Gamut

Whoo! Acceptable audio! It's gonna get even better when I buy a stereo splitter.

Just got back into town. Still recording a MM video of Out of the Black, I don't even care if I'm two days late.

Oh, you weasel! I'm coming back with a 95.5!

http://i.imgur.com/S4jaiCf.jpg First play to see it off. Never heard of it before. Cool song. Also! I'm maybe recording a video?!?!?! :open_mouth: For the first time in months! :open_mouth: Because I finally fixed my laptop!! http://i.imgur.com/FKB9sbu.jpg?1 Are you all ready to see my sexy self miss all the licks at at Out of the Black MM?! :open_mouth: :open_mouth:

When I'm learning new chords, I try to compare it to a chord I already know. Often something new will use the same shape as something old, or just has one different fingering. If it's something completely new to me, I pay close attention to what Rocksmith says I should be doing with my fingers (the #1-4 that appears on the frets on the UI), though sometimes I'll do it my own way since I favour my ring finger a lot. Chord transitions are probably the hardest thing to get the hang of. The most useful advice is the most general: as with just about anything musical, it's really important to slow down and do the transition at a tempo you can do it cleanly, then work your way up to speed. The more specific advice I have on transitions is - try to be as efficient as possible with your movements. I find that when I was starting out on guitar, I moved my fingers a lot unnecessarily, wasted a lot of energy and time, and negatively impacted my tone. Being efficient usually requires a little premeditation and the method varies from riff to riff. In Hanuman for example, the riff I was having the most trouble with became very easy when I realised that I could fret a minor chord shifted up one string, and then just shift the whole shape down a fret halfway through. Before that I was trying to hit each individual note in the arpeggio and was struggling hard, but once I figured this out I was barely moving my hand and hitting every note. That is way more words than I was expecting to write. I hope that was helpful.

Okay, I was like, "one more try before I go out for the night!" and it was a good idea because I sucked a lot less at that riff even though I made a lot more random mistakes everywhere else. http://i.imgur.com/cRbGana.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/2D4k2fG.jpg Was having trouble matching my 92 run for a while but I just managed this. I think I can do a lot better at the riff I'm getting strikes on but I'm not going to have any more time to get higher this week.

http://i.imgur.com/c9EDxPW.jpg Okay, after Riff Repeating I don't think this is MC after all. Sure is tricky for Advanced though. I think it seems harder than it is because I am not familiar with this style at all. Surprised I even managed this much with how far I've got left to go. I still can't get that riff with the high E trills at all.

http://i.imgur.com/QGuzOk7.jpg Bass arrangement is nearly the exact same chart. Only differences are less chugging and a couple chords and licks are an octave down. Honestly, bass emulation sucks and I have more fun with the Lead, so I'm gonna keep playing the Amp FX chart. Not like I'm in Intermediate, so doesn't really matter to me whether it "counts".

http://i.imgur.com/SSIHtRm.jpg :persevere: Seriously, n3verend? This is an MC song. That's okay, though... I like a challenge! It's a really fun chart, and I think this is the shortest Advanced song of 2015.

http://i.imgur.com/sHDQ9hW.jpg By the way, I know this song, uh... pretty well! So I might just make my goal this week a good Master Mode run?

Punishment for extra played notes?! Maybe in Score Attack, but please never in Learn a Song! I would go crazy if I wasn't allowed to improv solos during long rests. Hell, I find myself chugging and adding extra flairs during simple riffs to avoid boredom, too.

Totally gonna bust out the bass emulator for a run on Out of the Black. Never heard of any of this other stuff.

This is kind of a shot in the dark, but this community definitely enjoys video games and a good challenge, so here's a topic about my favourite video game. DotA 2 (Defence of the Ancients) is a completely free to play multiplayer game that plays similar to an RPG, but each session starts anew with Level 1 characters. Unlike other games with similar genres, all content is immediately available to all players the moment you're done installing. Every player on each team of 5 chooses their own character class ("hero") out of a pool of 110, each with four unique abilities. You level up and acquire gold by killing enemy minions, monsters, other players, and buildings, and use the gold to acquire items - a common pool of stat boosts and extra abilities that you can use to complement your specific hero's strengths. The end goal is to destroy the enemy ancient, the final building at the end of your opponent's defenses. It is a very strategic game with lots of depth, and has been likened to "real time chess" and football. Each game takes anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes, though there are extreme cases of even less or more. Like a complex board game, it is a good idea to learn the rules before starting, and there are extensive videos and guides detailing all the nuances of the game. Available for download here. Learning resources while you wait: A four minute video on the absolute basics. A one minute video on how to use Hero Guides, a tool for new players that makes suggestions on how to level up your hero and which items to buy. A pretty comprehensive guide on the rules of the game. This doesn't have anything to do with learning the game, but this documentary is about the professional scene. The first major Dota tournament had a $1 million prize pool. Every year it gets bigger - this year's tournament was $18.5 million! If you'd like a teacher, you can add me on Steam through my profile and I'll coach your first few bot games.

