pedal clones, and now I think I want one.  Tube Screamers are named more aggressively than they really are, its actually a low gain, low dirty overdrive sound.

The amp I do have is really good at getting the ACDC tone, which is my favorite guitar tone of them all, so its not like I have fallen out of love with my amp.  I've had this thing for over a decade now, and its worked flawlessly.  At the time I got it, there just was not the low watt tube amp options that there are now.  I do have a mid-2000's amp modeling digitech amp station, which is kind of like a less advanced "Tone Shaper" from inside Rocksmith.  I will have to look at getting that Tube Screamer tone with it.  Nu-metal and Triple Rectifiers were all the rage then, so it abounds with high gain amp sounds, I don't know how much low gain stuff it can do.

Crop circles and Day 30

Because of my wonderful mother, I was able to purhase a bass I had been searching for that was getting rare.  My credit was not good enough to get the limit raised, so she let me order it through her credit.  This is how I got in possession of a bass much nicer than I deserved.

Within the first month of owning, I had belt indentations on the back of it.  I did not wear belts back then.  I do however have several cousins that do, and several of them had played the bass.  If you're somehow reading this and suspect you're one of the cousins, then I have to thank you.  I was not mad at the time, and I am not mad or angry now.  I never plan on selling that bass, so retail value means nothing to me.  What happened was good for my psychology.  The first "dent" had been done, and it was over with.  If you ever buy a new instrument that is beyond your means, then you will know what I speak of.

I will enter "zen master" mode again, and tell you that getting a guitar that is so "precious" to you that you're afraid to take it jamming to a friend's house, or even play it without taking a lot of precautions is not a good idea.  I do not expect you to take my advice, as I had gotten it myself from wiser, older players and proceeded to ignore it.

Some people see instruments as a tool and that they shouldn't be vanity objects, but I say you should have something that excites and pleases you.  Unlike that top of the line smart phone you have, your instruments will not become obsolete and unplayable simply due to new models in less than half a decade.  So if there is something you can reach for that is going to make you keep reaching for it day after day, then maybe consider taking steps to acquire it.  Just don't put your livelihood in danger over it.

And brace yourself for it to not be perfect.  You see that part where I said "inspires you to keep reaching for it?"  Yea, being afraid to get a 3,000 dollar Les Paul out of its case, or being afraid that you may "play it too much" and get some ware on it, that's not "reaching for it every day".


Day 30

It has surprised me with how fast I'm learning to use the G chord.  When I first looked at the G chord, or in other times previous, I have thought it was awkward.  I want to use my pinky for that last bit on the high E string.  Due to bass, it is very much strong enough, and right now I just can't see any disadvantage of using it there.  If I need to do a quick change in the vicinity, my ring finger being free would just make it faster.  I guess time will tell.

I still pretty much make a A minor chord to get my fingering correct for the C chord.  I can directly thank Rocksmith for being use to this change as its in the practice track under Chords 201.  I've gotten the changing between A Minor, C Major and G down pretty well, so now I will be working on my intermediate strumming pattern for Simple Kind of Man.

As a quick aside, I played the harmonic game inside Rocksmith, Harmonic Heist I believe it is.  It is similar to the Ninja game for slides, except you do the harmonic and try to avoid being in view while guards are about.  I rather like it, and its not a pain in the ass like the ninja slides are on the low E.  I want to work Harmonics into my playing since I want to do it as a bass player as well, so I can see myself playing Harmonic Heist much more.

Also, I would say that String Skip Saloon is getting ridiculously hard, but if I step back and think about it, it probably means that they are focusing on things I'm less familiar with.  The D and G strings give me trouble because I rely on going to either the A string first or the B string first, and going up or down, I do not go strait to the D or G.  I'm guessing the focus in this area is where the game has taken me, so its good I find it hard, its something I need to work on.

Straps and Kazoos and Day 29

I have a strap problem.



It is weird some of the things you realize about yourself.  I've known for quite some time that I try to get the strap that matches best with my instruments, to me it was common sense, something everyone does, right?  Well apparently I have something deeper than that.

My girlfriend and I were at the music shop earlier this week and looking at the acoustics on the wall.  They had 4 of the same model, just different adornments and cosmetic changes on the wall.  It is at this point I want to emphasize that they all sounded pretty well.  I looked at all 4 and listed them to myself "this one here is most like the kind of bass I'd go for".  It was made of a rare figured wood, with just a few adornments.  "this is more like the electrics I'd go for".  It had more Gibson-esque inlays and adornments with a solid color.  "I think I like this one least".  The least one had garish inlays all up and around the neck, and the body we very embelished with abalone, and even the color was a color I shy away from.  No way does this guitar say anything about me.



Then I went to look at the straps they had at the store, which were situated so that I was looking at these guitars while I looked through the straps.  They had the usual nylon, something I'd only get for a super pointy 80's guitar I'd never buy in the first place.  Then there was this why leather one with these tasteful, almost japanese styled flower imprints dotted here and there.  It matched very well with the garish looking acoustic, and suddenly if I was going to buy one of these 4 acoustics, the one in last place suddenly became a contender for first place.  It was then that I realized I had a problem lol.

Realizing a problem is the first step to fixing it.

I hope.

This is the part where I be a responsible example and tell you that you should pick a strap based on comfort first and looks last. But, come on.  That works if you're being all "zen master" but we all know its more "oh this looks cool... is it comfortable".  Its fine to go for looks, just DO NOT FORGET the comfort part.  Oh and its physics, if your guitar is hurting your shoulder because its heavier than you're used to, get a wider strap.  Padding can help, but not as much as adding an extra inch of wideness.



