What are you struggling with?

Train them to mute :slight_smile:

I usually subconsciously mute with my plucking hand pinky. It just happens.

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This is a very normal thing in the beginning. Let them sort of be where they want to be when you are learning things, however, try to do some exercises or songs etc at a slower pace and make a consious effort to coax them into submission. Over time (this is key, it will happen when they are ready, or just tired of fighting you) they will end up where they need to be.
Whatever you do, don’t force them somewhere they hurt and keep playing. If speed does it, you are not ready yet to be that fast. It will come, in time.

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I can feel I’m currently struggling with remembering the switches in the music (and G.A.S., damn you Darkglass). I’m happily plodding along in Billie Jean and forget when the switch is coming. I switch from between lost in the music and overthinking my transition.

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Here’s a practice rip for transitions:

Find a cue of some sort a bar or two before the transition: a vocal, drum change, sound effect, etc. and then slow down from that point through the transition and repeat just the before/transition/after (couple more bars) over and over, but go slow (no, slower!) and loop it. Slow enough that you play it perfectly, then speed it back up always playing perfectly before increasing speed.

This will burn it in and then you can forget worrying about it at all.

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Second what John said. If you listen closely there are usually cues from the other musicians that indicate when a change is about to happen. A lot of times it’s a slight variation in the riff you’ve been playing, and often times I use cues from the vocalist. It also helps to just listen to the song a thousand times so you won’t even have to think about it

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Distractions. Baldur’s Gate 3 is amazing (waited three years for it too), Starfield is preloading now, Armored Core 6 looks fantastic and I love the series (but I just can’t do another From Software game right now), and Ahsoka is making me want to binge the Rebels eps I missed.

Oh and also work.

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I got it and almost rage quit on the intro boss. That decision to only give you tutorials afterwards is beyond stupid.

Not jumping on that thing right now seems pretty smart to me, it really could use some refinement and balancing patches. Imo, they released like 6 months too early.

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This is a From Software tradition- all of their games are like this, it’s a common theme. Intro level with a boss fight that utterly beats you down. Even Elden Ring did (though they put the tutorial first there).

It’s like their version of the Elder Scrolls thing where you always start out incarcerated.

And yeah, it’s annoying. But at this point if they didn’t do it people would just wonder when it was coming :slight_smile:

I’ve been gaming since I was a little kid on my NES, absolutely love the RPG genre and put hundreds of hours into fallout and Skyrim and somehow Starfield slipped by me. Was talking to my brother in law the other day and he was flabbergasted that I hadn’t heard of it. Needless to say it’s on preorder :eyes:

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I’m currently blasting demons in Diablo 4, I’ve moved away from games in the past 5 years, since I obsess over them, and can spend countless hours. It’s a weakness for me, but I’m allowing myself to enjoy D4 with the missus.

Well,
Torn ligament wasn’t healing, so got a new superhero armor molded splint and an invite to an MRI to see what’s what. Net/net, this ain’t over next week like originally thunk.

I miss you basses (and saxamophones)

At least this one I can clean so it doesn’t stink.

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Dang man, I hope you can heal up quick.

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Wow, hate to hear that, @John_E.

Reminds me of the “The Twilight Zone” episode where the last man on Earth loves reading books more than anything, so he gathers all his favorites at the library…then accidentally breaks his only eyeglasses as he’s walking out.

I hope the doc prognosis is good.

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@John_E I’m sorry, mate. Hope the MRI will at least be more promising news for you. Big props on your Simpson reference, though!

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sucks. I’m going through something similar with my left hand.

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Sorry John, that just sucks. Wishing you all the best in the next steps toward recovery.

Yeah, that stuff can get pretty funky, and not the good kind.

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Ugh that sucks. Maybe go Full Bond Villain and get a metal armored hand? Then weld on a pick.

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I was thinking more like Spaceballs?

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Not so much a struggle but maybe the aftermath of a struggle?

Yesterday, I tried recording myself for the first time. I’ve been a bit down about my playing ability at this point and feeling like I should be further along etc etc. While I was recording, I was thinking “this sounds bad”. After playing back the recording, it sounded great. Maybe not Duck Dunn great but much better than I thought.

Played some more. Finally realized something: I can hear my guitar directly. In my little room with my Rumble 40 amp turned up to a volume that is decent but not loud or obnoxious or disturbing to others in my house, I can still hear the guitar itself. Given the layout of my space and such, I’m having a lot of difficulty differentiating between what I’m hearing from the guitar and what I’m hearing from the amp.

The un-amplified guitar on its own sounds much worse than what is making it’s way through the little bits of copper and ceramic.

Realizing that has been an eye opener. Don’t mistake this as a “blaming the instrument” kind of thing. I just found out that I was listening to the wrong thing and it was steering me in the wrong direction as a result.

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Yep, hollowbodies are even worse.
Ignore what you are hearing from your instrument, no one hears that.

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