The rocksmith method | Forums

[Geijin]

After a few weeks with the game, as a complete beginner in guitar, I would like to share my thoughts about the "Rocksmith method".

First, I think it is very difficult to make a game and a learning method at the same time.
The traditional way of learning is repetition, over and over again, until mastery. Quite the opposite of fun.
By enabling you to play along immediately, RS is great for the motivation and let everyone enjoy the experience.

As I see it, in order to let the game be fun, RS is based on many small steps and as difficulty rise slowly, you don't have big hurdles.

But, if you have never touched a guitar before, I think you may miss some things by playing only RS.
For example, on the easiest level, you can't understand the logic behind the notes you have to play. Sometimes, arpeggios are based on a chord, and unless you identify it by yourself, you may struggle to play the notes individually by moving your left hand fingers instead of using the chords position...
The games doesn't make you practice the stuff needed to play a song beforehand. Once you are doing well with single notes, the game throw you chords you have never seen and you have to train _after_ failing to play correctly, which can be quite frustrating.

Another point is, until you can master the song, notes are changing almost every times (since you are making progress). Therefore, you can't play anything by yourself.
Trying to remember a song until 100% mastery notes is pointless due to the fact that you may play the wrong way (for example, left hand positioning based on the chords).
I think this is the main reason why you can't fix the difficulty level for a song. It is meant to play fully, before that, it is just training.
The fact you can't play by yourself or be able to show what you can do (tried once after getting a good level on single notes and failed when never seen chords appeared) may be hard for beginner.

Finally, bad habits is the worst thing when you are trying to learn anything. By challenging you all the time, RS doesn't let you the time to make things correctly and I fear you may end with bad habits that may take some times to correct later. For example, when playing scales or chords, at the beginning, it is important to have a good hand positioning and be careful with your fingers in order to do it well. Practicing speed without correct position may be detrimental in the long term.

For me, RS is a great way to discover the instrument by exploring different types of music and sounds. By letting you play along from day 1, it is a wonderful way to make you want to play. But, unless you know already the instrument, I think you should complement it with real practice if you want to be a "real" guitar player.
A friend of mine showed me JustinGuitar, but there are also a lot of other resources online. A "real life" teacher may also be a good idea to point about bad habits early.

[Steel_Nirvana]

I'm not sure I fully agree. I think too many people either get wrapped around the axle comparing RS to old-school methods of learning, or pan the whole thing because it's not the perfect all-in-one tool for every skill level.

To take one of your points, for example, I had two years of in-person lessons and never learned a whole song I could play by myself; it's taken RS to get me to that point. I've made more progress as a guitarist since October than I have since 2007 when I bought my guitar.

I think RS's strengths are its innovative learning method and its ability to take the drudge work out of practice. The tutorials are also pretty good overviews of the major skills needed.

What too many people are missing--perhaps because they are already at a certain ability of playing--is that it's not about learning Song X. If you think the intermediate steps are counterproductive, you're missing the point entirely. It'd be like saying a program to teach typing is useless because it teaches you finger drills and the home row first instead of jumping immediately into medical transcription. Just like the typing program, the intermediate steps in RS teach valuable skills such as timing, finger dexterity, coordination between left and right hands, left hand anchor zones, and a host of other building-block skills that have nothing to do with playing the full song as performed by the original artist. But instead of rote exercise, RS accomplishes this while also giving the student the feeling of playing along to cool songs.

I think that's pretty huge. And I think my progress and that of a lot of others bears out the teaching method.

Nope, it's not perfect. But I think it's a whole lot more that a toy to "discover" the instrument...but call a "real" teacher if you want to actually play. Frankly, I think you could make a case that lessons would be a supplement to RS rather than the other way around.

[Geijin]

I think RS is a wonderful game and a great way too learn.
What I'm saying is that if you don't know guitar at all, you may miss something with using only RS and I may takes more time to correct it afterwards.

To use your typing analogy, imagine you give "typing of the dead" or any other fun way to help typing speed to someone without proper training... What you'll get is someone able to type fast with 2 fingers. After some times, if he wants to be a better typist, he will have to lose some bad habits and learn the "right way" to do things.
If you teach him _beforehand_ how to type correctly, you'll get someone typing correctly and faster.

What is missing in RS is the theoretical part and the feedback about body/hand/finger positioning. After taking 2 years of lesson, you have all the basics and RS give you challenges and means to practice. It's perfect.
For a complete beginner, I think it's not enough, and if someone want's to really play guitar, he will have to complement it with real lesson. And in order to do things correctly, the sooner, the better.

[rcole_sooner]

You know, it would probably not hurt to get lessons with an instructor. That seems rather obvious.

