I figured to spark some discussion by asking what kind of projects and foci you are currently working on to improve your playing?
I figured to spark some discussion by asking what kind of projects and foci you are currently working on to improve your playing?
I got tired of being sloppy chunking out power chords and generally being really stiff when playing fast rhythm guitar, so a couple of weeks ago I decided to start working on a couple of Iron Maiden songs through Rocksmith, building up the speed and consistency in rhythm guitar.
So far I think I’ve got some pretty good results already, although most songs aren’t really clean at full speed yet. Rocksmith seems to be a really good platform for this kind of practice, since it makes looping sections at slower speeds so easy.
Currently I’m psyched about Rime of the ancient mariner, it’s got such a nice combination of medium-speed gallop and single note lines. Be quick or be dead and 2 minutes to midnight main riffs also make me feel awesome
I’ve been thinking of trying out Rocksmith as a practice tool. Does it give good feedback as you’re playing? Like if your timing starts to drift, will it let you know?
Rocksmith is, I would say, more forgiving of timing issues than incorrect note issues. I’ve seen it pop up a little “LATE” on some notes/chords, but not as often as “MISSED.” Things like string muting and proper tension in your fretting hand (I went from a Strat to a PRS and was fretting chords out of tune due to gripping too tight).
It does feedback if you hit the wrong note (or it thinks that you hit one), but it doesn’t really outright tell you about your timing and will accept some horrendous timing if the note was right. In fact that is one of the major points people seem to mention as its’ drawbacks.
Although I would personally say that Rocksmith has been pretty pivotal to my timing (along with recording), since at least for me it multiplied the time I was playing to a rhythm of a background track. The game allows you to loop and slow portions of songs that you like and play the parts on repeat against the original song with a relatively nice and fast interface, way faster than doing it yourself on a DAW. And that little convenience has me playing to rhythm way more than I would otherwise at home by myself, and especially work on hard parts slowed down.
(Can’t stop editing this post lol) Oh and possibly worth mentioning, my experience is with the 2014 remastered edition with popular mods installed (RSMods, RS_Asio and CDLC), can’t say much about the new version
Rocksmith is really fun for playing songs with official backing tracks. As a learning tool, it’s really limited. I have both Rocksmith 2014 and Rocksmith+. 2014, IMO, is the better of the two. The ability to mod 2014 and add custom songs gives you the ability to increase the library WAY farther than the stock DLC.
If you really want to get into it (and this is where I started having the most fun), check out Tonelib-Jam. You can write or deconstruct songs (even using RS2014 files) using the editor that gives you both tab and standard notation, plus it’s got a “play along in 3D” mode that works just like Rocksmith does.
My go-to at this point for just cranking along with some songs is Tonelib-Jam plus whatever songs I feel like grabbing from customsforge.com
I think the thing that got me out of that zone most was learning to play ska, actually. You can use barre chords and just tilt your hand towards the high strings to get the upper voicings, or you can just learn the upper voicings separately, but the bigger thing is that in order to get the feel right, you need to feel the downbeat and play the upbeat: swing the hand down like you’re going to hit it on the downbeat, but miss, and hit it on the upstroke instead. Seems simple, but is surprisingly hard to really lock in. And once you do, the basic ability to lock in the rhythm hand really tight is very transferable to other styles.