Kent Hammer's Rocksmith journey- Day Four (Wed 17th Oct)

Firstly a big thanks to the guys at Ubisoft for sending me my review copy of Rocksmith and the cable to plug my guitar in.
You have now set me off on a wonderful yet scary and daunting adventure to try and become an axeman!

Right, first things first I need to buy a cheap guitar!
I searched the net and found a cool blue epiphone guitar that took my fancy and ordered it from reddog music.

Here's a pic of her lying naked on my leather sofa, untouched and yet to be broken in-

the second image is of her flipped over, so you can check out her behind.

I am sure you will agree she is a looker and £99 well spent!

The next thing you have to do is stick the little numbers on your neck so that you know which fret is which when playing the game.
This system works well but you have to take only quick looks or you will start missing notes and boy how I missed notes!

I must mention at this point that I am not in my first flush of youth and I have never played guitar of the non plasticky fisher price variety before!
So this is a real stretch for me and will be a battle to hang on in there.

I loaded up the game and was immediately hit with the tuning screen, strum each string and then turn the knobs on the headstock to until you get a zero on the screen. Quite easy and simple and made me feel like I knew what I was doing(this feeling did not last long!)
Rinse and repeat for all 5 strings..........Cough... I mean all 6 strings, Peas or custard?

Now the first song you play is the peerless Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones!!!!
At this point I had abit of a semi on I cannot lie!

I had to play one note at a time with one finger on the matching fret and string, plus sometimes you had to just play an open string which means a strum without holding a fret (a joyful relief from the finger torture).

Here is a screenshot of what I could see-

So onward and upward and on my second playthru more notes were added and more switching was required at my end...engage panic mode!
This was tough for me and on reflection I should have used a different finger for each fret rather than only using my index finger(the pointy one) all the time.

After 45 mins this is how my finger looked-

I was determined to play one more song and make it to my daily target of an hour, so next up was The Black Keys- I got Mine.
Another great tune and I muddled through hitting 70% of all notes and showing an improvement.

At this point I decided to stop for health reasons as carrying on would have meant a plaster on my finger and no more practice tomorrow!

DAY TWO-

Right so today I attacked the task with renewed gusto and was determined to qualify to play my first gig!

You need to score 9,200 points on each song to unlock your first gig.

After a couple of attempts I nailed down satisfaction as it was mainly hitting two frets and two different strings in the right rhythm.

But The black keys song is twice as hard as it contains many sustains!

A sustain is where you hold your finger down on the fret after you have plucked the string for a sustained period of time (see what I did there)
Luckily there was a separate tutorial for those for me to follow first.

Then back to the song and I nailed it first time! Woo Hoo off to play my first gig with a set list of just those two songs.

You get some crowd noise and some people swaying and nodding their heads to the music while the gig takes place and some clapping and cheering at the end.
I zoned in and played both songs better than before and gained myself an encore and an two achievements popped!
One for completing my first gig and the other for gaining an encore.

The encore song was Angela by Jarvis cocker which I had never even heard before, But it was easy enough.

So tomorrow I move onto my next two songs that I need to learn to unlock another gig.

They are Higher Ground by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Go With The Flow by Queens of the Stoneage.

Another two stellar tunes, I am impressed with the set list so far.

Oh by the way I used 3 different fingers today to spread the load, but pointy still took the biggest hit. DOH

DAY THREE-

Today was the day when it dropped!
The penny that is, not my balls.

It was my most EPIC and challenging session yet.

As before I had to pass a certain score on the two songs chosen for me(Higher Ground by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Go With The Flow by Queens of the Stoneage)

But this time the numbers were alot higher. I failed my first attempt on Higher Ground as there were some odd looking notes that I did not recognise and I wrongly thought they were just open strums.
But they were actually palm mutes! This is when you place the edge of your strum hand lightly over all the strings then strum.
It gives a kinda percussion sound.

Now I have found that there is a specific technique section to practice given to me now. So I did the little test song for palm notes and bingo malingo I was nailing it as its easy! Well I only scored a bronze but not bad. I actually scored a silver on sustains!

I really feel like I am picking up some real rock guitar lingo and phrases now which helps you feel progress.

So back to the chili's song and I flipping passed it easy with my new skill!

Straight onto Go with the flow and I scored my highest ever score of 46,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was in the zone, channeling the spirit of Josh Homme thru my imaginary ginger god fingers.

At one point I was hitting 3 notes perfect in succession then it upped it to five or six notes and I still nailed it, then I was down to frets 14 and 16 and strings 5 and 6 for some solo action on my encore song!

At the end of my little gig I held my arms aloft and soaked up the cheers from the all female crowd

I knew they loved me, I knew they wanted more of my guitar goodness and I knew some of them were more than a little bit damp for me.



DAY FOUR-

What a difference a day makes!

If yesterday was awesome then today was awful 8-(

I absolutely stunk the place out, all my bubbles were truly burst!

Today the game cranked up the difficulty on me big time.

Hammer ons and hammer off’s and pulls off’s(get your mind out of the gutter!)
These are evil tricks used to play two notes in quick succession and they are UBER hard for me.
I truly felt out of my comfort zone and didn't even get a bronze, it all felt like too much too soon for me.

