More Rocksmith Weirdness - Slither Solos and Under Cover of Darkness

I'm busily qualifying songs for my next event (#48). The vast majority of songs I see these days have MQS (min. qualifying scores) of 90k. For this event, 4 out of the 6 songs have MQS of 90k. Slither has an MQS for this event of 88,000. Under Cover of Darkness is still down in the 68,800 range.

I am definitely finding it easier and less frustrating to go with the Events route. I may not see a song for a while after I play it in an event, but the next time it comes up it seems pretty easy to qualify for the next event. Generally it takes me about 3 events to get songs up to the 90k level. This is MUCH easier for me than my original approach when I refused to play any event until I had all the songs up to 70k. Songs with solos are still my weak spot and Slither is a perfect example.

Slither and Problems with Solo Phrases (Software Problems)

Last night I qualified Slither with some effort. I played it twice and got up to 77,848. This is down a bit from my previous high score of 85,373, but I haven't played this song but just two times since Event 23, six months ago. I scored roughly 77k and 85k on this song just messing around back in January and February, and I'm sure that drove up my MQS for this event.

After refreshing my memory, I had every phrase maxed except the 3 solos but was still quite a ways from my MQS, so I had to hit the Riff Repeater to bump up my solos. This is where things got weird.

I ran through Solo 1 18 times and got it from 40% mastery to 61%. Good enough for now. Then I hammered on Solo 3, improving from 61 to 90% mastery in 30 tries. I didn't touch Solo 2 - it's still down around 40% but I figured I'd done enough to make MQS and qualify this song for Event 48. I played through the whole song and scored 91,941. But, it was a wild ride.

When I got to the solo phrases, ALL THREE solo phrases were leveled up to 90%! WTF? I had only leveled Solo 1 up to 61% and I hadn't even touched Solo 2. But, apparently leveling up one solo phrase leveled up ALL three solo phrases to 90%. And they are NOTHING close to the same! I could half-way hang with Solo 1, but Solo 2 totally blew me away. There were notes all over the place! Not sure what the deal is there but clearly there's a bug in Riff Repeater on this song.

If you ever work on the solos for Slither, beware. You might want to START with Solo 2.

Under Cover of Darkness - Kicking my Butt for the Time Being

Under Cover of Darkness is another song on my Event 48 setlist. This one is surprisingly difficult. Here's my history with this song:

Title		Under Cover of Darkness - Combo
Artist		The Strokes
Play Count		14
Date	Score	%	Streak	Notes
9/29/2012	36576			Event 11 Encore
10/10/2012	38038	72	39	Event 23 MQS = 55,400
10/10/2012	40088	78	43	2
10/10/2012	47331	86	44	3
10/10/2012	50248	89	72	4
10/10/2012	50467	82	50	5 - Reduce MQS = 50,567
10/10/2012	53131	86	72	Qualified 6x
10/12/2012	45999	75	32	Rehearse for Event
10/12/2012	47553	76	36	Rehearse for Event
10/12/2012	50859	78	36	Rehearse for Event
10/12/2012	52644			Event 23 Performance
4/1/2013	39019	54	30	Event 47 - Q = 68,500
4/2/2013	45163	68	49	RR: Intro 100% spd @ 40% Mastery
				RR: Verse 58 - 65% <10x
4/4/2013	44884	68	37	RR: intro/riff 46 to 59%

(this is what my rehearsal notes look like - I write all this down every time I play through a song and then transcribe it all into an Excel spreadsheet which calculates high scores, tracks play count, etc.)

First time I ever played this song was as an encore for Event 11, last September. I got over 36k. Then it showed up on the Event 23 setlist with an MQS of 55,400, which I couldn't make. After 5 attempts, I let RS lower my MQS to 50,567 and then turned right around and got my highest score on the song - 53,131. After that, my scores dipped. I did alright with it on Event 23, but I didn't see this song again for almost 6 months. It's now on my Event 48 setlist with an MQS of 68,500 and I'm not even close. I'm still well below the previous event score.

The main riff is not all that hard but it's more like a miniature solo than a "riff" the way I think of riffs. The chorus is more like a riff, and it's a pretty cool little riff that sounds great. But, it's a similar pattern played at three positions on the neck and the 2d and 3d positions require a pretty good finger stretch - or a lot of shifting. Plus, the tempo for this song is QUICK (like 160 - 180 beats per minute) so you've got to be ON it. Then there's a phrase or two which is really easy to play at lower levels of mastery but once you level up a bit they become pretty busy, too.

I worked on the riff and chorus in RR a little last night and made some progress, but this one is gonna take some effort for me to get right.

Hanging in There

Even though I'm wrestlng with the solos in Slither and Under Cover of Darkness is just generally kicking my butt right now, I'm not discouraged. A year ago there is no way I would have believed that I'd be playing what I can play now with very little effort at all. I've also been doing some non-RS playing. In another year, I might actually be a half-way decent guitar player!