Day 29

So today I jammed out with a kazoo.  Yea, I'm surprised as you are.  There is actually a kazoo in the Session feature and its featured in a band i had to use for a mission.  My guitar has enough fuzz on it to basically be a kazoo, so sometimes it was hard to tell them apart lol.  It was a nice, uppity ditty in Pentatonic Major in the key of C I think it was.  Maybe it was A.  Not my cup of tea, but a fun experience none-the-less.  You kazoo players take heart, someone in Rocksmith is carrying the torch to legitimize your musical instrument of choice!

I also played in a "Newgrass" blues based country band.  I played in Pent Major again, but this time in G.  So far the key of G is my favorite for blues playing, so this was actually pretty cool.  I'm no where near as good with the Major Pent as I am with Minor though, but practice practice practice as they say.  Speaking of things in the key of G, I'm currently practicing transitions out and into G with the chords I already know.  This is going to open up several new paths for me, song wise.  I honestly can't remember if I have said this already, but watching a Foreign Film with Subtitles really helps me stay in one spot, and focus while I play through the chords.  I live in a world where since middle school they have taught multi-tasking as the "normal" resting state, and worked as a chef where the difference between good and bad is how well you can multi-task, so its hard for me now to sit there and do one task and not feel like I'm wasting time.  I know watching a film and practicing are technically 2 things, but it could be much much worse.

I really need to redo all my preset sounds.  My mainstay, based on a plexi/OCD overdrive sound just doesn't have enough low end to sound nice when palm muting, and also it has a little too much dirt for the kind of stuff I'm practicing with these days.  I still never got a fuzz I liked, but then again I'm not playing anything where fuzz fits all that much.  I think tomorrow I'm going to get a cleaner, fatter over drive for my primary, and a high gain "High on Fire" sound for a backup.

Spotlight Guitarcade: Return to Castle Chordead and Day 28

Return to Castle Chordead

Return to Castle Chordead is a game focusing on helping you transition from Chord to Chord, while learning the chords.  In it, you have a sort of lightning guitar that will shoot the enemies as you play the chord that appears above their heads.  If it takes a while, the chords will start showing up in a chart near the enemy.  You "fly" through the level in first person mode, stopping at scenic areas while the enemies, in this case they are the undead, come at you.  Play the right chord, shoot energy at the undead, destroy them.

This game is based on the old rail shooter by Sega, "House of the Dead".  It is said to be "on rails" because you do not really control how you move, it is more like a roller coaster that stops while you shoot zombies.  This type of game has already been used in learning, as there is a "Typing of the Dead" series where you typed words and phrases to attack the zombies.




Return to Castle Chordead was a wonderful surprise to me.  I played it first because I had a mission to, and it was way back in the beginning days of me playing.  I thought I would be horrible at it, since I was horrible at the space shooter game.  To my surprise, I did really really well in the first game.  The graphics are right up there with the House of the Dead when it first came out, so I think it matches the style very well.  Return To Castle Chordead is super campy though, but I think that is very much on purpose.  It is almost a parody of House of the Dead instead of an homage.

My main problem with it is that you are not in control of the chords used.  I really think it would be much more useful if the difficulty was based on the enemies, not the difficulty of the chords, and you get to choose the chords if you wished.  I guess it makes it much more of a "game" to make you progress through though, so maybe its incentive to keep playing.  Still, this is a sort of minor criticism that could fit in a few games in the Guitarcade.

Day 28

Something new and awesome happened today.  I was at my girlfriend's house and she had the TV on as background noise while she made me a wonderful dinner.  I glanced up from my tablet and saw a girl playing the guitar in some commercial for the Disney Channel.  The cool thing was, I was picking out the chords she was using.  I was doing it by sight, and I was recognizing the way she was holding her fingers.  This is really cool to me, and it makes me excited about my musical future.  One day I hope I could do that by the sound alone, but biology may have made that impossible, at least I could watch someone play a song and learn it by watching instead of having to look up notation or "how to" videos.

I am finding that saying the chord is really helping me while I do my stuff in Rocksmith.  I am used to video games, and there was a time I played some Guitar Hero.  The colors come and go and you're not worried really about remembering WHAT the color is, only that you pushed the button are are waiting for the next color.  Video games have conditioned my brain to a certain way of learning.  Some how, when I say "E minor" or "A minor" its getting stuck in my brain that I'm not playing a game, I'm learning guitar.  I also kind of equate this habit with being able to watch other people play and recognize their chords.  Instead of thinking "oh that's the part of the practice song here where I do this" its "that's an E minor".  I don't know if I'm really describing it correctly ir explaining why saying it helps, you'd think that's be like saying "looking at your fingers helps", that it would be something you'd want to eventually ween yourself off of doing.  I guess it is just making it feel like learning and less like performing the correct procedure in a game.

A few days ago I went and bought a few things for my musical stuff.  One of the things I picked up was a 1.14 mm gauge pick from Dunlop.  When I first started I got the "medium" gauge Fender picks.  A few years back I wanted to try picks on my bass, you know... cause sometimes you just wonder.  Anyway, I had several left over and I've ended up using a .88 dunlop since I've started the Rocksmith challenge.  Well, I have to try the extremes, I can't see myself ever liking anything flimsier than a Fender "medium", so now I need to find the top.  This 1.14 has basically no flex to it.  The attack this thing makes(the strike through on the string) is really intense.  I do not thing I do chords very well using it, but I really like the sound my blues playing sounds with it.  I like it, but I really think that .88 is what I'm going to stick with.  The .88 picks are still very stiff, but not so stiff they make chord strumming too distinct.  With the 1.14 I was almost sounding like I was quickly arppegiating the chords.

Self indulgence and Day 27

Warning: this is purely a post about gear.  It is a What If scenario of if I had all my money from my bass rig in my hand and went to buy guitar stuff instead, what would I have.  Some people are turned off about this sort of pie in the sky dreaming.  I won't be selling my bass gear, EVER.  Its just that its day 27 and I need topics to go in between my other topics.  So excuse me if I get self indulgent for a while, feel free to scroll down to the Day 27 memoir.

