Day 17 - Starting over

After a few days break I came back and tried to start the next set of lessons. After struggling for a while I came to the realization that I was doing things very wrong. I wrote a while back that I was relying too much on looking on what my fingers were doing to get them into the right places. Well, I kinda assumed that with time things would fall into place naturally but that hasn't really happened and I'm still unable to get my fingers into the right place without looking at them. This means my attention is divided 2 ways as I glance up at the screen to see what I should be playing next and then look back down at the frets to get my fingers in place, inevitably missing the note, which pauses the game. So I end up playing stop-start note by note until I memorize what the pattern is and no longer need to look up at the screen at all. Not only is this clearly a rubbish way of learning, the position of being hunched over so I can see the neck of the guitar means my back starts to ache pretty quickly. Not good.

I decided there's no point trying to continue like this, so I started the lessons over from the beginning, making an effort not to look at my fingers this time. While it took a bit of getting used to, I breezed through the lessons quite quickly and managed to complete some of the ones that had tripped me up previously much easier than before. I played as far as the White Stripes song and managed to play that better than before, it's much easier when you can look at the screen to see what to play and have your fingers naturally go to the correct position. Kind of like touch typing, even if you make a mistake you know which way to move your fingers based on what comes up on screen when you press. Actually, I realised that the feedback of being able to see on screen where your fingers are without having to look at them is a great advantage over traditional learning. Previously when trying to make adjustments I'd often find my fingers going the wrong way; to higher strings when they should have gone to lower and vice-versa, but once I'd made the adjustment I was able to find my way around the fretboard a lot easier. Hopefully this will stand me in good stead going forward.

Day 13 & 14 - medium songs

I got the Ramones song done and worked my way through the next lessons for The Beautiful People by Marilyn Manson. I'm not a fan at all, but this one was quite easy to work through. I got 3 stars on both songs.
Actually, I've been impressed with the way the songs introduced so far have reinforced what the preceding lessons have been teaching.
I'm looking forward to moving on to the next lessons but I'm going to be away from home for a few days so won't be able to practice at all, sadly.

Day 12 & 13 - My amp came

Not much time to practice over the last few days but I managed to get a couple more song lessons out of the way.
My amp arrived today so I plugged it in. Once I realised that the guitar doesn't need to be turned on to play through the amp it sounded pretty good. When the guitar is turned on there's a noticeable rhythmic clicking sound in the background, almost like a metronome. It wasn't too terrible though, I might try playing the game on no fail mode with it plugged it and see what happens. Unfortunately you can't play normally like that because without the string mute engaged the game can't read your strumming properly.  The amp has a built in tuner so I was able to get it tune without too much bother and it was nice to finally hear some guitar sounds coming out of it. I quickly realised I don't actually know how to play anything beyond a couple of power chords though. I need to start learning some rhythms or something.

Day 11 - Next song

I managed to complete the remaining power chord lessons, if not very convincingly. Next up is I wanna be sedated by the Ramones. Can't say it's one I'm familiar with. I have to play this one on Medium difficulty but I think I'll go through it all on easy first to try to familiarise myself with it first.
I'm hoping my amp will come tomorrow too so that might delay things a bit on the Rock Band front as I try to make some real noise.

Day 10

Didn't manage to get any play time in yesterday, sadly.
Had another go at the power chords today, I managed to get past another exercise. Trying to hold down 2 strings with one finger proved a bit tricky though, I'm not really sure how to effectively use my index finger to get just the right 2 without affecting the nearby ones. I've a feeling this one might take a while to master.

Day 8

Not much time again last night, just put in 20 minutes or so going over the chords from last night. I still couldn't do the one involving a lot of hand movement very well but I'm sure it will come with more practice.
I'm now on my second week of playing, considering I'd never picked up a guitar before I'm pretty pleased with my progress so far, I feel like I've learned a lot in a short space of time. Watching a busker performing at the tube station last night showed how far I've still got to go though, I wonder how many years it will take me to get to that standard, if ever?
I ordered an Orange micro amp yesterday, hopefully it'll come before too long, then I can really gauge how I'm doing.

Day 7 - Power chords

I started on the first of the chords lessons, first up are power chords, whatever that means. Things started quite simply, hold down a couple of adjacent strings, a couple of frets apart and strike the those strings but no others. It then gradually moved on to exercises that require moving the hand and forming chords on different strings, these were tricky but I felt like the pacing of the exercises was sensible.
One disappointing aspect is that the game doesn't take into account how many strings you strike when playing the chord. So if you are supposed to hit 2 strings for the chord, as long as you get one of them then it registers as correct. It doesn't punish you for hitting more either so it's possible to get through the exercises just madly strumming away as long as you get your fretting right. I'm not really sure why this should be, the game knows which strings you are hitting (it shows on screen all the ones you pluck) so either this is something they overlooked or it's a deliberate decision. It makes it hard to judge how well I'm striking the strings though, it's easy to hit a third string accidentally or not go far enough and just touch the second string without actually plucking it.
The other thing is, I've no real idea what the notes I'm playing would actually sound like (presumably not twa-twang, which is what I get at the moment). I definitely need an amp to practice with.

Day 6 - Completed first set of exercises

I didn't have much time to play tonight but I managed to complete the last few exercises in the introduction set. I managed to go through them with no problems even though I'd had a couple of beers, that's got to be a good sign!
Next up are chord lessons. Can't wait!

Day 5 - Some progress

A bit better today, I went through some new exercises and my fingers seemed to find the strings a bit more easily. It can be really frustrating when it's not going well but damn it feels good when it falls into place and you start hitting every note. Not long now until I get to the chord exercises, I suspect that's when the pain will really start.

