Can you count? Do you count?

[gopher_p]

I've usually been playing freeform in my home, so I haven't had a need to fit with anything and yeah I usually try and play naturally and look for cues.

At the moment I'm afraid I'm subjected to too many cues, I'm playing on the squier going to the game while I'm jacked to my pc going to a virtual amp (guitarix) and coming back through my earphones. So I'm using the game as a visual (and audio if I can hear it) prompter. Of course I can't watch the screen while looking at the guitar (when arpegiating I need to look or I miss-pluck) trying to listen to both the phones and the TV ... While counting ... Maybe it's just a bit much ...

If you're trying to play along with the song, then you most definitely want to be able to hear it. Find a way to pipe the music through your headphones. And if you know the song, there's no reason why you should need to use visual cues from the game. It's not that you have too many cues (though that may be a factor), it's that you're neglecting the most important one.

BTW the structure to simple man is:

8x Arpeggio
2x riff
4x Arpeggio
4x Chord riff
5x Arpeggio
4x Chord riff
SOLO
2x riff
4x Arpeggio
4x chord riff
4x chord riff (B)
2x riff (B)

I see it as more:

8 Bars Intro (4x Arpeggio)
8 Bars Verse 1 (4x Arpeggio)
4 Bars Interlude (2x riff)
8 Bars Verse 2 (4x Arpeggio)
8 Bars Chorus (4x chord riff)
2 Bars Interlude (1x Arpeggio)
8 Bars Verse 3 (4x Arpeggio)
8 Bars Chorus (4x chord riff)
? Bars Guitar solo
4 Bars Interlude (2x riff)
8 Bars Verse 4 (4x Arpeggio)
8 Bars Chorus (4x chord riff)
8 Bars Chorus (4x chord riff B)
Outro (2x riff B)

Use the song's lyrics as your cue. Think of the first interlude (2x riff) as well as the solo and following interlude as the guitarist's "lyrics". I guarantee the original guitarist does.

Now there's only one part of the song where you need to count: the two bars of 1x arpeggio following the first chorus. I think you can count to 1, right?

[NOT_Travis]

I don't count at all while I'm drumming, unless there's a lot of notes bunched up in one spot and I need to figure out how many times I have to strike whatever pad. But definitely not while playing normally. What's the point? What you have to do is scrolling in front of you and the console keeps perfect time.

I do need to get better about that, though, if I want to be able to play guitar independent of RS or RB3.

[randomas]

Wow, now that's definitely a more technical analysis than mine could have been!

Part of my problem is actually knowing the song, ie. I don't know it enough to feel sure of what I know without the visual prompting. I'm going to change headphones so that I can use only one earplug at a time and hear the cues, also I'm going to learn the parts better so I don't feel like I need to look them up (solo in particular), at the moment my fingers know the stuff but they haven't told my brain about it ...

I think that while "playing" rb on plastic guitar and drums, counting isn't so necessary, even though I think it's a good technical skill to learn. This is because you don't need to look at what you're doing, while if you play protar or prokeys depending on what you're playing you need either the occasional glance or full on concentrated glare at the instrument, which means risking to loose connection with the song being played.

On the other hand if you played percussions on rb with your back to the screen, you'd find that counting becomes necessary, as well as knowing your beats and patterns. And there lies the difference between being an rb player and being a percussionist.
The great thing about rb is that it gives most of the tools needed to become the latter.

[gopher_p]

Have you played in practice mode? Trying to learn a whole song all at once is very difficult for novices. When I was first learning guitar and I got "good" enough to begin attempting to play actual songs, I looked up tabs and learned the songs bit by bit. Learn the big, repeated chunks, the verse and the chorus, first. Then work on those little licks and phrases that link one big chunk to another. Nail down the solo last. You may find it helpful to learn the backing chords that are played behind the solo so that you could play through the song as the rhythm guitarist.

The thing about this particular song is that it's the same three chords in the same order, C, G, Am, (tuned down a half-step so it's really Cb, Gb, Abm) throughout the entire song. It's just different ways of playing those chords (arpeggiated open, barre, power) and little flourishes here and there that makes it seem like you're doing something different for each part. You may find it easier to learn the song if you just played the intended chord shapes without worrying too much about some of the little flourishes and such. Just play C, G, Am over and over and figure out where the changes are.

One of the ways that Rock Band misleads novice musicians is the notion that you're suppose to play exactly these notes or else you fail. Real music (at least rock music) doesn't work that way. Bands don't get FCs in real life, and that shouldn't be your goal on a real instrument.

Anywho ... good luck.

[randomas]

That's the way I usually learn things, before rock band I usually fell in love with a riff and tried to work it out on my own or (before teh interwebs) I'd go and look at the (quite frankly horrible) transcriptions in music stores, or guitar magazines to try and get the whole songs, but I'm lazy so I've always had an attitude of "screw the solos" and play the songs. When teh interwebs came I started using OLGA, I think I even spidered a copy before it was taken down ...

What I usually do with rb is do the riffs and then use the practice modes to get in between stuff ...

I hadn't even thought that chord sequence on simple man was repeating the same sequence over and over, but it makes sense. I did chose that song because it's easy, the difficulty for me is "sticking with it", and doing to a degree of competence where it becomes listenable without being offensive. So there's allot of work to be done there.

Since I have to record every instrument and then align it counting and using rb becomes a necessity, otherwise the tracks don't fit.
Drumming I have to follow rb because I'm not a drummer, so I have to watch the screen and play simon says ...
On guitar I get frustrated cause I think I should know better, but being lazy I pick up bad habits real easy, and the note highway is a great substitute for a bad memory ...

When I get something I'm not too ashamed of I might post it (if my wife will let me that is).

[gopher_p]

Wow, OLGA! Old school. I basically learned to play off OLGA and Harmony Central. Good times.

If you're really interested in learning guitar beyond being able to play a few songs, you should look into teaching yourself a little music theory. Just enough to know how chords are built and how they're named. Maybe a little about song structure and common chord progressions in western music. It's really not hard, especially for someone with a background in physics. It'll give you an appreciation for what you're playing and help you understand why you're playing it.

[rkbdgurl]

^ lol.... I hated music theory.

[randomas]

Music theory oooh ... Long time no see ... I had done some music theory, a long, long time ago ...
Scales, chords, modes ... Now very little of it stuck, my hands retained most of the diatonic stuff and dyads, triads is stretching it. Augmented, diminished or chromatic stuff just did not stick ... at all ... I have some vague subconscious recollection of some of the stuff, and if I do decide to write something of my own I'll have to brush up (more like start over).

Composition on the other hand is something I'd like to have a look at.

[blahblahunicornx]

I'm a bassist and singer and I count off.
Not so much measures, as I have a knack for time signatures, but I am ALWAYS counting how many times I have played / need to keep playing a riff before a change / lyric.

[randomas]

I'm a bassist and singer and I count off.
Not so much measures, as I have a knack for time signatures, but I am ALWAYS counting how many times I have played / need to keep playing a riff before a change / lyric.

That's precisely the part I have difficulty with, I keep loosing count of the amount of times I've played/need to play a riff ... I wonder if it's short term memory loss or some other form of brain damage from college years ...

I have less issues with the time signatures, as in, once I've figured them out and internalised them I'm good to go, but I did notice that when playing the drums, particularly in long quiet moments or when the highway has very low traffic I use repetitive movements to keep time, but it's not even conscious, I just kind of do it...