God Rest ye Merry Guitar Player. Week 3 Challenge Song Progress.

Mastered one of the Christmas DLC songs last night! Which is probably close to being "on schedule." Took me 76 plays to master God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, but I did it. I wouldn't say I've actually "mastered" the song as I attempted to play it in Master Mode and really sucked. I have parts of it memorized, most of it really, but there's a part that just won't stick in my head. And, unlike on drums, I'm not a good enough guitarist to recover well from screwing up part of a song. Once I miss a riff, it's pretty much downhill for the rest of the song. (On drums, I could jack up a whole measure and you'd never know it. Which is a really handy skill.)

Thanks to forkofbone on the Rocksmith/Ubisoft Forum for pointing out that the little boxes at that top of the screen actually show you your levels as well as where you are in the song when playing. Very handy to see now that I know what they mean! I always thought they had something to do with the lyrics. . .

I actually spent most of my session last night working on the Weekly Challenge song - Combo 2 arrangement of Higher Ground. I don't particularly enjoy this arrangement, but it's challenging. I suppose that's sort of the point, isn't it? And, I believe in stretching your playing skills beyond just the stuff that you like listening to or playing all the time. I was making little to no progress on this arrangement, so I went to the Riff Repeater to start working on my levels. I took the Intro from 72 to 100%, verse 1 from 77 to 96%, verse 2 from 77 to Max, chorus 1 from 65 to 80%, and chorus 2 from 67 to 74%. Since the chorus was weakest, I worked that once in the Free Speed mode and got to 91.9% speed. Still very weak and far short of having the song mastered, but after all this I was ready to actually play so I ran through the full song one time.

73,302 (82/56). This was by far my best work yet on this song.

I'm telling ya, Riff Repeater works! Before my work-out in Riff Repeater, my high score was 48336, my best accuracy was 86 (at a lower level), and my longest streak was only 49 (again, at a lower level).

Unfortunately, this put me above the cut-off for Beginners, so now my score is going to be compared against the Intermediate players. Not what I was shooting for, exactly! Now I've got to try for something closer to 100,000 - without actually mastering the song.

As of today, I have Mastered 7 songs. Here's my current status:

Song	Artist	Date First Played	Event #	Qualifying Score	High Score	Best %	Best Streak	Play Count
Angela (Combo)	Jarvis Cocker	23-Jan-2012	4	?	200033	99	302	11
Run Back to Your Side	Eric Clapton	23-Feb-2012	6	n/a	197259	100	89	5
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen	Brian Adam McCune	28-Jan-2012	n/a	n/a	135350	94	96	61
Do You Remember - Combo	Horrors The	26-Jan-2012	5	61800	132554	88	50	11
Satisfaction, Chord Arr.	Rolling Stones The	5-Feb-2012	n/a	n/a	108484	97	155	5
Next Girl	Black Keys The	14-Jan-2012	1	?	101993	0	0	5
Angela (Single Note)	Jarvis Cocker	26-Feb-2012	4	n/a	101103	97	126	11
Breed - Combo	Nirvana	2-Feb-2012	5	28800	101066	96	122	29
Satisfaction - Single Note	Rolling Stones The	14-Jan-2012	1	?	99647	97	155	45
Surf Hell - Combo	Little Barrie	19-Jan-2012	3	?	96966	95	108	70
Outshined - Combo 2	Soundgarden	22-Jan-2012	n/a	n/a	90436	86	59	42
Mean Bitch	Taddy Porter	6-Feb-2012	6	41000	86737	89	89	15
Go With the Flow - Combo	Queens of the Stone Age	14-Jan-2012	2	n/a	86600	0	0	6
I Can't Hear You	Dead Weather The	15-Jan-2012	3	?	85957	91	67	16
Vasoline - Combo 1	Stone Temple Pilots	15-Jan-2012	3	?	85738	95	138	25
In Bloom - Combo	Nirvana	15-Jan-2012	2	?	82550	0	0	33
Are You Gonna Go My Way	Lenny Kravitz	6-Feb-2012	6	16400	79776	90	60	21
Higher Ground - Combo 1	Red Hot Chilli Peppers	15-Jan-2012	2	?	79013	95	110	52
Rebel Rebel	David Bowie	6-Feb-2012	6	19500	76799	91	58	15
Song 2	Blur	23-Feb-2012	6	n/a	74507	0	0	1
Go With the Flow - Single Note	Queens of the Stone Age	1-Feb-2012		n/a	73384	0	0	1
Higher Ground - Combo 2	Red Hot Chilli Peppers	1-Feb-2012	n/a	n/a	73302	86	56	3
High and Dry	Radiohead	8-Feb-2012	6	25200	72970	90	86	10
Slow Hands	Interpol	15-Jan-2012	3	?	70966	0	0	21
Number Thirteen - Combo	Red Fang	24-Jan-2012	4	11700	66064	90	144	22
Use Somebody	Kings of Leon	22-Jan-2012	3	n/a	60425	87	98	19
Where is My Mind? - Combo	Pixies	24-Jan-2012	4	29300	59846	0	0	6
When I'm with You - Combo	Best Coast	2-Feb-2012	5	31100	58578	95	128	19
Unnatural Selection -  Combo	Muse	21-Jan-2012	4	?	57289	87	105	48
Play with Fire - Combo	Rolling Stones The	24-Jan-2012	4	22280	55320	80	42	??
Surf Hell - Single Note	Little Barrie	8-Feb-2012	3	n/a	41941	88	85	1
Outshined - Combo 1	Soundgarden	10-Feb-2012	4	?	40728	0	0	2
Boys Don't Cry	The Cure	22-Jan-2012	1	n/a	32372	0	0	1
Plug In Baby - Combo	Muse	5-Feb-2012	5	n/a	29715	0	0	1
I Want Some More - Combo	Dan Auerbach	26-Jan-2012	4	n/a	23837	0	0	1
Unnatural Selection - Single Note	Muse	30-Jan-2012	n/a	n/a	21438	0	0	2
Higher Ground - Single Note	Red Hot Chilli Peppers	1-Feb-2012	n/a	?	18106	0	0	1
In Bloom - Single Note	Nirvana	1-Feb-2012	n/a	?	13249	0	0	33

Not sure why the colors aren't copying over now. . . They did originally. (Play counts are not up do date; I'm not trying to give anyone a false impression that I'm better than I am - I just haven't gotten around to updating this info yet. Kinda sucks when you have to enter it all manually.)