If I was a beginning guitarist, and interested in using RS, then I might find an instructor willing to help me learn guitar and use RS. I can't see why one would not be willing to do such.

In fact, it could possibly be a whole new way, for instructors to work with students.

It would be a heck of an old-school wall to break down, but a few might see it as a option.

[Steel_Nirvana]

To use your typing analogy, imagine you give "typing of the dead" or any other fun way to help typing speed to someone without proper training... What you'll get is someone able to type fast with 2 fingers. After some times, if he wants to be a better typist, he will have to lose some bad habits and learn the "right way" to do things.
If you teach him _beforehand_ how to type correctly, you'll get someone typing correctly and faster.

Oddly enough, that's exactly how I learned to type. It wasn't Dawn of the Chord Dead, but the lessons were a silly soap opera-style story that made practice fun and always had me coming back for the next lesson. A lot like RS. I don't think one could get very far in RS using only their index finger, for example....

Besides, how many of the guitar greats were entirely self-taught? Quite a few.

I think the idea that there's a right way and a wrong way to learn is fundamentally incorrect. The right way to play is the one where you sound good.

[Geijin]

You know, it would probably not hurt to get lessons with an instructor. That seems rather obvious.

If I was a beginning guitarist, and interested in using RS, then I might find an instructor willing to help me learn guitar and use RS. I can't see why one would not be willing to do such.

In fact, it could possibly be a whole new way, for instructors to work with students.

It would be a heck of an old-school wall to break down, but a few might see it as a option.

I can't agree more.
I you really want to enjoy RS and get the most of it, I think you should know the basics and an instructor is the best way to learn (or at least, online lessons).
What I was saying is that some people may have bought RS without any prior knowledge and they may have difficulties later as RS is not enough to learn how to play.

And concerning the self taught great guitarists, I'm not sure everyone has the gift. For mere mortal, hard work is required.

[ALuomala]

<<Snip>>

What too many people are missing--perhaps because they are already at a certain ability of playing--is that it's not about learning Song X.<<Snip>>

.

I think Steel_Nirvana has hit it right on the head here.... There was that RS promotional video floating around, where a guy learned a song (forget which one) and played it on stage with the band. In my mind, that would be like teaching someone (a non-English speaker) all the lyrics of a song (phonetically), getting them to sing it, and claiming that they know how to speak English. It's a nice parlour trick, but it doesn't mean that the person is ready to write a song, or play a completely different song.

Too many people are focused on instant-gratification ("Lose 15 pounds in 1 week!"), rather than focusing on the journey. I would like to learn how to play guitar as quickly as possible, but some things will never come that quickly (i.e zero to hero in a few weeks). "Training smarter, not harder" is a good mantra to repeat, but don't have unrealistic expectations.

[rcole_sooner]

Even the longest journey starts with a single song.

Er, uh, um, or something like that.

[KMatch]

Finally, bad habits is the worst thing when you are trying to learn anything. By challenging you all the time, RS doesn't let you the time to make things correctly and I fear you may end with bad habits that may take some times to correct later. For example, when playing scales or chords, at the beginning, it is important to have a good hand positioning and be careful with your fingers in order to do it well. Practicing speed without correct position may be detrimental in the long term.

I see this first hand on most youtube vids. I see some excellent playing soundwise and notewise, but without any coaching, I'm seeing TONS of bad technique - mainly in poor hand placement resulting in chasing notes all over the fretboard with 1 finger rather than the common 1 per fret layout taught as standard. A bit more time spent in technique here would make the difference in a few who think they have it mastered.

[bradiam]

I see this first hand on most youtube vids. I see some excellent playing soundwise and notewise, but without any coaching, I'm seeing TONS of bad technique - mainly in poor hand placement resulting in chasing notes all over the fretboard with 1 finger rather than the common 1 per fret layout taught as standard. A bit more time spent in technique here would make the difference in a few who think they have it mastered.

That's just people not paying attention. Rocksmith does teach suggested finger placement, and it is covered in the introductory tutorials.

I agree that people are learning bad habits from the game, but that's just how they are playing more than the fault of the game. They are typically just picking up a guitar and mastering a song in a few days to "beat" the game. If you take your time and use the tools provided in Rocksmith, it can teach a lot of really good technique.

I think if you take time to use it to actually learn guitar rather than trying to master songs, it's actually really good at the beginner level. The guitarcade drills are really good for beginners like me. There's loads of short videos included that cover a good deal of technique, and some theory. How much theory does a beginner like me really need?

I've looked at online lessons, and talked to some instructors, and I think a lot of people forget that there is not a whole lot of theory taught to absolute beginners anyway; at least not at first.