Rebel Rubbish

I've done another set of songs on Guitar Smith, and (for a change) completed a full set of songs and did the associated gig.
Rebel Rebel by David Bowie was one I was really looking forward to doing. I earned enough points to qualify the first time around, which is both a bonus and a shame. The bonus was I only played it once, instead of dozens of times! When I came to play this in the gig, I really messed up the opening half of the song, and as you can't restart a gig performance, I didn't get much appreciation from the virtual audience.
Mean Bitch by Toddy Porter. I really struggled with this song, although I did manage to beat the qualifier with better than 5000 points over the target. I doubt this will be a favorite of mine to play!
I Miss You by Incubus. I did play it, but can't think of how I felt about playing it at all.
Do You Remember by the Horrors. This was another challenging song for me to play, and I felt almost totally inept while playing it, but the virtual audience seemed to appreciate it.
High and Dry by Radiohead. Yes, another challenging song. The least said about how I played it the better.

The next set

I didn't make a note of the next set of songs, and have done this blog entry from memory. I have been noting down for my previous blogs how I felt as I competed each song. I think that is probably the better way to do it, but means you will have more to plough through.
Instead of playing each song until I qualify, I played through in the order that Guitar Smith wanted. This gave more variety in what I was playing, and I suspect prevented me getting fed up with not making progress. At least until the two I was really struggling with!
Guitar Smith recommends that you use the practice the techniques involved in the songs, and I have been ignoring that up to now. I'm considering actually doing the practice work before rehearsing the songs to see if it will improve and reduce the time it is taking me to qualify.
I'm getting curious what will happen in the game once I get through all the songs at the qualification level. I am hoping that there will be a harder qualifier with the songs if that happens.
I have been focussing on doing coursework for a Coursera online course I have been following this week, and have only picked the guitar up to practice some very basic tunes from the book I have been following.
I have done something different though, tonight I had a go at playing a simplified tab of The House Of The Rising Sun, and have recorded and uploaded the guitar work to SoundCloud. If you're interested, you can find it here. If you're not interested the link to follow is this one.

Introduction

About 18 months ago I bought myself a guitar with the intention of learning to play.
Apart from an initial burst of enthusiasm, it has mainly been left gathering dust. Or at least until about six months ago when I started playing it a little more. Even once a week was more than I was playing in the past!
I had seen adverts about Rocksmith, and thought it would be a good way to learn, so it was stuck on my wishlist and I was bought a copy by my parents.
It took me nearly a week to get around to installing and plugging the guitar in,
My verdict? It's frustrating as anything, but I am enjoying it quite a lot.
I have just progressed from the beginner stage to "New Act" which sounds more exciting than it really is.

Gameplay

The basic idea is that you follow the notes on screen and as you improve the game gives you more challenging notes to play. This came as quite a surprise to me the first few times it happened, and was even worse as the game decided it was time to play chords. I'll not repeat what I said the first time it happened, and I totally sucked at getting my fingers in the right place to get the chord with enough time to play it.
There are sections of the game aimed at helping you with techniques, and chords are included in that. It shows you the individual notes (and insists that you actually play them) before playing the full chord.

Sidegames

I have unlocked three of the sidegames that come with it: Ducks, Super Ducks and Big Swing Baseball. They ok, but not my reason for the game.

Songs

There are a wide range of rock songs included as part of the game, and you start at a practice session and when you achieve a high enough score you progress to play a gig at a venue. 

If you play well enough then you get to play another song (or two) as an encore and earn more RSP.