Day 4 - String mutes and slides

That blues riff is still kicking my ass. I think the problem is that I'm not comfortable fretting without looking where my fingers are going yet, I need to be able to feel my way to the correct notes instead of relying on visual cues. I guess these things take time.

Moving on, the game introduced a couple of new techniques in the next lesson - string mutes and slides. The technology started showing its limitations here a bit. Apparently a string mute means lightly touching a string with the fretting hand to stop it vibrating, but the in-game instructions weren't very clear about what was required. Furthermore, the game can't actually detect a string mute so it allows any note, including open and fretted making it really hard to figure out what you are supposed to do. Again, I had to go on the internet and find out what a string mute was (and found a few people discussing the same game limitation); I really wish some of the instructions were a bit more detailed at times.

Slides involve moving your finger down the string while held down; these were pretty tricky to pull off and left my fingers feeling a bit tender after a while - I had string shaped indentations in the tip of my finger for a while after. I guess this is where the callouses I've read about come into play - bring on the hard skin!

Day 3 - First Song

I managed to pass the song with 3 stars on my first attempt, pretty pleasing! I was doing really well but then fell to pieces and totally forgot my fingering for a while. When I've done some more exercises I'll go back and try to 5 star it.
After the song I moved on to the next section of training and got my ass kicked by a blues riff, I just couldn't get it. I'm really struggling with the left hand fingering. Actually I have quite short fingers so I wonder if this puts me at a disadvantage somewhat.
I took a break and came back a couple of hours later and eventually managed to pass it but I'm not confident about it at all yet. I definitely need a lot mode practice fretting to get more comfortable.

One thing that's becoming more evident as I progress is the contrast between the noise coming from the TV and the noise coming from the guitar. Each correct note played results in a nice sounding riff from the game but a dull sounding twang from the guitar. At some point I'm going to have to plug this thing into an amp to find out what I'm playing actually sounds like.

Day 1 & 2 - First impressions

Taking the guitar from the box I'm surprised by its weight, it's much heavier than I expected. While I'm no expert it feels pleasingly solid and well-made and it looks to my untrained eye pretty damn sexy. I'd read elsewhere that the neck was a bit bendy but I don't detect any flexing while holding it. I was expecting something a little bit shoddy to be honest but overall I'm very pleased with it. I'm sure that as a guitar it's not great but as a hybrid instrument / game controller I think it's pretty damn good. It's unlikely I'm every going to want to play outside my home anyway so as long as it's decent enough to annoy the neighbours with then it's all good.

Getting it all plugged in is easy enough and the game detects it and prompts me to start the pro-guitar tutorials straight off. Straight away though it becomes obvious that Rock Band by itself is not going to be enough to learn everything I need. After a few videos on how the game works it jumps straight into the first fingering exercise; there are no instructions on how to hold the guitar, hand positions, using a pick etc. As a complete beginner this is definitely information I need; I struggle on for a while but after a while it's obvious my posture is all wrong and I start to feel physically uncomfortable.

After a bit of a rest and some research on the internet I have another go and get on much better this time. The game mechanics themselves work pretty much identically to how I remember Drum Mania working. On screen, notes move down a representation of the guitar strings and you have to pluck the appropriate string as the note reaches a line at the bottom. A number on the note represents where to fret on the neck. As you press on the frets, the line at the bottom shows which one you are pressing so you get a visual indication of whether you are doing it right or not. I'm really impressed with the way the technology works; again I've read elsewhere that some people had trouble with the guitar not registering their actions properly but I haven't this so far, in fact I'm surprised by how well it works. I do struggle to hit the correct notes and get the fingering right but that's entirely down to my lack of skill.

After a couple of hours I've managed to work my way though the first set of lessons. Some of them I really struggled with and it was quite frustrating at times, but that only makes it all the more satisfying when I finally nail it and get the 100%. The next lesson is preparation for my first song: The Hardest Button to Button by The White Stripes. I'm tired though and fail hopelessly on the first lesson.

Coming back on day 2 I decide to run though all the basic lessons again before trying the song prep. Pleasingly, I manage to run through them all pretty swiftly, even the ones I struggled on previously. Hey, I'm already making progess! Moving on to the song prep lessons, these are more of a challenge. The basic lessons have instructions on which fingers to use and only used 3 frets; the first song lesson uses frets 1-5 and I'm not really sure which fingers I should be using for which. In the end I manage to get through all the lessons without too many issues but I'm not confident that I'm doing the fingering right. Is there even a right and wrong way in guitar? I have no idea.

Tomorrow (or more accurately later today as I'm writing this) I'm going to take on the song for real (on easy mode).

Overall feelings so far: I love it and woke up this morning itching to have another go, which is pretty fantastic considering all I've been doing so far is what would probably otherwise be pretty tedious exercises.

Introduction

OK, looks like Google have rolled-back my blog out of existence, just my luck to start a blog on the day the whole thing goes belly-up. Good luck with that cloud-only future guys, I'm sure it's going to be super. Here's the brief version of what was lost (oh what a literary tragedy).

I've never played guitar before or tried to learn guitar before but have bought a Fender Squier and Rock Band 3 and am going to try to learn to play entirely through that. I'll be using this blog to keep track of my progress (or, more likely, lack thereof).

I've never played a Rock Band game before, nor any other of the recent music games. I think the last one I played was Drum Mania in a Japanese arcade about 10 years ago. I can't play any instruments, barring the recorder I learned in primary school so I'm pretty much starting from scratch in every sense.