When learning a new song and using Riff Repeater to start slow and increase speed, what method works best for you to increase your speed?  Do you find a speed that you can do reliably and repeat that?  Or do you find a speed that you struggle with and practice that?  Or do you do something else?

I leave the auto speed up on 100% difficulty , with 0 error tolerance. Then play at say 50% speed. Once you hit all the notes it will automatically speed you up 10%. Repeat until at 100%. Profit!!! I also work on the song in small sections, that way you burn the section into muscle memory.

I lower the speed until I can pretty much do it perfectly with 0 notes wrong. Then I start upping the speed manually until I struggle to do it then repeat and repeat and repeat. To gain speed you just need to repeat it as many times as needed so that you will do it instinctively without having to think about it.

i think steps by 10% are actually a bit too much in the higher registers (especially from 90 to 100)..

 

what i do is i start at a low value (usually around 50) and then go through each section (usually bundled in sets of 2) until i can play them without error twice in a row.. then i go to the next set of sections.. once that's done i go through the whole track and then increment in steps of 5%-points..

 

sometimes i don't bother getting it 100% correct, when i know i played it right, and it was just the note recognition that's messing with my temper ;)

Muscle memory ?? Doesn't exist! In fact it's an automation process. The more you train certain patterns of scales, the less your brain has to tell your fingers what to do. All comes down to reflexes that are commanded not by the brain, but by nerves in the backspin.

 

Patterns of notes don't care if they are played on lower or higher frets or strings, memorize them and play them anywhere.

 

Besides speed is a coordination process of left and right hand. It may be that your fingers on the fret are faster sometimes than the right picking hand, so learn economy picking.

 

Technique is important, keep all fingers close to or even on the fret, pick or fingers close to the strings.

Any excessive movement is loss of time ( check youtube tutorials)

 

The younger you are, the easier, faster and long-lasting this process, so don't loose time training scales.

Unluckily I was born much too early  :(

I dont train with scales enough! i really need to start up

I do it like most here, but I will play the song at 100% speed, and adjust the difficultly to something challenging, I do this to see which parts I can play with time and which parts I can't. Then I go back and slow the parts I'm having a hard time with, I usually slow it down in riff repeater (with accelerator on and error tolerance at low or zero) if I still struggle when it speeds up by itself, I'll slow it down and do it over and over again. 

Also, practicing scales on your OWN outside of Rocksmith is helpful...try going faster , also practice chords and changing them, I just have my guitar while I'm watching tv and practice scales and what not, up and down the neck.

Well, as TomSawyer2112 said, I was born too early and started playing too late. I'm 34 now (close to 35) and I have aprox. 1 year since I start playing regularly (each day for 1 hour when I'm not out of town) but I see that age is slowing a lot my progress.

 

As to how I do it? I try to play the song as it is. If it has DD I run it several times (usually with very high accuracy at the beginning) and than if the complexity allows it I take it up to 100%, block it there and train on harder section in RR with speed from 50 and up. Sometimes I saw that depending on the pace, it comes easier, or natural, to play at 80%, 90% rather than at 60%. Depending on the complexity I either go with the usual 10% step or I lower it. But I agree with the fact that the jump from 90% to 100% is huge (for me at least).

I saw amazing progress in my guitar play, but also limitations, and there are songs (Dream Theater, Rhapsody of Fire) which I almost cannot touch, and I have doubts that I'll ever be able to play them properly (around 90%).

 

But, any progress is better than no progress and as far as I enjoy playing along my favorite bands I can live up with less than 100%. 

 

My only regret is that I haven't had the chance of starting to play earlier.

 

Best regards to everyone

 

Calin

 

 

But, any progress is better than no progress and as far as I enjoy playing along my favorite bands I can live up with less than 100%. 

 

My only regret is that I haven't had the chance of starting to play earlier.

 

 

At least you're playing, some people never get around to it. Better late than never! (And 35 is still really young).

35 too old?  haha, I'm picking up a musical instrument for the first time in my life at 54!  Definitely wish I would have started 20, 40 even 50 years earlier, but still having fun!  It's a challenge and the learning is certainly coming slower than it would have at a much younger age, but it is still progressing.  I don't ever expect to progress to the point of playing with a band or anything, I just enjoy being able to jam on guitar and bass with all these songs I've been playing on air guitar all these years.  Love this site and appreciate all the hard work that goes into creating the content here.

 

35 too old?  haha, I'm picking up a musical instrument for the first time in my life at 54!

 

Almost same age. I am 53 in a few days and I just started playing bass 5 weeks ago. I've played drums professionally for over 17 years (started with 14), but after an accident i could not use my right leg as usal and it started to hurt after less than 30minutes of playing, so I had to quit. Was really frustraiting for me. After all the years I thought, why not play any other instrument and so I started with the bass.

