More ruination of songs

Further progress (sort of) with RockSmith - a game that helps you to learn how to play a guitar and fall out with your neighbours. You use your guitar as an input controller, and the game 'listens' to how you are playing and gives you a score.

When you play better (ie hitting most of the notes) you are rewarded by the game upping the difficulty going from, for example, single notes to chords. The downside is that if you mess up the difficulty level is reduced.

The best thing about this game is that you can always get to the end of a song, unlike games involving plastic guitar games that you can get. I use the PS3 version, but from what I understand the XBox and PC versions are very similar in operation.

Tonight was again a practice night. The next performance has the three latest songs Higher Ground, Go With The Flow, and In Bloom. I am planning on doing the next performance this weekend at some point and am going to focus on these three songs after tonight, playing each one at least twice and once for the other songs in the game (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, Angela and Next Girl.

I spent around an hour on the game tonight, but I think quite a lot of it was spent waiting for the PS3 to load the next section (or that's the way that it feels, anyway - I'm sure my neighbours feel different though).

Technique Challenges

Palm Mutes

The idea behind this technique is to use the edge of your strumming hand to lightly press on the strings nearing the bridge giving a more percussive sound to the note.

I earned 36137 points on that which is just short of a Silver.

Bends

A bend is where you change the note by pulling the string to make the note rise. This is where I'm having the most problems at the moment, so think I should practice it at least once each session on the game. I did achieve 15404 points which is still below my best for this technique. Silver is 45000, so I still have a long way to go with this technique.

Slides

A Slide is moving your finger from one fret to another causing the note to move up or down.
I scored 37462 for this which is just above the Silver level. Not much more to say about this one.

Rehearsals

I gave each song one run through, apart from In Bloom (my worst one to date).

Current scores for the songs with the highest I have scored in brackets:

Song	Band	Previous best	This Attempt
In Bloom	Nirvana	23960	25649
Higher Ground	Red Hot Chilli Peppers	47151	56803
Angela	Jarvis Cocker	65060	53583

What next?

I am planning on playing the three songs I know are on the next performance at least three times through. My plan for the moment is to have two runs through the Bends technique followed by playing through all six songs that I have played so far on the game.

What I don't know yet is what song will be chosen as an encore.

Lets see how I feel tomorrow night... 

Two days off

Fridays are not normally a good day for me to practice, I am usually helping out at a Cub meeting and am ready to head for bed once I get home.

Yesterday I was working and needed to collect my new glasses from the opticians and also had to go to the cinema to see The Worlds End. I'm not going to review the film, but I did enjoy it, and the sound track, very much.

A quick practice this morning following the technique, rehearse and game pattern I'm trying out.

Technique

Hammer on and Pull Offs

I did three attempts at this, satisfied with how I played but not happy. Scores 10517, 29735 and 50535 - just over Bronze and Silver for the first two and about half way to gold for the third.

Bends

I wasn't happy with how I did with this, so I think it will give it a much bigger focus for the next session. Scores 20336, 2501, 1725. And yes, that was the order I got the scores. The main issue was I messed up enough the first time and was moved down a level and just didn't get my act together to get the scores back up.

Rehearse

I got a slight improvement on In Bloom by Nirvana getting 21710 and 23960 and am happy enough. I need to get my shifting more consistent and to get the power chord ready to play for most of the song I think.

I didn't make much of a change with Higher Ground by the Chilli Peppers, a slight drop in the score but I'm happy enough with that for the moment. Scores 47378 and 471151.

Games

Super Slider

This is a falling rocks game, where you need to slide a note to move the rock into a pile to remove the pile of rocks. I just had the one try at this, scoring 11800. Not quite sure what to make of the game at the moment.

Baseball

I do like this game, I have realised that strumming when the last light hits gets a far better result and I scored 106400, not beating my high score from last time but fairly near the top - perhaps fourth or fifth I think it was.

My total points at the end of the game was 717215 and nothing new unlocked this time.

I have been having a think about an app to keep track of scores, I can't see how it can be stretched into a YRS project as it doesn't  use any open data. It might be worthwhile as a training exercise to develop ideas for creating a SaaS style  website. More thought needed on that, but for now I'm going to spend an hour coding, then lunch and shopping for tea (and getting some milk: the milk in my fridge had separated into liquid and solid) then seeing if I can get closer to the end of the book I am very late in reviewing.

Thinking about a format

Today I had a go at the Hammer On technique, one practice track and a game.

Technique

I spent about 15 minutes on the Hammer On/Pull Off technique and slightly improved my score to 34873 improving my level to Silver.

This enabled me to unlock the Super Slider game with 676654 RSP.

Rehearsal

As Nirvana's In Bloom was my worst track, I thought I'd see if I can get the score up to match the other songs. I am attempting the chord version instead of the single notes. I spent half an hour on this track, and when the power chords started to appear (and the occasional time I managed to actually play them) the tune sounded much better.

I have a suspicion that the majority of the notes played are power chords, but time will tell

Scores improved to 26373.

The Game

I had a first go at Big Swing Baseball, scoring 4600 the first time and somehow managing to get 219100 and the high score on my second attempt. This took it up to around an hour's practice (although there are a lot of gaps in the playing while sections load, so I'm guessing only around half an hour tops was probably spent tickling the strings).