Well first I have to decide what to do about the money in my cabs.  Guitar cabs have the same advantage as sub-500 dollar guitars, they sell really well.  So the markup on them are less than bass cabs.  Also, they are smaller and lighter by their very nature compared to bass speakers.  Much of the money in my bass cabs are features that you just do not get in guitar cabs to amplify the price.  So, I am going to allocate my speaker costs 50% into the amp and 50% into the guitar.

The Guitar

Wait a minute, you may say, I thought you were into SG's?  Well I am, but fortunately SG Standards with the options I want are doable under $1000.  Plus, the last few years Gibson has been futzing with the pickguard, and I like the 70's "batwing" pickguards.  So used is where I'd go these days.  Also I have an SG already, so to get the most bang for my buck, I'm looking at Les Pauls.   I change which bursts I like all the time, currently I'm on a Caramel-burst or Tea Burst phase.  These Standard Premiums are being liquidated for a huge mark down as of this writing.  Flame top?  Check.  Binding? Check.  Pickup covers? check.  Trap inlays? Check.  No pre-installed pickguard, meaning I don't have "worm holes" in the top?  Check.  This is the picture of a Les paul that people have in their minds when they think Les Paul.

The amp

Blackstar HT20

For what I do, I think 20 all tube watts is what I need.  I would go with the 5 watt version, but I plan on using the clean channel for any heavy metal pedals I want to change the sound with.  I keep switching between wanting Egnator and Blackstar, but currently I hear so much good stuff about Blackstar.  Also, they were once employees of Marshall, so I'm not too far from my old fanboy self when I go for Blackstar.  An effects loop is a must, so the Marshalls of this price range are out.  I would get two of the 1x12 cabs they have for their HT5 series.  Each is rated at 50 watts, so I'm still safe.  I like having 2 1x12's for the same reason I did that with my bass, its just more versatile of a set up.  I enjoy being able to keep one at home, and keep one at a practice spot if I wanted, and use them both if playing outside.

And... I have a ton left over. There are more expensive Les Pauls, but what's the point?  That's my dream Les Paul right there.  There are 40, 50 and 100 watt version of that amp, but that means I'd go deaf before I have the natural tube overdrive I like.  Sticking with the premise, all being spent on music gear, I guess I'd go looking for my dream SG, which would be used and I'd still have money left over.  I'd have a "beater" SG and a fancy SG, I would have enough left over for a les paul studio.  Maybe a caramel burst Les Paul Studio pro so I'm not too scared to take a Les Paul to friend's homes for jam sessions.

And there's a lesson to be learned in that last sentence.  Well, that'll be another post for another day.



Day 27

I did lots of stuff today.

Aside from my warm up in Guitarcade, I'm adding the Chord 101 and Chord 102 practice tracks to the warm up.  I have a solid 45 minutes of "warm up" time in Rocksmith now.  I know as I type these up it might seem like I do less and less Rocksmith, but its not true, its just that its kind of routine at the moment while I work on chords.

I'm ending up with 2 separate journals. One is for theory notes, scale shapes, chord charts etc.  One journal is my song notation book.  Each song I put in here will have its chords, its key, and whatever information I need to memorize.  I will have different versions and strum patterns for them, and then set up my personal arrangement.  Why have a personal arrangement?  Well if someone asks you to play a song while they're just hanging out, they aren't looking for 5 minutes of lone guitar and no vocals.  They want the high points of the song that are recognizable, so this is the kind of "1 minute arrangement" that I want to come up with for requested songs.

I am practicing a very versatile song that I feel is going to help me with lots of my chord playing.  It is "Simple Kind of Man" by Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the lyrics just rub the the wrong way.  I've grew up hearing this song and I know a lot of people that know the song.  The song is 3 chords, and you can do a very simple version, a version with advanced strumming patterns, and even a power chord arrangement over it.  There's also the version that most resembles what you hear on the radio, with lots of embellishments.  I am very good at going from C Major to A Minor thanks to Rocksmith, both of those chords are taught by the Chord lesson tracks, and also used fairly early in Return to Castle Chordead.  I'm needing to work the most on the G chord, which is new to me.

Guitarcade Spotlight:Scale Warriors and Day 26

Guitarcade Spotlight: Scale Warriors

Scale Warriors is a scale practice game that focuses on you playing the notes in different orders and different amounts.  Every enemy of a type has the same patterns to them, so eventually you can combo kill them without even needing to see where they are standing.  Each successful note has your character jumping to the enemy and punching or kicking them to the next note.

The game takes its inspiration from the old 8 bit era beat'em ups like Double Dragon and River City Ransom.  The bad guys are a gang that has wronged the players, and you must proceed through "stages" where you fight regular bad guys and eventually special "boss" fights that have extended scale sequences.

I really wanted to like Scale Warriors, it was probably my most looked forward to game in the Guitarcade.  I am a scale playing nut, so I thought I'd play the hell out of it.  The reality is that I have not, as of yet, played a lot of it.  The Scale Racer game, to be spotlighted later, is better at teaching scale shapes IMO, while Scale Warriors is made for improving your general note playing abilities, and developing muscle memory patterns.  I think they have the games listed backwards when it comes to recommendations, I think Scale Racer should be first, and then you do Scale Warriors after.  As I learn new scales, I will use this game more, I think.

Day 26

I did quite a few things outside of Rocksmith today.  Last week Rocksmith got a lot of new Oasis songs to play, and there's one included with the game already.  I've seen that Wonderwall is made much easier by having a Capo, so I went today and bought a Capo.  It is really weird for me to own a capo.  Growing up, the Capo was this thing you got in your "starter" kits, but never knew exactly why to use it.  I don't remember a single friend ever using a capo.  So the fact that I know why to use a capo makes me a bit happy.  Also, if you have read this, I bitched about a lot of songs I want to play are in E Flat.  My brain actually lit a few sparks, and I had this question: If I tune E Flat, and use a capo on the first fret, isn't that being in E now?  So I shot the question to Google, and I was correct! You can, indeed, do that.  All the more reason for me to own a capo.

