Week #5

Another update with little to say, but this week I decided to just blast through as many songs as I could instead of trying to learn anything. And if it makes any difference, the songs I used to barely scrape by 10% completion while playing I am now finishing my first try in the late teens. While I don’t know how much it matters, it does feel good to know the time spent with the game has had some tangible improvement with my skills, no matter how marginal.

The game also seems to read my inputs more correctly during the actual songs then it does in the lessons, I have seemingly far less input errors playing 1/10 of a song than in any of the lessons, which won’t let me progress at all until I ace the practice tracks it gives me. Far more irksome than that is the lessons are repeated enough that I have more than enough time to get the correct fingering down so I know it must a problem with my tuning or the setup. Oh well, one baby step at a time.

Now, I’m not much of a music guy, but every rhythm game I have ever played has introduced me to new music that I end up enjoying and so far this game has been no exception. So far my favorite song I had never heard before playing this game is the Magic Wands song “Black Magic”, a short but sweet song about space or something. I really like Dexy Valentine’s vocals and the song’s main riff is pretty perfect if I do say so myself. So I’d like to thank them for expanding my music horizons, at least a little.

Week #4: I think my TV doesn’t want me to learn guitar.

This last week, while easily being my most inconsistent, was also disheartening because I fear my current set up with the cables plugged directly into my TV may not be conducive to high levels of play if I ever were to get there. Fortunately, the school year has started back up and thanks to my weird hours at a new job, most of my time home will be spent home alone so there should be little interference with the TV on that front. Should definitely look into getting a better set up, maybe finally getting a decent pair of headphones or something.

In lieu of much else to talk about, let me vent a bit about Everlong.

I think at one point I liked Everlong. It’s a simple title with an initially catchy riff that’s easy to sing along to. And I totally understand why it is as pervasive as it is in these types of games. But 3 or 4 rhythm guitar games later and I would be okay with never hearing this song again. At this point its just so goddamn boring.  Like, your playing a random Rock Band setlist and all of a sudden this song shows up and immediately everyone rolls their eyes because this is that song in high school people would say they liked to sound deep. As if the Foo Fighters ever did anything deep in their lives. And I generally like the Foo Fighters too.

Week #3: I am really, really terrible at guitar.

I should probably stop trying to sound like a broken record and start just trying to better myself. Not much to add this week, as I mentioned before the quick progress through at least understanding, not mastering, the basics is over and now actual grind time begins. I shifted my focus slightly this week to be about working on improving on one song, in this case Boston’s “Peace of Mind.”, which will likely be the song that gets me through this game.

Did finally manage to pass the palm mutes lesson, but that is the only thing I progressed on in that front. It also felt really rough, another moment when having an actual teacher giving me advice would have been nice.

Weekly updates might not be the best thing to do, more for lack of things to talk about after a while. I’ll mostly just be doing weekly ones to keep to a schedule but they may not be all that enlightening all the time.