My view of the game changed drastically and it made me feel I have a whole range of mountains to scale now.

Unless you are truly dedicated you will not make a guitarist.

The songs I tried and failed to play were –

The Dead Weather – I can't hear you & Nirvana – In Bloom

I am signing off now as I have officially got the hump and feel deflated 8-(

Nice one, what a great way to start learning guitar! I hope you stick it out and your fingers aquire a steel - yet flexible - coating

Now we need Theremin-smith so I have an excuse to learn Theremin

Gonna keep checking in on this. Interested to see your progress. I'm gonna rent it from lovefilm and buy a cable soon and just use my friends guitar. Can;'t afford to spend £20 on it yet though

Sounds good so far mate, look forward to reading future updates.

The only comment i would make is 1 hour a day might be a bit much until your fingertips start to harden. maybe 30-45 mins would be better to start with.

Cool nice post. The guitar looks well cool for 100 notes. Keep it up I'm well intrested in this.

soke your fingers in viniger or piss it will harden the pads of your fingers so you dont string finger

trust me its works i play guitar and used to work as roadie so i know the tricks of the trade we also use same trick in bricklaying



also gt some skineys (strings) there also easyer on the fingers

Muska25101847 wrote:soke your fingers in PISS it will harden the pads of your fingers so you dont string finger

Don't mock or laugh at this, it's a well known trick in the forces, piss on your feet and it hardens them so less chance of blisters when doing forced marches/exercises/OPS. I still do it now n then as old habits die hard.

This really piques my interest, I have 0 musical talent, so guitar hero was pointless for me especially when I had a go on easy and thought hmmm I may have a go at this and then saw my mate play on medium.....and shat a brick.

The only sticking point is buying a guitar

GL Kent and I look forward to seeing how your piss stained fingers cope with more and more songs!

Next you will be telling Kent to stick an orange in his mouth and a bin bag on his head.

Updated with my second days play.

I will stick with no more than an hour a day and won't be peeing on my fingers.

Playing guitar is the hardest thing I have ever tried to learn!

KENT HAMMER wrote:and won't be peeing on my fingers.

It's ok we won't tell!

Great diary!! and good luck, it will be worth it if you do actually learn to play!

I am loving this blog!
Good luck with this mate.

The more i read about this, the more interested i am about picking up a copy.

Was talking to someone at work about it (he used to teach guitar) and he reckopns it could be a great way to learn as it should keep the enjoyment of learning longer. He said the hardest part of learning the guitar is the practice and dedication to keep going.

Loving the blog Kent and am liking the look of the game.

One thing does concern me though. You played an entire song using only one finger? Surely the game has something in the instructions to make sure you don't do that? I know it's fairly obvious to most people, but not everyone as you demonstrated. Now if that kind of basic information is left out, what else has been omitted?

Absolutely loving this, I'm really tempted to pick this up in the future now when I have the money as it seems its really teaching you how to play successfully and the improvements are obviously showing

Just to be clear I am not playing proper chords yet.

I am just playing single notes, that's why it only takes one finger.

But now I am learning to use multiple fingers to reach each note.

It does not bog you down with which finger to use, it lets you find your own way.

Chords come next and of course it shows you the correct finger positions.

The main problem is I am not fast enough when switching positions.

Anyone who could play guitar hero on expert will find it much easier than me as I was only a medium player there.

Like everyone says, keeping up the daily practice is the challenge, if you slip to weekly only then your NEVER get it.

Its not a game, its a lifelong commitment.........

Interesting blog Kent, I've been playing guitar for around 14 years now which is more than half my life so I'm finding it really interesting to see how you get on with this.

I'm glad that in your last post you said that you're learning to use multiple fingers because eventually you're going to need to use all 4 fingers so you might as well put in the effort early on.

I hope you stick with it and keep these blogs coming. Also I don't know how well designed the game is, but if you ever run into any problems with anything or just need some advice feel free to PM and I'll help you out if I can.

i get you your playing tabs there a good to get you used to playing keep it up

I managed to buy the cable for £15 this morning so now just gotta wait for the game to turn up from lovefilm. Really looking forward to it

I alsmost felt like I was taking the journey with you. Well written fella.

As much as this review tempts me I know I would ened up getting frustrated with this game because I struggle bending 2 of my fingers seperatly. I've tried taking up the guitar before and this held me back/ made me want to sulk. I gave it ago and we didn't get on so I had to put it to rest. Must resist speding money on this when I know it will just collect dust

I'm enjoying these updates, I really hope this game is good I have played guitar for about 16 years and would be fun to be able to have something like this to play along with

Did you have yesterday off for Sabbath?

Great read fella. Keep it up and you'll be nailing the Stones in no time

Have you noticed any lag at all yet Kent?

Sorry guys had builders in today and was too busy to post next update.

I have good news about Day 3 tomorrow, I will post up Sundays session notes.

I have found a tiny bit of lag, you just need to hit the note the second before it hits the line, not on the line as it disappears.

Having a component connection removes this but I can't be arsed as it does not effect me at all.