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.

Gotta beat this level! and Day 10.

There are some things I need to wrap my mind around in this new kind of format of "game" learning.

As a gamer I have this achievement habit, and I don't mean just the "chieves" that are now on consoles.  This goes further back.  This is the desire to stick with a certain level of a game(like Mario world 5) until I get through it nicely, and then use warp tunnels to never have to deal with that shit ever again.  If you go at music like that, you're going to suck.

A song is not a level.  A practice track is not a level.  You need to keep at them, you need to be able to do them without notation in front of you, and without Rocksmith telling you how to play.  That's the point of this, right?  You want to learn guitar, not learn how to play a "game".  I still go through each practice track at least once a session, and I go through the newest one 100% perfect twice.  I focus on not getting it "right" but making it sound good.  Making it sound good is just as important.  You might think "its a practice track, what does it matter" and I say that if that's your approach, you're making things harder on yourself.

Unlike a certain infamous Guitar Hero episode on South Park, you will not be asked to remember one of those songs to play without the game.  That's isn't the point of Guitar Hero.  Committing songs and riffs to muscle and mind memory is very important, and doing it with the smaller and easier pieces of the practice tracks is a good start.


Day 10

Had a frustrating day today.  I'm no stranger to bends on an instrument.  I have particularly strong bends because I typically play bass.  I don't just typically play bass, I use Lo-Rider strings that have lots more tension.  When I demo a bass at a bass shop, the strings seem like loose springs to me in comparison.  I don't know if the game was just having a hard drive detecting them, or they have an insanely tight tolerance for bends.  I was so angry at the Bends lesson because rage-quitting and doing something else more productive would mean I have to start the lesson over again.  So I finally, with lots of cursing, got to the practice track, completely ignored and worked on some riffs I have been developing, and turned the game off after the save.

The whole day wasn't wasted, I did my usual warm ups, and got new high scores in each of my warm up games.  My errors with Duck Redux seem to have been from me fretting too hard.  I do not think that's the only problem, I think Duck Redux is flawed in that aspect, but I am able to play again accurately by using a light touch on the E string above the below the 5th fret(towards the headstock is below in music notation).

I'm starting my march toward the chord lessons.  Its time to face the beast.  I was supposed to start learning songs today too, but I did not get around to it.  I got more than my hour in(I've yet to stop at one hour in all the days so far), and I'll get started on songs after or during my chord training.