burningmetal

I taught myself guitar by ear, as did two of my brothers. I liken it to learning how to read. Just as you sound out a letter, you do the same with notes. I would fool around with the strings until I hit the note the matched whatever I was trying to play. After a while your brain starts to memorize the basic structure of whatever you're playing, and the more you practice you develop muscle memory and that's when your speed picks up and you can start creating your own sound. That's how it was for me anyway.

And once you have that feel for it, it's easier to comprehend theory, even though I'm not personally a theory guy. I prefer to use my own techniques, but every person is going to have their own comfort zone.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, the NFL would fine and suspend me.

TheOak

It is different for everyone and I am not debating that your method was right for you, I am just putting out information that I wish I had at my disposal when I first tried to learn guitar over a decade ago... For people that are thinking about taking it up but not sure where to start.

I love the comments on the Bass Players facebook page. They get a lot of "I want to start but where" questions and some of the answers make me LOL.
My favorite ~ "Just get a band together and start playing."
Sure thing! Ill just tell everyone at the next office meeting, or Home Owners Meeting to go out and drop a few hundred on various instruments, cut out a block of 2 hours a night and bring all that to my house so we can start a garage band. I am 43 and hanging out at the local High School trying to recruit a band is going to get me unwanted police attention.

I am not sure what music you learned to play with but for a beginning Bass player to pick up a Bass that is in standard tune and learn to play his favorite music (todays rock), it can get very frustrating, very quickly, when trying to match the notes. Tool, Disturbed, Linkin Park, Greenday, even some ACDC and Led Zepplin.. They all use alternate tuning. Best of luck learning to play Pink Floyd - Run Like Hell by ear in standard tuning. I am a big Tesla fan but a lot of their music is in either alternate tuning or custom tuning and there is no way I would have ever learned to play their music by ear from the jump.

Now I am not saying anything negative about the way that you learned, just that it doesn't work the same way for everyone.

You are an auditory learner it would seem, but for kinesthetic or visual learners, they wouldn't have your degree of success.

RockSmith is not a different way to learn, it is an amalgamation of teaching methods all rolled into one. It combines all three learning styles with a teacher to tell you when you are doing it wrong or doing it right.


Take this Bass Tab for example:

You would remember the way it sounds and apply that when playing it.
I would remember the way it looks when playing it.
A third person might remember the physical structure and how it feels when they play it.

No , LOl I do not work for Rocksmith but I am an advocate because of the way it teaches and that it doesn't leave anything out. Well, except for fixing bad physical habbits and even that it helps as the tutorial section has video of a guy playing what it is teaching you. You watch him play the slide technique, you hear him play it, and you can read the sub-captions if you like... Then you go into a 'you try it' exercise where it gradually brings you up to 100% of what he did.

Imagine that when you sat down to play your first song you could hear it, see it on your fret board, and feel it as you played. Found a sticky part, use the 'riff repeat' and I will loop that riff until you tell it to stop, which for me is a heck of a lot better than having to hit stop, rewind, then play on a tape recorder or fiddle with a record player depending on how old you are.


All of that said knowing how to play a guitar and physically being able to do it are two different issues. RockSmith like a Teacher starts you off in a way that you build the calluses, dexterity, speed, and strength to actually execute the song you want to play. That comes from repetitious playing and not hunting for notes. Even if I could program your brain to play Eruption, with out the physical ability your hands would knot with in the first 30 seconds.

RockSmith is like having a coach run you through agility drills in the off season. When I started my sessions lasted until my finger tips hurt too bad to play, then as clauses built my sessions lasted until my hands cramped up. Now... I play until I either run out of wine or have trouble staying on my stool.