A Technique Night

I've spent an hour practicing the techniques on Guitar Smith, and have managed to unlock three items.

One thing I remember occasionally annoying me with the game is when it hangs while loading a song or technique to play - this is the first time it's happened since I restarted through.

I have been thinking about how to decide how to choose what to practice, and am thinking of doing something along the lines of focussing on the lowest scores as a way of targeting the ones that need doing most.

Would an app or a website that allowed you to put the scores you earned and giving a targeted list be something useful? That is something I am going to have to have a think about.

You'll notice that I'm fairly inconsistent about how I do formatting and otherwise arrange how I present what I am rambling about.

The Techniques

Bending is dragging the string to change the note being played. To achieve Bronze you need 10000 points, Silver 45000 and Gold 95000 points. I tried this one twice, getting 18628 and 22753 points.

Shifting I earned 70001 and managed to hit the Gold status!

Hammer On/Pull Offs I didn't do as well as last time I tried, only achieving 10891 compared to 17949 I got last time.

The targets for Slides is Bronze 10000, Silver 35000 and Gold 74000 points. I managed 35836 and am fairly pleased with that.

Unlocks

At around the 640818 point I unlocked the Guitarcade game "Big Swing Baseball" and a new venue "The Low Down".

I also unlocked the Super Slider game at 696654.

Next session

I have sorted the songs and techniques into lowest score to highest, and am going to try the Bronze techniques and at least the worst three songs.

The techniques are Hammer On/Pull Offs (currently 17949 points) and Bends (22753 points).

The songs are: In Bloom by Nirvana (18391), Higher Ground by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers (54271), Angela by Jarvis Cocker (65060), (I can't get no) Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones (67677), Go With The Flow by the Queens of the Stone Age (79374) and Next Girl by The Black Keys (80109).

I need to investigate using the Riff Repeater to help me learn parts of each song to get my standards up. Some of the songs have more than one version, and I may need to put separate listings for each version.

New Act

As a result of the hours practice I've put in today I was promoted to "New Act" on Rocksmith. I think they might have missed out a middle word "Sad" might me more appropriate!

Apart from trying the Riff Repeater on the intro to Satisfaction all I did was play each of the songs through once that I've been playing in the past few days, and In Bloom by Nirvana twice.

Riff Repeater

This allows you to play a section of a track until you "master" the section. I tried using the Accelerator mode that lets you play through it once to see how you play it, then you get 30 attempts to get to full speed playing all the notes.

It only took me 22 attempts to get the intro close enough to correct, and when rehearsing the full song got so close to the 70k mark - I scored 67677.

I did remember to attempt Angela by Jarvis Cocker (65060) this time. The other songs attempted Next Girl (78224 - didn't beat my previous attempt), Go With The Flow 79374, Higher Ground 54271.

The new one for today was In Bloom by Nirvana, and I felt like I totally messed this up getting 13353 on my first attempt and 18391 on the second attempt.

Unlocks

I unlocked the Slides technique, and also gained an authentic tone "Cro-Magnon Drive".

Go With The Flow

Today was mainly aimed at having a practice at the songs already played.

Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones

I'm slowly getting better at this, I'm struggling a bit getting the main riff sounding right and playing it evenly. There are a couple of hammer on's added to make things interesting to the riff too (or are they pull off's? Not quite sure at the moment)
Played another twice with 50573 and 52703 points.

Next Girl by The Black Keys

Two more plays scoring 73635 and 80109 this time round.

Higher Ground by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Another two plays with 45967 and 49628 points.

Go With The Flow by Queens of the Stone Age

22794 and 65997 - a massive boost the second time round.
This song involved almost continuous strumming with some new chords that I haven't worked out what I am meant to be playing just yet - the notes are really coming out thick and fast in this song. "Manic" is a good description.

And an oops moment too: I didn't try Angela by Jarvis Cocker again. For tomorrow I'm going to make a note of the songs I want to play before picking the guitar up.

396,824 RSP Made my target with Satisfaction

I had another go at The Rolling Stones' (I can't get no) Satisfaction with the aim of hitting the 40k mark. I had three plays at it getting 29,958 43314 and 44170 with a best streak of 72 and 91% accuracy for the middle one.

At the moment if I drop in accuracy and streak I am stopping playing, using the theory that I'm getting tired.  My wrist is also aching, so I suspect I'm not holding the guitar right with my left hand. Achieved 361,085 RSP.

Although the break didn't last long!

Higher Ground Red Hot Chilli Peppers

I had three goes at this getting 2196 with a 50 note streak and 98% accuracy the first time round, but the notes were mainly open low E and G and A notes. Second run through got 9933 and a few more notes, and the final run 31225 with a streak of 66 at 84% accuracy and many more notes over many strings.

Unlocked palm muting and double stops.

Double Stops

This is playing two notes at the same time, I didn't do very well with this technique at all, and need to spend a lot of time practicing this technique. To achieve Bronze needs 5k points, Silver 15k and Gold 34k points. I scored 4514 and I will need to revisit this fairly soon.