Guitar Status: April 28, 2013

I went through a couple of events in Rocksmith this weekend: pleasant, as always, and it’s nice to both see a new song (Get Free) and to return to songs I enjoy that I hadn’t played for a little while (a couple of Clash songs, and Santana’s Smooth).

But I’m also trying to step a bit away from the events: so I spent some time going through individual songs, sometimes trying to learn segments, sometimes learning a different part from the one the game throws at you from default, sometimes just enjoying playing a song. I’ll continue doing that: I like the randomness that come from having events suggest songs at you, but it’s good for me to dive into songs a bit more.

I also had an interesting talk with Joan about what she’s focusing her guitar practice on. (Which she spends a lot more time on than I do!) I’m certainly being conscious about what I focus on: I’m not focusing on pedals and sounds like that, I’m not focusing on trying different guitars, I’m not focusing on improvisation, but I am focusing on execution. (With, right now, a focus more on my right hand than my left hand.) Listening to her talk about what she’s getting out of her theory grounding was quite interesting, though: that’s something that I should consider thinking more about. This weekend was particularly interesting in that regard: Joan and I spent some time a month or so ago improvising around a twelve-bar blues, and a couple of songs that I played this week had sections that are based on that. (So I should spend more time playing with Joan, to get more to think about! Though I’m sadly super busy this month…)