I'm working on going backwards through my scales in a musical way.  I can walk up and down my scales pretty easily, and I can make music with them and all that, but going from the B string to the G is just not as smooth as when I go the reverse way, or when I do E to A in the Pentatonic minor.  So I don't really need Rocksmith for that practice, I watch Yogscast videos on youtube and just absent mindedly practice this, committing it to muscle memory.

I also bought a 70's tastic looking journal and some colored pencils.  My brain works better when I write things down.  You can tell me a whole list of groceries 5 times in a row, and ask me to repeat it once, and I'll probably get 2 or 3 right.  My brain just doesn't store info like that.  I write the list down, and I'll be able to tell you, probably in order, 3 weeks from now, the entire list.  So that's what my journal is going to be, Skypp-notation on chords and scales.  Oh I have books, especially bass books, that talk about all this too.  But writing it down will help me out immensely.  Maybe it would help you too?  Try it out.

I did get some session play in at the end of the night.  Probably about 30 minutes?  I don't know, time flies when I'm in session mode.  Still, well over an hour of practice and guitar-study today.

The Teacher's Warning and Day 25

There is a warning that I hear a lot from videos on youtube and from teachers giving free advice to players in general.  The warning is "if you focus so much on learning 2 or 3 songs, then all you're learn is 2 or 3 songs".  This does speak to me.  I have a few songs I obsessed over on guitar as a teenager, thinking "if I learned to play this, I'd know I'm a guitarist".  It is dangerous because if you devote months of time to such a small set of skills, you will absolutely learn those 2 or 3 songs, but the risk is that you have left yourself with no new goals.

Well, I feel that I am past that point of danger, but my songs are still there.  I still have that list of "I want to break this out in case I'm playing in front of Cousin A" or "I want to play this one for my sister because she and I enjoyed listening to this song when I was little".  The warning still creeps in, and I'm worried I'm not advanced enough to do them without getting caught up in them.  But I think acknowledging the risk will help get over and past the risk.

So what's my list?  Here's a few.  I may add others to other posts later.

ACDC Highway to Hell.  I've mentioned before that this song shaped my music tastes, forever putting me on the path of pure Rock and Roll.  Plus all my cousins will love the hell out of hearing it.  All my cousins come over on Easter, so I can tell anyone thinking its inappropriate, "Catholic dogma says that Jesus descended into hell to rescue the righteous of the past".  So there.  Highway to Hell is appropriate for Easter and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Sweet Child O' Mine is a song I used to ask my cousin to play all the time.  The beginning just seemed so amazing to me as a young kid.  I hear that it is not all that hard to play the whole song.  I do have to contend with the whole E flat tuning though.

Yellow Ledbetter is a song that got me back into wanting to play guitar after learning bass.  I've learned that this song is basically a love letter from Pearl Jam's guitarist to Jimi Hendrix.  This got me back to listening to Hendrix and several songs of his that I had never heard before.  After Angus Young's style of playing, Jimi's bluesy stuff is the 2nd style to have the most influence on me.



Day 25

It was a Sunday, so it was a late practice.  In Rocksmith I did the guitarcade, and for a second time went completely through Return to Castle Chordead.  This game really does help.  In fact, I was going through the chords I had in my memory today and wow, I have actually learned quite a few that I can name while changing between them.  They aren't the super useful ones, but they are chords and I am able to practice with them.

I practiced tuning to drop D without a tuner.  I'm making headway.  I know there is a way to make a harmonic of a note and tune correctly using that by using your ears, but I need an example of that with some lessons.  There is a "special" lesson section in Rocksmith, and one of them is "Tuning by Ear" so I need to mark that for watching tomorrow.  I'll let you know how the video is.  Its rather unfortunate that its at the bottom when you sort by "recommended".

Impulse Buy and Day 24

Impulse buying is practically what Internet retail is based on.

I would not have gotten Rocksmith 2014 if it did not have a lot of songs that I personally like.and would not mind learning.  I like that there is some basic rock like Sixteen Saltines by Jack White, but also some metal like Blood and Thunder by Mastodon.

The classic rock offerings of Rocksmith 2013, 2014 and DLC is actually really really great.  The staples of the classic rock station are there: Dream On by Aerosmith, American Woman by The Guess Who, Carry on my Wayward Son by Kansas.  Drift Away by Dobie Grey.  All of that is DLC.

Pretty much any genre of Rock has some great DLC support.  I got Rocksmith with a PSN card and almost immediately went to buying songs I want to learn to play.  At $3 a pop, I was only going to be able to get a handful.  I easily got $60 in my cart and decided I should probably wait and see.  I think this is the best of advice, because I would have doubled my investment in the game, and I don't think I'd be playing most of those songs yet.

You might end up being like me.  I know there are people that are "learn the songs, and you'll learn the skills as you do the songs".  I've met them in real life, they exist.  I am just not one of them.  I am more academic.  It is not enough to know something is a chord, I want to know why its a chord.  I don't want to just know that these notes are played in a song, I want to know why these same notes are used in other songs too.  If I had a huge curriculum style book with quizzes and lesson reading, I'd have all the theory done in a heartbeat, I've always been very successful with "book learning".  I've got a mind for it.

So, so far, I do not rely on learning songs so much.

I'd do this: pick your 5 favorite songs from the original list and wait till you get them to 75% or so.  All five of them.  When you do that, then DLC may be a smart purchase.  Oh and for the record.... I'm 2 of 5 so far.


Day 24

I skipped ahead a few "recommended" lessons and went into some more chord lessons.  I do not think they emphasize the fact that your fingers will eventually stretch and learn to play these chords with time.  At least, that's what I've always been told and even people with small hands like me will be able to do them...

