Wow, Harmonics

6 Oct 14 (Mon)

  Been playing every day for a few hours. It's pretty cool when you're looking forward to guitar-practice.

  I wouldn't have thought that after 5 days or so, I'd be doing things like having harmonics (Guitar Harmonics (Wikipedia)) become pretty natural and easy, but here we are. One of the Guitarcade practice mini-games is for harmonics, and I find it to be the most fun. Probably because it's at a less hectic pace and takes less effort or finger-pain than the rest. Also it's a bit more thoughtful than reflexive. Here's a quick example of my gameplay:

  Picture at top is of the guitar that I'm thinking of for my next one. Squier Strat HSS in red. Nice.  :P

Okay Fingers

2 Oct 14 (Thu)

  Playing is going well. Getting a feel for moving between frets in rhythm and where things are on the guitar.

  Using Rocksmith, it's very easy to play for quite a while without noticing because it's so helpful and easy to progress in whatever aspect that you're performing at any one time. I've played for a few hours each day, and my fingertips are surprisingly not too sore. A bit, of course, but just a little. Very welcome.  :)

  Picture is, of course, Stevie Ray Vaughn. One of the best guitar-players to have ever lived. He played blues-rock, with nice crunchy chords and beautifully articulated solos. I once described one of his songs, a girl's name if I remember rightly, from his live video as picking diamonds from the air.

  Hmm... now I'm gonna have to go listen to some Stevie.  :P

First Day

1 Oct 14 (Wed)

  So, Rocksmith 2014 arrived yesterday. After the usual rigmarole of setting up a new game & hardware, it works fine.

  As a game/program/teaching-tool, it's outstanding. Really. From the basics of never having held a guitar before to guitar-god-level ability, there seems to be something for everyone. The path from one to the other seems pretty well laid out, and achievable with dedication and practice. This is true of almost any program, of course... the trick here is that it seems that you're having fun and encouragement along the way whilst playing a game.

  There are songs here that I've been hearing since I was a kid, and in the back of your head you always kind of think a little what it would be like to play them... well, now I have. Admittedly at the most basic of levels, like the occasional note or chord or two per bar, but still, I've played along with the song as it played and the difficulty automatically increases as you get better. It's pretty great.

  I recorded my first song-attempt, but the God-damned Youtube copyright-censor won't show the video. As soon as I figure out how everyone else is doing it, I'll link to it. That way, I can demonstrate my progress by comparison as time goes on.

  So far, so good. Also, the picture today is the guitar that I have. I was pretty surprised when I bought it at how good it was for how little money.

  Davison Guitar Starter Package (Amazon)

Guitar-Blog Description

28 Sep 14 (Sun)

  Okay.

  I've ordered Rocksmith 2014, and it should be arriving on Tuesday. I'm going to use it to learn some guitar and see if it gets me further than relying upon my admittedly weak self-discipline. I mean, I'm a damn hard worker and a quick learner, but I tend to get burned out or bored of something pretty quickly and move on to something else. Personal fault.

  I've tried to learn a number of instruments in the past, but either never really got started with them through bad luck, or just stopped after a couple of weeks. I tried learning guitar about 6 months ago through Justinguitar.com but after a good solid 3 weeks, just stopped completely. Not Justin's fault. He has an amazing, totally complete, well-structured, completely free system with videos and everything.

  I'm hoping that the gamey structure of Rocksmith 2014 will keep me motivated through self-competition and such. We shall see.

  The title here, Loading the Six-String, if it's not obvious, is from the pretty bad-ass song Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi):

Wanted Dead or Alive

  The idea is that my six-string is not yet loaded with guitar-skills but I'm working on that.  :P

  The first picture here is chosen because that fella looks somewhat like me, he has a loaded six-string on his back, and I have that same hat. Also, it just looks pretty cool.

  Good enough. I'll be back when I have the game in hand. Here's a couple of links to the places I mentioned:

  Rocksmith 2014

  JustinGuitar