 

You're right, learning is quite much harder in our age, but I spend almost 2 hours a day for practice and it works better and better and my target is to play in a band again - maybe not as a professional (almost too old for this), but in a cover band to do some gigs a year and some jam sessions.

 

@@drewhark

Scales (playing forth and back) are one of the most important things to learn, same as all the notes of the fretboard - this is what all teachers are telling on and on. You also should do finger training and play all possible variations of 1-2-3-4, 1-3-4-2, 2-3-4-1- and so on over the total fretboard is a very good training - and with all notes - quartes, 8th, 16th. Always start very slow and than speed it up AND VERY IMPORTANT: always with a metronome!

 

 

 

35 too old?  haha, I'm picking up a musical instrument for the first time in my life at 54!

 

Almost same age. I am 53 in a few days and I just started playing bass 5 weeks ago. I've played drums professionally for over 17 years (started with 14), but after an accident i could not use my right leg as usal and it started to hurt after less than 30minutes of playing, so I had to quit. Was really frustraiting for me. After all the years I thought, why not play any other instrument and so I started with the bass.

 

You're right, learning is quite much harder in our age, but I spend almost 2 hours a day for practice and it works better and better and my target is to play in a band again - maybe not as a professional (almost too old for this), but in a cover band to do some gigs a year and some jam sessions.

 

 

 

 

 

Ha!  Gotcha both beat.  Turned 58 last year, decided to try Rocksmith to learn guitar and having a blast ever since.  Maybe we can start a Geriatric Forum?

43 Too young?

Ha!  Gotcha both beat.  Turned 58 last year, decided to try Rocksmith to learn guitar and having a blast ever since.  Maybe we can start a Geriatric Forum?

 

 

Cool idea: a forum for grannies who started playing an instrument

 

@ nohafence: 43 is almost quite old for beginners too - you can join the club B)

 

Ha!  Gotcha both beat.  Turned 58 last year, decided to try Rocksmith to learn guitar and having a blast ever since.  Maybe we can start a Geriatric Forum?

 

 

Cool idea: a forum for grannies who started playing an instrument

 

@ nohafence: 43 is almost quite old for beginners too - you can join the club B)

I

Hi all!!!!

I'm Claudio made in Italy  in 1961 :D :D

Very noob

i think steps by 10% are actually a bit too much in the higher registers (especially from 90 to 100)..

 

what i do is i start at a low value (usually around 50) and then go through each section (usually bundled in sets of 2) until i can play them without error twice in a row.. then i go to the next set of sections.. once that's done i go through the whole track and then increment in steps of 5%-points..

 

sometimes i don't bother getting it 100% correct, when i know i played it right, and it was just the note recognition that's messing with my temper ;)

I've actually timed it and the difference between 95% and 100% (in riff repeater) is actually a 10% difference in speed, err, in realtime.

 

Not sure what the 'real' difference is between 90 and 95% but it's certainly not linear..

 

H

I had a hard time with this site at first , although the more I read the more customsforge  kicks butt  i'm 51 it is

 hard butt well worth the pain and frustration to learn an instrument if your on the fence i'll say this  (dig deep & push on) you will get addicted 

 

 

 

 

                                                                      rock out !!!!!! 

I'm 45 and just started last year from zero to do fairly well.   never hit 100% on any song.  Call myself doing great if I break 80%.   

 

I just set the speed and difficulty on 100% and then work on a song in sections.   Usually do about 12 songs at a time.   I find some easier ones, medium and a couple hard ones as a stretch goal.    

 

Sure not thinking I am going to be hitting the road.   If my wife recognizes them when she walks by the room, then I am good.   Figure I will be one of the cool dads.   Plus if there is any song I don't want them listening to, I can start doing really bad at it and the song will loose any coolness it had!

i used a metronome to get my picking up until i could pick at about 150bpm and then i just put the difficulty all the way up on a song and work on it over a few days

Well and i thought i was too old to even start learning a guitar... I started woth age 21 till now age 22. It's kinda funny to see that i'm not anywhere late [emoji85]

Nice to read I'm not alone surviving half a century, and still be a Freebird with a young heart. B)  

I started guitar at 25, but then, schools offered me mainly "Deutsche Volkslieder" and that made me throw my acoustic in the attic.

 

Youngsters, you don't know how lucky you are with all those youtube tutorials (Pebber Brown, Jim Bowley, TheGuitarNick...) and software like RS.

 

But why is it that learning gets tougher with aging.

It's about unused neurons ! At about the age of 12, if they didn't make connections with others (synapses),

they feel useless and die. By millions, every year.  :(

That's why the best age to start music is at 6 to 12 ( as well as soccer and other sports, requiring coordination of movement).