I realized I had not beat the first level of Return to Castle Chordead, so I devoted time to doing that.  I had to do a couple of "continues" during it, but less than I thought I would.  This game actually is pretty good at helping me memorize shapes and names of the chords they use, but I can't help but feel like they should let me customize what chords are used in stages.  I would like a sort of customized setting.  I am memorizing a handful of chords from the practice tracks and Chordead, but I do not think all but Em are recommended as frequently used in songs.  I guess time will tell.

I did some more session work with the Pent Major shape.  I really like the sound this scale is, it is very different than my blues and rock playing I've been doing since day 1.  It feels "pop" styled, and I'm pretty sure I've heard it as the basis of a lot of alternative acoustic songs.

Outside of Rocksmith... I almost broke down and ordered a 2nd guitar today.  I think I"ve said before that I would like a 2nd guitar I can take to places and practice with when I'm away from my PS3.  Today though, I found out that several of my most "want to learn" bands use Eb tuning.  I have put effort(and sucked at) tuning back and forth from Drop D without a tuner(I'm making progress though).  I accepted Drop D, I don't mind it.  The Eb tuning is every string being tuned down a half step.  This includes Jimi Hendrix, Guns N Roses, and Alice in Chains.  What a colossal pain in the ass.  Its like my Lead practice wants me to be in Eb, but all the chord songs I want to practice is in E standard.  I guess I'll need to come up with a list instead of just practicing what I feel like playing.

Solid State and Bass, also Day 23

The first question people will ask on this subject is "what is the difference?" and from a technological point of view, Solid State amps use diodes and transistors instead of tubes for their pre-amp and power sections.  There are hybrids, particularly with bass, where there are tubes in the pre-amp section and solid state in the power.

The problem is that a solid state amplifier will not compress a signal once the signal goes beyond what the design is created to handle.  Tube amplifiers will round off, compress, and fatten a tone with lots of harmonics, and send this signal to a speaker and it creates this magical "guitar" tone that we know today.  In a solid state amp, this signal is hard clipped.  It turns a mountain into a mesa, with a fat top.  You send this flat top signal to a speaker, and it makes the speaker want to destroy itself.  Well, not really, but a speaker is designed to move in and out, not to move out and stay out during the "flat" part.  This causes a speaker to malfunction.

Now why in the world would anyone want to use solid state?  Well, they cost less.  Their parts are manufactured for a myriad of electronic gadgets, so you can get the pieces and throw them together.  They also are more reliable, as there is less heat, and more stable parts used, in general.  There is another section of people that like them, and that is people wanting 100% clean tone.

The non-compressive nature of Solid State means that there are not a lot of overtones introduced to the signal, you have a pure clean tone.  Sure this kind of sucks if you want a creamy, rich, bell tone from your clean channel, but if you're applying a lot of amp modeling, effects pedals, or computer modulations, then a solid state signal is the "blankest" of canvases.

Then there are the bassists.  Bass takes A LOT more power to get the sound out into the audience than guitar does.  Some bass amps with tubes get up to the 300 watt range, but that's pushing it.  These monsters weigh over 100lbs without a speaker cab.  While on the solid state front you can get into the 1,000's of watts for under 1,000 dollars and under 20 lbs.  Now, 300 tube watts, when they are overdriven, can get insanely loud, but you're losing some of your "clean".  Solid state provides the largest, cleanest, most defined headroom for bassists.  There are other things to take into consideration, wattage is not a guarantee of volume, and the type of power supply will influence the sound as well, but in general bassists are much more accepting of solid state than guitarists.  Because of that, bassists now have literal pocket sized amps with 500 watts, and 4x10 speaker cabs that weight under 40 lbs.

Day 23

I warmed up with my Guitarcade as usual.  I also played some of the game based on Bending.  While still kind of inaccurate, the game did prove to be fun.  I think for a beginning guitar player, they should have stuck to the thicker strings further down the neck, because nothing will give beginners blisters faster than bending on the B at the 12th fret.

Anyway, I did the harmonics lesson.  Harmonics on guitar seem dreamily easily.  I wish they were this easy to do on bass guitar.  In bass guitar, harmonic play is like a top tier thing, up there with piano-esque tap play.  Jaco made himself legendary by making it a hallmark of his playing.  On guitar they almost seem effortless.  I know the lesson said that not every spot on the neck will make a harmonic, but it seems that just about any spot did.  This is not true of bass either lol.  Anyway, I got through the lesson pretty easily, but that might be because of my prior bass practice in the subject.

I did a lot of "amp" practice today, meaning I did it w/o Rocksmith.  It is just easier for me to practice scales and the songs I know with my amp.  I have a 25 foot guitar cord, and the amp is in a more convenient spot.  So I start a movie on netflix, put the amp on clean, and practice scale runs while I watch the movie.

I am really feeling the need to learn more blues-rock and rock style playing.  I keep doing the bluesy stuff I have practiced with for years, and I'm wanting to learn something new that I can improv in.

Music Branches and Day 22

In my post titled "Regression" I talked about being able to back up in time to find the influences of your favorite bands that would in turn be able to influence you in your playing with the same genre.  Sometimes though, you do not have to go back, but you can branch sideways in time.  For this I gave the example of "Grunge" in the 90's.

The person I was talking to likes some Nirvana.  I told this person that this was only natural, as their favorite genre was Punk.  I said that if you take the top Grunge acts of the early 90's, you can basically split them with Grunge and a more classic style and see EXACTLY how they formed their music.

If you take the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones, and Black Flag, and you add the typical Grunge characteristics to that style of music, you're going to get Nirvana.  Kurt Cobain wrote in his own personal journals that the Sex Pistols were thousands of times more important to him than The Clash.  He was also a huge fan of the pre-punk band The Stooges, and of their lead singer Iggy Pop.

