Throw Up Your Rocksmith

...If you're feeling it when I drop this.



I couldn't resist the pun and I like the song, plus I hadn't embedded a video on here in a while, so there you go.

I started learning to play guitar what seems like a lifetime ago, and I would still classify myself as a beginner.  It was actually more like 5 or 6 years ago.  My brother taught himself how to play and he caught onto it really quickly.  Then he tried to teach me how to play.  I learned a few chords and how to read guitar tabs, but that was about it.  His teaching style doesn't really work out for me, and he would get frustrated when I didn't catch onto something right away that was really basic for him.  But I kept trying.  I got my first guitar on my 16th birthday, an acoustic-electric Esteban guitar that my ordered off TV.  But I loved it and played it acoustically more often than plugging it into the amp, because my mom didn't like the noise when it was plugged in.  This was an added challenge because the songs I was learning to play from my brother were meant to be played electrically, since they were hard rock and metal songs.  I learned to play some Metallica but I was too invested in school to ever devote enough time to practicing.  Fast forward to before I leave for freshman year of college.  I went to a yard sale that summer and that's when I found my electric.  Despite the spot where the paint is chipping, it was beautiful.  It had pearl insets on the fretboard and I knew right then that I had to have it.  The guy who was having the yard sale was so nice.  He had about 6 guitars and he was downsizing.  He sold me the guitar and threw in a free stand, amp, and gig bag all for just $125.  I was more determined than ever to learn how to play well.  And I did practice for a while.  But then I met people who hacky sacked after the first month, and we formed a club.  And I was way more devoted to hacky sacking than I was to guitar playing.  I would hacky sack with the club for an hour or two three times a week when we met up, and then I would practice hacky sacking by myself to make a total of about 4 hours every single day.  And it worked.  I got way better at hacky sacking.  And the added benefit was that all the exercise made my asthma problems practically non-existent from getting used to a lot of exercise.  And then I stopped being able to walk.  And I couldn't hack sack then or even go to class for a while.  I really wanted to play my guitar during that time, but it was all I could do to get into my high bed, let alone carry anything up there.  Because I lived in a dorm room, and that was the only place to practice, on my bed.  These were the smallest dorm rooms you can imagine.  And after that, I never really got back into guitar playing, but I did get back into hacky sacking just as soon as my legs started working again.  Fast forward to now, well two or three months ago, when I first heard of Rocksmith, a game like Guitar Hero but where you plug in your actual guitar and learn to play it.  I wanted that game from the minute I heard of it.  And guess what? G got me that game for Christmas and I am slowly becoming a rockstar, very slowly, because after not playing for almost a year, it's pretty much like starting all over again.  Unlike my flute, which I can pick up after not playing it for a long time and after about 5 minutes, I'm back playing all my favorite songs, like Legend of Zelda music and classic rock.  If you didn't know, I also play keyboard (like piano) but I'm even more of a beginner at that than at guitar.  And my instruments all have names, except for my first guitar.  My flute is named Annabelle, after a song my roommate freshman year played beautifully, and my keyboard and electric guitar are named Sally and Jack, respectively, after Jack Skellington and Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas, because that movie is awesome.  So I said all that to say that I really love the Rocksmith game and before you know it, I should be pretty good at guitar.

Jack and my amp, in my old room at my parent's house