 

The basic chords I learned as a twen, I've never lost them, even though I didn't play for 20years.

What you learn even younger, will not be lost, after some training, former level is achieved quickly.

But it's hard to get better.

 

I never learned scales, and that's tough now, but a lot of fun, rewarding for the slightest progresses.

RS12 Scale runner is fun, but too linear and notes get not well detected on higher frets.

 

I currently stumbled upon Free Online Guitar Software, may be interesting, if someone knows a good scale trainer let me know. ;)

Something that really helped me develop my overall speed and technique was this CDLC: http://customsforge.com/page/customsforge_rs_2014_cdlc.html/_/pc-enabled-rs-2014-cdlc/30-hour-workout-r1106

 

At first I could only do the first exercice at 20% of the speed using riff repeater and like 2 weeks later I was on 60%.

I haven't praticed that specific exercice in a while, but I think that I must be at 80% by now. It was also one of the exercices on this CDLC that helped me develop my sweep picking technique.

 

I highly recommend you to try it, that and overall practice on songs will get you faster and better, it just takes time.

Something that really helped me develop my overall speed and technique was this CDLC: http://customsforge.com/page/customsforge_rs_2014_cdlc.html/_/pc-enabled-rs-2014-cdlc/30-hour-workout-r1106

 

At first I could only do the first exercice at 20% of the speed using riff repeater and like 2 weeks later I was on 60%.

I haven't praticed that specific exercice in a while, but I think that I must be at 80% by now. It was also one of the exercices on this CDLC that helped me develop my sweep picking technique.

 

I highly recommend you to try it, that and overall practice on songs will get you faster and better, it just takes time.

 

These are mainly chromatic scales, with different sequences 

This may increase  dexterity, but not music knowledge. 

Quite boring, robotic.

 

It doesn't help ear training and remembering scales and their notes.

With only 2 scales (a major & pentatonic minor) at the end, with a simple linear sequence.

So it stops just when the fun begins. :(

 

Something that really helped me develop my overall speed and technique was this CDLC: http://customsforge.com/page/customsforge_rs_2014_cdlc.html/_/pc-enabled-rs-2014-cdlc/30-hour-workout-r1106

 

At first I could only do the first exercice at 20% of the speed using riff repeater and like 2 weeks later I was on 60%.

I haven't praticed that specific exercice in a while, but I think that I must be at 80% by now. It was also one of the exercices on this CDLC that helped me develop my sweep picking technique.

 

I highly recommend you to try it, that and overall practice on songs will get you faster and better, it just takes time.

 

These are mainly chromatic scales, with different sequences 

This may increase  dexterity, but not music knowledge. 

Quite boring, robotic.

 

It doesn't help ear training and remembering scales and their notes.

With only 2 scales (a major & pentatonic minor) at the end, with a simple linear sequence.

So it stops just when the fun begins. :(

 

I agree with you, but the post only asked about devoloping speed, that's why I only talked about that.

Unfortunatly Rocksmith doesn't do a good job teaching theory, but I guess it's because that wouldn't be as easy to make it enjoyable to learn.

I've found that practicing basic techniques to a metronome really helps. Speed is only useful if you can do it with the right timing.

 

I usually just practice 5 to 10 minutes on a metronome before starting Rocksmith. It has makes for a good little warm-up :)

Nice to read I'm not alone surviving half a century, and still be a Freebird with a young heart. B)  

I started guitar at 25, but then, schools offered me mainly "Deutsche Volkslieder" and that made me throw my acoustic in the attic.

 

Youngsters, you don't know how lucky you are with all those youtube tutorials (Pebber Brown, Jim Bowley, TheGuitarNick...) and software like RS.

 

But why is it that learning gets tougher with aging.

It's about unused neurons ! At about the age of 12, if they didn't make connections with others (synapses),

they feel useless and die. By millions, every year.  :(

That's why the best age to start music is at 6 to 12 ( as well as soccer and other sports, requiring coordination of movement).

 

The basic chords I learned as a twen, I've never lost them, even though I didn't play for 20years.

What you learn even younger, will not be lost, after some training, former level is achieved quickly.

But it's hard to get better.

 

I never learned scales, and that's tough now, but a lot of fun, rewarding for the slightest progresses.

RS12 Scale runner is fun, but too linear and notes get not well detected on higher frets.

 

I currently stumbled upon Free Online Guitar Software, may be interesting, if someone knows a good scale trainer let me know. ;)

A lot of excuses ,neurons ,age blah,blah ,blah. It's never late to learn something ,whatever you want and it's not about neurons , it's about will. If you don't get better is because yoy don't really want. <_<