If you look at the "world music" influenced heavy rock of The Who and Led Zeppelin, and then listen to Pearl Jam, you're going to see similarities there too.  Heavy 70's rock mixed with Grunge fits with classic Pearl Jam perfectly.  If you take heavy metal, like Black Sabbath and Motorhead, and mix that with grunge, you're going to get Soundgarden.

Being a fan of Grunge might lead you to being a fan of playing more genres than you ever thought you would.  Nirvana can lead you to Soundgarden which then leads you to heavy metal, or it can lead you to Pearl Jam which will lead you to classic rock.  All the while you can be going back and finding those influences and before you know it, you are a very very diverse musician.

Day 22

Holy crap did I play a lot in day 22.

Started out before lunch doing my warm ups in Rocksmith.  I have pretty much stopped doing Gone Wailin' every day, and I only play it when I'm in the mood for it.  It has helped me with my chord strumming, and I very much appreciated it, but I have lots to do now and I feel like I can drop it.  I still find Ducks Re-dux good for getting my mind thinking about the fretts, I kind of need it to get past the 12th fret faster, as I'm getting into some songs that use a lot of stuff up there but that marker skip to 15 is F'ing me up.

After lunch I checked out the Everlong that is in the game.  I had pretty much stopped playing this version because its a version of the song I never see myself playing.  I know the parts that I don't play, but I don't really practice them.  As I've said before, Everlong is done live with 3 guitars and a bass.  The "Lead" version on Rocksmith has stuff in it that sounds HORRIBLE unless you have a rhythm guitarist backing it up at the very least.  Anyway, I was doing a few things wrong, and I needed to know if I wanted to do the reverse lead up on the last uptake of the chorus.  I also went to youtube to see more versions of how people play it online.  I fixed a couple of things I was doing WAY wrong, and it has made my version sound much better.

I then decided to record my little bits of songs I use to practice the Pentatonic minor/major scales, and a few other little phrases I play a lot.  I named each one and recorded them on my phone in case I ever go a long time w/o playing them and want to remember them.

I then practiced several songs in Rocksmith that I had already done.  Blitzkrieg Bop I have learned and played to 95% completion.  I just mess up a little going through the whole song, but I know the parts.  That is by far my most done song, and its also rated the "easiest".  Though, Everlong has several songs rated below it on the easiness meter, and I disagree with it.  I tried Thunderkiss '66 and did quite well.  I was right to wait till I had done a ton of palm muting.  I am very surprised to do that it is tuned in Standard E also.  I did 16 Saltines and I am fairly confident that I could get all of it, except the solo, with an evening of really focusing on it.  I tried one of the random "I don't know this band" songs because it was listed as easy, and it was, but omg, I think i'd rather mute the TV.  There were a couple of more that I can't think of right now, I'm typing this the next morning instead of after the practicing like usual.

I watched a movie and playing in the pentatonics while watching the movie.  They are easy enough to do without looking at the fingerboard, so I was fine even though it was a sub-titled Japanese samurai movie.  So all in all, it was a real productive day.

Overdrive, Distortion and Fuzz day 21

Imagine a guitar signal as waves drawn on paper.  Sharp mountain looking waves.  In Overdrive, these waves are rounded off.  They are squished, or compressed, and this creates fat, rounded hills rather than jagged waves.  They are fat sounding, and full of new harmonics and multiple frequencies in the same area.  You get your guitar's tone, but also just a bit of dirty signal.  You can either increase your guitar signal into the amp and overdrive the tubes in the pre-amp, or you can push the amp's volume to louder than it is meant to go and get a power amp overdrive tone.  This really decreased the lives of the early tubes(not to mention it made audiences deaf).  Later, players wanted to be able to do this all the time, so they created pedals that would boost the signal before it got into the amp.  This would guarantee overdrive, these were the first Overdrive/boost pedals.

After the pedals came to be used, players found that you could REALLY push that signal through and it would distort the sound into a crunchy, broken up sort of sound.  They created pedals or modded amps so they you could puts large amounts of gain through a tubed amplifier, and this created Distortion.  It is enough overdrive to lose some of the characteristics of the guitar your playing, but it created enough rich harmonic overtones that it still sounded musical.

One day someone went mad, and said "what if we just cascade the signal on top of itself in a pedal and caused it to get so broken that you can barely even hear the original guitar's sound" and low and behold, Fuzz was born.  Fuzz can get so strong that you practically can't hear the original guitar signal put into it, but it creates a nice, enveloping fuzzy pattern that still responded to the guitar player.

So as you can see, Overdrive, Distortion, and Fuzz are all related, and are almost steps in a sequence.  Its a bit of light, medium and heavy "dirt".  In a later post, I will explain why distortion is such a problem for bassists.  Hint: it has to do with that flat line in the picture at the start.  That flat line sucks.


Day 21

I went back into the lessons today and did the Double Stop lesson.  This is yet another guitar thing that I had heard of that I had never really learned what it was.  Turns out, I knew what it was, and I did a whole hell of a lot of it with playing bass lines.  Its just that I knew it as droning.  I am kind of let down by what it is, because it sounds more interesting than it is.  It is just two notes played at the same time and typically is not part of a chord.  Now, I'm not sure if doing a octave thing with it counts as being a double stop, but I do that a lot too, its one of the reasons I took to playing Everlong pretty easily.

Which is kind of funny.  I already knew how to do power chords because of the Green Day songs I had learned years ago.  I already knew how to do the octave parts because, well, I like to do octaves on bass, I've been doing that for years.  So the only real part that was holding me back on Everlong were the thought that it would be too difficult, and the Drop D tuning, which I never did before.

Today I also started playing with the Pentatonic major.  I have to say after playing tons of the minor scale lately, I really like the sound of the major.  For some reason it makes me want to make slower, soft rock music.  I had to record a little piece I came up with while just practicing it.  I've not memorized completely the pattern yet, but I'll be working on doing that for a while.  Repetition, it can get boring, but its the only way to learn.