Quiet week in Adv Lead for such a decent track. I guess a lot of people are allergic to arpeggios!

Finally tuned down to give Domination a go. This is one of my favourite Symphony X tracks so I was excited. http://i.imgur.com/unBztRu.jpg Yikes. It didn't even sound like 75%, though a lot of the stuff that I thought would be too hard for me is totally manageable. The chorus instantly came out of my hands perfectly and I was like WHAT I CAN DO THIS? :open_mouth: I'm starting to surprise myself a lot lately. So then I hopped in Riff Repeater and figured out how to do the hook. http://i.imgur.com/RLlkWuV.jpg ...kind of. Honestly surprised Rocksmith was so accepting of my awful rendition of it, but I guess I hit all the notes even if they sounded like I was squeezing dead animals off-rhythm. I somehow nailed a couple of the tapping sections by sheer luck, too. Nothing in this song is really that hard but it's just a constant onslaught of speedy transitions that makes for a hell of an endurance test. http://i.imgur.com/vBgAr8D.jpg Also, my slow climb on Angie continues.

http://i.imgur.com/vKQY54H.jpg Slowly getting the hang of this. Finding it's mostly about deft pinkie work and remembering that they're just the same chords, dammit, no matter how arpeggiated they are. http://i.imgur.com/uCm6jUS.jpg Nobody gives a fuck who you are! Can play almost all of this perfectly but still avoiding SA because the last part continues to kick my ass even after extensive riff repeating. http://i.imgur.com/g5JFVYl.jpg Coheed tends to have fun rhythm charts, so I gave that a play too. I love Symphony X but I'm terrified of how hard Domination is going to be. :weary: Maybe tomorrow.

http://i.imgur.com/g1sC8x0.jpg Not sure whether it's the fact that I've been sleep-deprived all week but this feels like a hard Intermediate song. Coheed is one of my favourite bands, I'm very familiar with the track, but the string skipping in the outro riff just confuses the hell out of me. I love the main riff, it's so summery. http://i.imgur.com/cAoMvUH.jpg This one seems really easy on paper - it's the exact same two chord progressions over and over again - but getting my fingers to do it is taking longer than I expected. Even getting the +2 was a struggle. I feel like after a proper night's sleep this'll become a breeze.

These first runs brought to you by No Sleep Whatsoever. http://i.imgur.com/Twf2mDL.jpg http://i.imgur.com/GwjuEOC.jpg More in-depth commentary when I am not on the verge of... zzzzz *collapses*

http://i.imgur.com/U1WL39W.jpg I think I can do 98 on this if I get a run in where I don't completely botch the solo, but I'm so sick of this song. You win this one, Azrael!!

Ever closer to 100%: http://i.imgur.com/vxtXTgt.jpg http://i.imgur.com/7Q2pgGY.jpg Takes a ton of effort to even see 1% improvement on these songs, with the constant trickiness in Stratus and the massive girth on Wild Wind. Here's hoping for some 2 minute punk numbers next week! (...he says after dropping a 7 minute medley into the SSL)

We can't edit it anymore? Okay, here are more of mine: Machinae Supremacy - Sidology Episode 3: Apex Ultima (MC) Coheed and Cambria - Everything Evil (Adv) Alexisonfire - The Northern (Beg)

http://i.imgur.com/4hIT9QT.jpg This was one of the last songs out of LP I really like, I was crazy into them in the Hybrid Theory/Meteora days but they're more miss than hit with me the past decade. http://i.imgur.com/ydb80Ec.jpg Had never heard this until now but really grooving on it. That chorus is so catchy~

http://i.imgur.com/3tj7Jdf.jpg I love Maiden, but I'm really not a big fan of this tune. Too easy, too repetitive, wayyyyy too long. Gonna RR the solo until I can do it decently and probably just give this one more stab. http://i.imgur.com/LUHKsNn.jpg This one's nicer to listen to, more fun to play, and shorter. Bend city! I could use some work on those. Gonna try the Iced Earth track later, too.

:interrobang: :sob: