After a couple of days without playing due to a broken string, I was keen to get back on the Rocksmith 2014 horse. I went to my local music store to buy two spare strings and found myself asking about pick thickness while I was there. I explained that I had pretty much close to no idea what I was talking about when it came to guitars and the helpful and patient guitar dude at Long & McQuade gave me his recommendations for playing rhythm. I picked up a few different weights of picks to test out and headed home through the snow.
I managed to restring the guitar without any problems — a minor victory there — and started off by playing "Cold Company" by Minus the Bear, a song I'd been having some success and fun with the previous week. After warming up I got 44.2% by the end of the hour and up 9% from last week, so some small progress there at least. The next day I had the urge to try a new song and "Sixteen Saltines" by Jack White caught my ear while flicking through the Rocksmith library. It was pretty fun to play on rhythm and after three plays and some time on the Riff Repeater function — where Rocksmith allows you to slow down a particular section you're having trouble with — I was up to 34.8%.
The next couple of days I just couldn't settle on a song, flitting from "R U Mine?" by Arctic Monkeys and Rush's "The Spirit of Radio" (although Geddy Lee's vocals got on my nerves after one play), to Foo Fighters and Iron Maiden's "The Trooper" (which was way too fast for me), and then back to old favourites from Week One like the Who and the Kinks. I didn't manage to crack over 20% on any of them, which isn't too surprising or disappointing given that I only played each song once or twice.
By the end of the week I still couldn't settle on a new track to play, so I broke my promise not to play Slayer — safe in the knowledge that I had a backup high E string on hand in case I broke it a third time — and got up to 45% overall completion (with a 78 note longest streak and 81% accuracy) at my best attempt. After not playing it for over a week it was dizzying just how fast "War Ensemble" was and at the end of playing it twice in a row I was so exhausted I pretty much collapsed into my chair.
I managed to restring the guitar without any problems — a minor victory there — and started off by playing "Cold Company" by Minus the Bear, a song I'd been having some success and fun with the previous week. After warming up I got 44.2% by the end of the hour and up 9% from last week, so some small progress there at least. The next day I had the urge to try a new song and "Sixteen Saltines" by Jack White caught my ear while flicking through the Rocksmith library. It was pretty fun to play on rhythm and after three plays and some time on the Riff Repeater function — where Rocksmith allows you to slow down a particular section you're having trouble with — I was up to 34.8%.
The next couple of days I just couldn't settle on a song, flitting from "R U Mine?" by Arctic Monkeys and Rush's "The Spirit of Radio" (although Geddy Lee's vocals got on my nerves after one play), to Foo Fighters and Iron Maiden's "The Trooper" (which was way too fast for me), and then back to old favourites from Week One like the Who and the Kinks. I didn't manage to crack over 20% on any of them, which isn't too surprising or disappointing given that I only played each song once or twice.
By the end of the week I still couldn't settle on a new track to play, so I broke my promise not to play Slayer — safe in the knowledge that I had a backup high E string on hand in case I broke it a third time — and got up to 45% overall completion (with a 78 note longest streak and 81% accuracy) at my best attempt. After not playing it for over a week it was dizzying just how fast "War Ensemble" was and at the end of playing it twice in a row I was so exhausted I pretty much collapsed into my chair.