 

Regression and Day 20

I posted before how my decision to play what is fun to me helped me become a better bassist(and eventually a better guitarist).  The other way that broadened my horizons and improved my playing was finding my influences and looking at their influences.

Some of the players over at Talkbass have some amazing talent, and they show it in youtube videos.  As I began watching them I noticed that there were probably 2 real camps of play style that I liked.  There were the slappers, which I already knew their influences.  I really don't have a knack for it.  Another was the jazz bassists.  They idolized Jaco Pastorious and the artists influenced by him.  I had tried to listen to Jaco several times, and I just never "got" it.  Later I learned more theory, and I learned about more technique, and one day I listened... and it hit me.  It was one of the most game changing days of my musical creative hobby.  I understood what his fingers were doing, and I understood his techniques and I understood what was amazing about him.  There was still a lot of "elevator" music I could not stand to listen to, but I eventually found songs of his I liked.

I listened for more music that featured this sort of fast play "busy" bass playing.  Yes, finally, I heard John Paul Jones, frequently down mixed in songs so that Page got the spotlight, but I could hear him back there, going nuts, making great music.  From John Paul Jones I looked at those that he influenced and found Robert DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots.  I had their first 4 albums, so I go back and listen and holy crap does it sound like John Paul Jones' style.  Stuart Zender of Jamiroquai was kind of doing funk slap with this "busy" bass style too, Virtual Insanity has some great bass.  Many of the artists I found playing like this never cited John Paul Jones as a inspiration though, so I dug around and found that JPJ and many others idolized Motown.  I learned of James Jamerson, who played on more #1 songs than the Beatles and Elvis combined.  Songs like Bernedette by The Four Tops, What's Goin' On and Let's Get it On by Marvin Gay.  My Girl!  Heard it Through the Grapevine, I was Made To Love Her, Aint Nothin' like the Real Thing.  ALL JAMES JAMERSON.  I listened to these songs over and over, and learned the parts that I was good enough at the time to play. 

Guitar is like that too though.

Like ACDC or The Rolling Stones?  Angus Young and Keith Richards love Chuck Berry.  Even their tone is similar to the stuff Chuck was doing long before either were in a band.  If you look up Chuck Berry playing on TV you might see something familiar.  Angus Young's antics on stage.  The way he walks when he plays and the way he struts when he does solos, it is all an homage to Chuck.  Well if you want to play like Keith and Angus, Chuck Berry is a great way to start.  If you can play Back in Black or Highway to Hell, chances are you could play anything Chuck Berry has put out.

"aliens have found our voyager spacecraft and have sent a message, I will read it as it comes in... it looks like it is only 4 words long... the words are; Send More Chuck Berry"

Watch his solo in that video.  There's a lot of famous guitarists that got their start seeing this on TV and thinking it was the coolest thing they had seen when they were kids.

Rocksmith actually has this built into the game

I was talking to someone about punk.  They really like Greenday.  Well, Greenday has their influences as well.  I told them to listen to bands like The Clash and The Ramones.  Rocksmith has a Ramones song, and learning that would help with learning Punk in general, Ramones is a great lesson in punk rock's basic music origin.  I told this person that they could look outside of punk as well.  The Kinks is where a lot of the punk sounds came from, particularly the punk leading up to Greenday anyway.  Dave Davies pioneered the whole fuzz type of distortion, and if you can play several of the easier Green Day songs, then you have all the tools you need to play The Kinks' earlier stuff.  The Kinks is on Rocksmith 2014 as well.  So you have 3 good generations of "punk" music each separated by about 20 years, but each close enough that you could tell the influence.

This kind of lead to talking about genre mixing bands that are still taken together as a whole, but that's another post for another day.

Day 20

Today I figured I would do the Power Chord lesson.  Green Day's "Brain Stew" was a simple song I learned early on.  It was easy to play and it was recognizable by people I knew.  It was not until much later that I realized that this was the perfect introduction to Power Chords.  I practice Brain Stew even today, to keep my finger's memorizing that shape.  Power Chords keep their same shape all over the board, so unbeknowst to me, I was learning skills that would help me on about a billion songs.

The lesson was pretty well explained.  The problem I have with the lesson is that they do not going into the finger positions very well.  You start telling new players to use their pinky on something as simple as Power Chords and they are going to get sore, tired, and stop doing it.  I use the old blues man's left hand techniques.  I rarely use my pinky finger because I gotta be ready to bend strings at any situtation, so I learn to stretch my ring finger for that.

There is perfectly good ways to learn to use your pinky finger, I just don't think power chords is a way of doing it.  I have never seen anyone use their pinky finger on Power Chords in a real life applicable way.  I built my strength of my pinky playing My Girl on bass.  The version I played was based on the minor pentatonic scale and it turns out I was learning that shape without knowing it... so bonus.  But the point is, on bass the frets were so wide I had to use my pinky in that song.  I see people use their pinky while doing minor pent stuff all the time.  If you're going to give someone an exercise to build up physical conditioning, make sure it is going to be useful.

Anyways.  I feel like I have taken the lessons that have really interested me and stayed doing session mode stuff and improv way too much.  So for the next couple of days, I am going to focus on perfecting the lesson tracks of the last few lessons and even getting academic about the minor scale positions.  

Play what you like, even if you don't like it. And Day 19

Forgive me if I've ever given you this "speech" already.

I did not consider myself a "bassist" until I had this strange set of revelations.  One of these revelations was that I should embrace what I find fun to play.

I know that seems weird, but I have to explain a little.  I'm probably notorious around my friends were hating radio.  I really can't wait for 2 or 3 songs that I don't care for to get done for 1 tolerable song.  This means that it is hard for me to focus on learning any songs I find blah.  This also means I don't like playing "blah" bass lines that exist in a lot of classic Rock or the genres I listen the most to.  Its my flaw, I know I suck more because of it, but I try to live with it.

