Pick your Pick and Day 40

I'll get this out of the way first; the only advice you can really give about picks is to try them out and figure out which you like best.  Picks are like 25 cents, and you're going to wear a pick down and have to replace it eventually, so why not just get a few and test them out.

Other advice:

Thick, hard picks give you a very strong attack on the string.  They are less flexible but make a harder hit on the strings.  Many people that play more "lead" guitar, note for note playing as opposed to chords, prefer to use a stiff pick.  These picks will also tend to wear out faster if you use it for a lot of strumming.

Thinner picks are more flexible.  They are easier to move from string to string in a sweeping motion, so these are very adaptable to chord playing.  They are made to be flexible, so they wear out slower when it comes to strumming.  When it comes to note per note playing, they can actually slow you down a bit.  However more the pick has to be flexed to get past a string, the more effort it takes to strike the chord.  We're talking milliseconds here, but "feel" is subjective.

I personally like a .88 pick.  It would be considered a little bit more stiff than the "medium" side of the spectrum.  The lightest I can stand is a Fender Medium, I do not even like them very much for strumming.  I have a 1.14 pick that is too stiff for me.  They make some that are 3x as thick as that, they are so thick that they generally have a ground out "grip" on them so you don't feel like you're holding a brick.

I've seen videos of people using STONE or GLASS picks.  These have zero flex to them.  I would consider this extreme, but Brian May from Queen uses a coin that is just a tad bit bigger than a US dime.  Billy Gibbons from ZZ top uses a Mexican peso.  Some like Celluloid picks because of their flexibility and the traditional feel of them, but there is also tortex.  Tortex is a rougher plastic that provides a little more grip, this is my material of choice.  If you need even more grip there are specially treated picks with a rubberized surface to them.

Like I said at the start, you just need to try them out to figure out what you like.  Don't be afraid, they usually aren't expensive, and you'll lose many of them before they wear out anyway.  You don't have to be different, and you might want to worry about your strings before you go using a coin.  Work your way progressively towards the ends that you're comfortable with.  I plan on keeping some Fender cel mediums along with my tortex .88's.  Some times you just feel like a change.

Day 40

I've had too many silent(unpowered) nights of practicing chords.  Today I tried out my new amp set up.  I've got my amp elevated, so I've lost some of the low end in the sound.  I have cranked up the bass settings, but ended up just having to take the amp down to the floor when I was doing my metal practice.  I just have to "feel" those palm mutes.  If you keep your practice amp on a table, take that into consideration; you're losing low end.

I am fuzz-strated.  I can't get a fuzz in Rocksmith to sound like I want AND I can't get a fuzz sound from my multi-effects pedal into my real amp.  I guess that fuzz is just too hard to do digitally modeled?  I don't know.  I did put a high gain amp model into the dirty channel on my Marshall, and got an acceptable, but overly complicated Fuzz.  I want a Devi Ever Soda-meiser so very badly.

I finally recorded some of my heavy metal "phrases" I've come up with.  A few days ago I was going to play some for my girlfriend and my mind just went blank on the stuff.  Playing in front of someone messes with your memory I guess.  Anyway, I have recordings of a few of them now so I can just bring that up on my phone and job my memory.  For some reason I kept wanted to make it more "swinging" sounding in the beat.

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.

You are the flaws and Day 16(edit: added video)

When asked about who was his biggest influence as a guitarist, the technical shredder Steve Vai said this about Brian May

"I went down to their rehearsal, and he brought me up on the stage, and he let me play the guitar—the guitar that he built with his dad [the “Red Special”]. I couldn’t even believe that I was touching this instrument! He was so kind and so warm, and for who? This kid, you know? And I played his guitar, and it sounded like Steve Vai. Then when he played it, it sounded just like Brian May. It was very apparent to me that his tone is in his fingers and his head"

At first this just looks like admiration for a fellow guitarist, but there is deeper meaning in this quote.  See, there is this "quest" to get certain "tones" just like famous guitarists.  People will pay 100's even 1,000's of dollars to sound like certain people.  Cap10 Anderton from Youtube once said "Cobain's sound is easy to get.  You have this spectrum with Kurt Cobain on one end, and Brian May on the other"  It is well known that people can get close, but it is super hard to get a sound like Brian May's sound.  They point at his home made guitar, referenced above, and his use of a coin as his pick as contributing to his sound, making it impossible to copy.  Many guitarists know that Brian May is one of the "holy grails" of tone.  So here is Steve Vai, on purpose, basically saying "don't believe that tone bullshit, when I played it I sounded like me..

Its a wonderful lesson to take to heart.  Stop chasing tone.  You'll get close, but a lot of it is the player.  In the bass world there was a similar thing.  Michael Manring idolized Jaco Pastorious.  He said he spent half his waking hours trying to play like Jaco, but there was always these imperfections in the sound, the strings not ringing just right, or the bass vibrating just a little off.  For years he practiced and practiced, trying to get these flaws out.  He said that one day he realized that the "errors" were him coming through.  These weren't flaws, this was his body's tone, his finger's touch, his mind's detail, and he learned to embrace that in his playing.

The only people expecting you to sound 100% like someone else are people that do not have the experience of trying to not sound like themselves. Be yourself, let yourself shine through.  People will know what song you are playing, and they'll hear you in that song too, if they can't appreciate the time and effort you put into learning a song, then don't sweat it... or hand them the guitar and say "show me how you would do it better"

Day 16

As I type this, my fingertips on my left hand are still numb.  I guess that's a step up from sore.  Still no blisters thankfully.  I spent almost all of today playing "Everlong" by the Foo Fighters.  I learned the main parts from Rocksmith, but figured out how I wanted to play it by watching some solo versions on Youtube.  Rocksmith, at least on lead, gives you the slightly higher pitched version that sounds slightly awful by yourself.  Generally, live, Foo Fighters play this song with 3 guitarists and a bassist.  The "lead" version is all nice when you have a rhythm section backing that up, but if you're playing by yourself, I suggest you watch how youtube acoustic arrangements are done.  Of course it doesn't hurt to learn it how they present it in Rocksmith, you never know when you'll be playing the song with a partner.  I'm still sloppy on the buildup to the chorus, but people would recognize the song if I played it.

For the first time since I started the game, I hooked up to my actual amp instead of just playing in game.  My stereo's speakers are pretty good, aside from the "feel" of it, I did not think I was losing all that much playing inside game.  Besides, in game I can switch my tones very quickly and easily.  Playing through a real amp again though, it felt really good.  The sound was deeper and much more full.  It made me really want a high gain metal distortion style pedal though, because my Marshall isn't set up for that sound.  I really really want a Fulltone OCD variation made by EHX called "The Glove", but honestly my Marshall gets close, and its not like I have another amp somewhere.  So I should probably look at getting pedals for tones I can't get with my regular amp, and #1 on the list I guess would be an EHX metal muff, probably the pocket version since I like the sound of it over the "micro" and think that the full sized one is over-complicated for my needs.

Tip of the Day

There are several ways I could go from a clean to heavy tone for Everlong, but I'll share the simplest that requires no footswitching or extra pedals.  This works on Gibson instruments with the usual 4 knob config.  I take my treble/lead/bridge pickup, put tone at 10, and put the volume about 3.  this lets the treble ring cleaner(though not 100% clean) and also more quiet.  On the Rhythm/neck pickup, I max the volume knob, and I roll back the tone to about 5, this gives it a very crunchy distortion.  I play the quiet parts of the song with the switch on lead, then when I do the chorus, I flip the switch to rhythm.  It is almost like have a dual channel amp.

EDIT
 Adding pocket metal muff video