Week 2 Bass Challenge: "Plug In Baby" by Muse | Forums

[pick__pocket]

Week 2 Bass Challenge: "Plug In Baby" by Muse
[INDENT]

Rules:

1) A song and particular arrangement will be posted before Tuesday every week.


2) There are four competitive categories. To foster a fair, fun, and competitive environment, players should self-select into the category that best describes their ability. This categorization should remain stable from week to week, unless a player determines that they have initially self-selected into the wrong division.


Division I: Can level most songs to 100%, and can play most songs proficiently - 95+% accuracy. Can master songs like Mean B!tch, Chimney, Good Enough etc.
Division II: Can level several songs to 100%, may have trouble accurately playing them at that level. General accuracy 85-95%.
Division III: May level some easier songs to 100, but others will be partially leveled. Regularly scores 70-95k. Can level songs like Song 2 single note, Go With The Flow combo, Angela, or chord arrangements to 100%.
Division IV: New to guitar. No songs really leveled to 100%.


There will also be "honorable mentions" for note streak, accuracy, and master mode entries.


3) Each participant is allowed to make a single entry in the division they have selected. All submissions for the main divisions should be in standard rehearsal or performance mode, even for songs that are mastered. Master Mode entries will not count towards the competition scoring.


4) Entries must be made by replying to the song thread with your score and difficulty in the title (this way we won't have to sift through post content). For example: 124,033 (Division I).


5) Please only submit one score per song. If you play the song later in the week and do better, go to your original post and edit with the replacement score and pic.


6) To be entered in the competition you must submit a picture of the song results replay screen (showing score, percentage, and note streak)


7) All entries must be in before Monday, so by 11:59 Sunday night (based on EST Time Zone or UTC-5 internationally)


8) A separate thread showing the winners of each difficulty category will be posted by the previous week's winner, and the selection of the following week's song will be the responsibility of one of these winners.


9) We will rotate the responsibility of selecting the next song and arrangement each week starting with Division IV, III, II, then I. Rinse and repeat.


10) In the event that the winner does not respond to a PM notification to start a new thread by Tuesday, the winner of the next category in the rotation will be notified to select an arrangement and start a thread.


11)The winner/song selector must PM Black_Widow9, Mr_Shade, rcole_sooner, T_O_A_D after creating the new Challenge thread with the winners

Division IV winner is scheduled to pick next week's challenge.

Here is the Link to the Spreadsheet for tracking this week's results

[smedford]

Place marker Div II. played with a bass, finger style (likely I will switch to pick later.) My fingers are not tough yet. Hopefully I can master this one before Sunday, I feel very clumsy playing it so far.
I mastered the song tonight playing with a pick, but I still feel pretty clumsy in parts. I will try again with fingers as the week goes on and see if I can beat this.

[pick__pocket]

Sorry Folks, this was posted a little later than I planned. Thanks for your patience.
This was a tough decision. I was spoiled for choice really.
I ended up picking this song because it is quite challenging, and it has a combination of important techniques to master for bass. 1-5-8 arpeggios, shifting these at high speed across 4-5 frets and a thumping chorus which will help groove your two finger plucking technique without being too fast to hurt.
The other thing I was looking for was a song that people could stand playing over and over again. This song is pretty lively and catchy and I know Muse are pretty popular.
My only reservation about this song is that it is drop D. I have heard some folks are having tuning problems. I hope none of you are afflicted with any such problems. If this happens, I apologize in advance for this selection.

For those interested, these are the other songs I considered, all of which I could recommend to anyone as good bass workouts.
In the "too hard for week 2" category were: Burnished and California Brain (This was really my first choice, but just too much for the 2nd week)
Close 2nd was Surf Hell: Lost the tie breaker - already done in Guitar Challenge.
Other serious contenders in the "fun, tricky but not quite challenging enough" category: Me and the Bean, I Can't Hear You, Panic Switch.
I also considered Step out of the Car, but I thought the chords would be a little too much for week 2.

Good Luck Everyone. Spreadsheet to follow in a day or two.

[JTCoop]

Yep - that's one of 'em. Nice choice. Although that thing about fingers not hurting? Too late. I can't even shut my car door without my fingers hurting today. (Plus, now I've got some strange black bruise on my thumb. . . not sure where that came from.)

As far as tuning goes, I haven't had any serious problems with D-tuning on bass. The tuner is a little twitchy on my low string for any tuning, but I've found that plucking that string very gently when tuning all but solves the problem. (Other posts on the subject suggest turning volume on one pick-up all the way down if you have multiple pick-ups on your bass.)

I hasten to add, by way of clarifying, that the ugly bruise on my thumb was not a result of guitar or bass playing. No idea where it came from, but I don't think it's from anything to do with music. (If it is, I'm squeezing the neck of my bass WAY too hard. . . )

[Brick235]

[pick__pocket]

Yep - that's one of 'em. Nice choice. Although that thing about fingers not hurting? Too late. I can't even shut my car door without my fingers hurting today. (Plus, now I've got some strange black bruise on my thumb. . . not sure where that came from.)

Ouch! Be careful with that.
My fingers are pretty raw too. I was really referring to the pain I get in the back of my hand when I try to two finger pluck long fast sixteenth notes sections.
I think I am going to alternate between guitar and bass every other day to let the fingers on my right hand recover.

[Pancho X1]

Placeholder. We'll see how I do on this one.

cool fun song.

First playthrough: 27,254
Second playthrough: 52,483 That is all I have time for tonight. I figure it will take 3-4 playthroughs to hit my abiltiy celing and then the struggle begins.
Calling it a night. Second day: 86,722. but it's getting hard.
Day three: 94,326. I'll see if I can improve on this later. A bit better this afternoon 96k. gonna hit the riff repeater to see if I can level up the Variation section. then the whole song will be maxed.
Day four. My streak went down a bunch but I did manage to increase my score to 99,201. Just a few more on the streak and I may actually be able to master this. Have to do it today as it may be my last shot at putting in a score. Out of town guests are coming for the baby shower this weekend.
YES!! Mastered:100,076
Improved a good chunk tonight. Think i'm done for the day. I need to restring my Wilshire. Broke the B string yesterday playing (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay.

Current Score 107,353
[IMG][/IMG]

Well, I've played the crap out of this song and haven't been able to increase my score at all. But I did manage to put in a decent master mode run:

[IMG][/IMG]

[TheJohnNewton]

Don't know the song, weird tuning, even weirder sound. Played through it cold to check it out. At first I thought the song was super easy but I guess I need to level a lot of sections up because I scored way down in the 30 thousands.

Day 2 finally:
Finally got back to this. I did the guitar challenge then a new acoustic guitar that I had ordered a while back came in, a Taylor GS Mini, so I've been distracted. I leveled everything up and ran through the whole song only once. I'll try to get another run or two in. The first time seeing the transitions I was horrible.

Got in run two, still need work on the transitions.

[Pancho X1]

yeah sounds like there is a lot of flange in the tone. its different for sure. but I don't know that much about tones and effects.

[Pancho X1]

Hey Pick_Pocket, why div IV to pick the next song and not div II? just curious as I don't know the official rotation. or if there even is one