About 6 years ago I was turned on to "jazz improv" bass by the Talkbass forums.  I have to tell you, I can't sit and listen to this stuff really... but holy crap do I love to play it.  How can I explain that without sounding like a jerk?  Maybe its like the people that will play sports, but hate watching it on TV?  Maybe it reminds them that they should be doing it rather than watching it?  I do make myself sit and listen though, for learning reasons.  It has probably made me what people would call a "busy" bass player.

I read that John Paul Jones used to listen to horn players and that's how he got inspired for his bass lines in Led Zeppelin.  So I immediately got on Youtube and looked up the horn player I knew the name of, Louis Armstrong.   I also branched out.  The silly thing was, I forgot to go back and listen to more Led Zeppelin.  This came later with another "revelation" I will write about later.  By listening to that, I began appreciating the older "golden era" of horn player's music.  I also became a much better bass player, and learned a very clean, "poppy" sound as I tried to come closer to the sounds I heard on the jazz.

Anyways, all of that is to say, play what you find fun.  Sure, you've probably heard it, and you've probably thought "well yea, play what you like not what other people like" and I say YES BUT, maybe you find something fun that you don't like.  Play to your strengths.  You may love Punk rock, but you find you hate the bass lines.  You may despise Surfer music, but find tremolo picking to be tons of fun.  Play what is strong for you and it will make you practice more, and eventually you can work your style into the genres you like.

John Paul Jones works his motown inspired stuff into the heaviest rock that Led Zeppelin does.  Flea brought funk bass into punk rock.  Brent Hinds of metal band Mastodon is a bluegrass banjo player.  I have, on several occasions, brought my improv jazz into blues.  I am currently bringing the only thing I really know decently on guitar, simple blues riffs, into chugging palm muted metal.  Play what you find fun, play what is strong for you in technique, and then YOU can make it the genre you wish you were playing.  You may find your own voice and bring something new to the world.

Day 19

I'm not going to lie, I did not get a lot of playing in today.  I had jury duty and after I got home, I took a nap.  I used the guitar unplugged for about 30 minutes, noodling as I waited for lunch to get cooked.  Practiced the stuff I've been practicing lately.  I did play 1 game each of my "warm up" Guitarcade games.  I also played some of the Scale Racer.  I love the look of Scale Racer.  It reminds me of Rad Racer, a game I played a  lot in my youth.  Scale Racer is the kind of game that is going to help me learn scales.  I wanted Scale Warriors to help so badly, but I'm more focused on getting the "game" correct than learning anything.

I did get some practice in though, so I count that as a triumph.  You can take it as you will.

Legendary: Brian's Guitar and day 18

Brian May is the guitarist for Queen, and one of the greatest rock legends.

In 1963 though, he was just a kid with almost no money.  What he did have, though, was a father that was willing to help his son achieve his dreams.  Brian and his father scoured the neighborhood for materials.  Someone that lived near them was throwing away an old 18th century fireplace mantle, made of mahogany.  It was worm ridden in some places, but they were able to shape a neck out of it.  Next they planed some oak to be a fret board.  The inlays are mother of pearl buttons they collected.  The body is semi-hollow, being made of oak with a thin sheet of mahogany for the top.  Next he made a tremolo with a knife and some motorcycle springs.  He then found some old shelving plastic and used it to "binding" material, the outline around the body that is popular on Les Pauls.

He bought some pickups, but rewound them himself.  He also sealed their pots to protect the pickups from microphonic feedback.  This was important because he wanted to include a way to cause feedback on purpose.  His dad had enough electrical engineering know-how to help him achieve this.  He could then induce it at a whim, instead of walking in front of the speaker hand hoping it worked like Clapton and Hendrix did.  I personally did not know his guitar could do this, but now it makes so much sense.  There's this part in the solo of "We Will Rock You" that I used to characterize as "the guitar coming back and eating itself", but now that I am older, I realize its the self induced feedback that he designed to be in the guitar.  Its genius.

It took him and his father  two years to make the guitar, and now its given the world 40+ years of pure, epic, awesome rock.  The guitar now is a legend, and has been named "The Red Special".

I referenced BrianMayGuitars.co.uk to make sure I got the details right, and claim no ownership of the story.

Day 18

Today was a Sunday, so that means I had an audience while practicing.  I still have a lot of work to do on making Everlong sound really nice, and it is very hard to do an arrangement all by yourself without having a way of switching from clean to distortion.  Which, I can do do with my real amp, but the game amp not so much.  During "Learn-a-song" it will change automatically for you, as if you have a road crew.  No such luck in real life.

My girlfriend played some more of her favorite games and then shocked me with playing Smoke on the Water :)  I thought she had learned that in school band, but she said she once had an acoustic.  She had never gotten to play around on a electric with some nice distortion to it, so she had a lot of fun.  I have several times thought about buying an extra guitar to keep at her place so I could practice over there.  When I have the money, I think I'll need to get a practice amp so she can play the guitar whenever she wants to as well.  She has no PS3, so I can't loan her Rocksmith.

I loaded up a metal band in session mode, the "classic" one, I can't remember what its called right now as I type.  Just a week ago I had listened to it, and just could not achieve any type of mellowness with the band they presented.  Now, though, with palm muting, I feel like I can at least jam with a metal band.  Speaking of Palm Muting, I have heard of people using palm muting on acoustic before, but my mind just could not wrap around what or why people would do it.  I decided, since Sundays are kinda crazy anyway, to load up an acoustic simulator and see how it sounded.  I then played bayou, cajun sounding music for about 20 minutes.  That's the sound palm muting on an acoustic does.  Cajun blues.  My repertoire of genres is increasing 

Almost 1/3rd through the 60 day challenge, and I am very happy with my Rocksmith experience, I've learned things that even if I stopped using Rocksmith today, would be skills for playing guitar that I'd use the rest of my life.