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Not discouraged, but feel I'm not progressing fast enough

 
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Skyp1e  





Joined: 01 Mar 2011
Posts: 132

PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 3:50 am    Post subject: Not discouraged, but feel I'm not progressing fast enough Reply with quote

I can't help but feel that I should be further along after two weeks than I am with PRO keys.

I get that my timing chops are not nearly as good as I thought they were and I'm working to fix that, but I wonder if it's taking me longer to get things under my belt than it should be.

I hardly have any FCs (and the ones I have are breezy simple). I don't know if it's that I'm choking or if I have blind spots, but I would have hoped to have advanced more in the game by now.

The worst part is that the Xbox is in my living room and that TV gets a lot of use in my house so I really only get an hour or three at night when the rest of the household is asleep to play.

Even so, an hour or more a night for two weeks is more than I usually spend to get a dozen songs show ready, yet RB3 is kicking my ass.

Again, don't think I'm discouraged. I'm not. I'm determined if anything. However I feel awfully shamed by my lack of progress here.

Just wanted to get that off my chest.
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bclare  





Joined: 21 Jun 2008
Posts: 6048
Location: Boston

PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 3:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's a big adjustment in going from playing a real instrument to playing Rock Band, even for pro which is basically a real instrument. RB is completely unforgiving of any mistakes or deviations from the charted notes; you may know a song, but if you play it a different way than how the RB chart says, then that's a drawback.

If your timing seems off, make sure your calibration is at a good level. I'm sure you've calibrated already, but even 5 or 10 ms can be the difference between "playable" and "perfect"

I'd also say not to worry about getting FCs right away. First just try to make sure you can get 5*, then gold, then think about FCing. An FC is an absolutely perfect run of a song; if a song is hard, then an FC is going to take a lot of practice and a lot of playing.
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Voltgloss  





Joined: 26 Apr 2008
Posts: 314
Location: New Jersey

PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:12 pm    Post subject: Re: Not discouraged, but feel I'm not progressing fast enoug Reply with quote

Skyp1e wrote:
I can't help but feel that I should be further along after two weeks than I am with PRO keys.
...
I hardly have any FCs (and the ones I have are breezy simple).


I've been playing Pro Keys since RB3 was released in October.

I didn't have any FCs (aside from those really simple ones) until February.

For comparison, I've had classical piano training beginning about 25 years ago and have been playing piano as music director/accompanist for theatrical productions beginning about 15 years ago and continuing to the present.

In my book, you should feel zero shame. I bet you're much farther along after two weeks than I was.

FYI - and you may already be doing this - the key to getting FC's is Practice Mode. You really need to drill those parts of the song where you could miss a note (not just "the hard parts," ANY part where you could miss a note) until they are sufficiently retained in both your visual and muscle memory that when they come flying at you in a "real run," possibly with a distracting musical video background doing its best to blind you, you won't get thrown off.

Also, I wasn't comfortable with visually translating intervals on the "note highway" into correct hand placement until at least two months after starting to play.

Finally, if you're trying any DLC songs, bear in mind that they are almost across-the-board HARDER than their tiering would indicate (at least compared to most on-disc songs). That's always been the way with Rock Band, and Pro Keys is no exception.
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RB3 Expert Pro Keys FCs: 58/63 + 214 DLC. My accomplishments thread.
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blingdomepiece  





Joined: 03 Aug 2007
Posts: 4358
Location: Ottawa ON Canada

PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 3:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you are new to rhythm gaming it doesn't come overnight, even if you have a lot of experience on the real instrument.

Instead of focusing too much on FCs, I'd suggest starting off trying to 5* as much of the setlist as possible. By the time you are 5*ing the harder stuff you will probably find it trivial to FC the easier stuff.

Another good thing to do is understand why you miss. Do you tend to not react fast enough to what comes down the screen? You probably need to practice/play the song more until it's memorized. Do you tend to graze the wrong key? Have difficulty evaluating an interval as presented on the screen? Play too early? Play too late? There may be a couple of things you need to work out and then your playing chops will take over from there.

Another thing to keep in mind is that this thing would be pretty boring if you mastered it in a couple weeks. You'd probably end up leaving unrewarded. It'll be worth more to you to FC tough songs knowing you had to climb a mountain to get there.
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Expert Pro Keys: 50/63 GS, most recent The Killing Moon
Expert Pro Drums: 53/83 GS, most recent Free Bird / Oh My God / Oye Mi Amor
Expert Pro Bass: 6/83 GS, most recent Everybody Wants to Rule the World
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Skyp1e  





Joined: 01 Mar 2011
Posts: 132

PostPosted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 6:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I want to thank you all for responding.

I was feeling a little scared that I wasn't doing as well as I should be. I'm very relieved that I shouldn't be. I started a similar thread on the official forum and stated that there as well.

It is comforting to know that you can bare your concerns there and here about something like this and get a lot of support for your effort.

Thank you all again for your input on this.
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mrexley  





Joined: 28 Jun 2008
Posts: 22
Location: California

PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 12:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dude, lighten up! It's just a game, and it sounds like you're not having any fun. I understand you want to do well right away, but as others have said, it takes time, patience, and most of all, practice.
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Skyp1e  





Joined: 01 Mar 2011
Posts: 132

PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 1:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am having fun. Believe me.

I just was sort of, for lack of a better word, embarrassed.

Mostly I made my own bed to lie in. Before getting the game I was posting in forums, both here and in the official RB website and I might have come off pretty confident (let's say cocky) without having played the game yet.

Now, I feel as though I'm eating humble pie every time I finish a song.

It's my fault though but don't think I'm not enjoying the game. I LOVE this game!
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Skyp1e  





Joined: 01 Mar 2011
Posts: 132

PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 2:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

BTW on a related but not strictly on topic note (no pun intended) I realized something, sort of an epiphany today while playing RB with my four year old son.

There are indistinct rests between the notes. I mean, I should have realized this much earlier, but there you go.

When a phrase is coming down at me, I tend to give each of those "gems" (actually disembodied piano keys) all the same durations between the notes unless there is a sizable distance from when one lands to another.

Just today I noticed that there might be zero space between notes and then without much warning a 16th rest or a dotted 8th rest between two of these notes.

One example is that little riff in the song "I Love Rock and Roll". I was playing that phrase without any rests in it and was always failing at it. I thought I must be either playing it too fast or two slow or starting late or something.

After I realized that there is a very short rest in there (can't remember exactly right now, this is just an example) I started nailing it every time.

Now I am on the lookout for such spaces.
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bclare  





Joined: 21 Jun 2008
Posts: 6048
Location: Boston

PostPosted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 2:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thats exactly the sort of thing you need to adjust to when playing the video game, reading the highway. Mostly that means knowing where the keys are without having to look down at your hand every time, but also it means getting used to the tempo and spacing of the notes. I'm sure that knowledge will help you a lot.
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rrwoods  





Joined: 09 Jul 2007
Posts: 343

PostPosted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 4:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'd really love it if RB colored their notes like In The Groove does. A little harder on Pro Keys since the note coloring is actually important for figuring out which key it is, but I'd love to be able to tell a snare roll is 1/16 notes by it being colored as a repeating pattern of 4 colors, or a triplet roll by a repeating pattern of 3 colors, etc.
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Skyp1e  





Joined: 01 Mar 2011
Posts: 132

PostPosted: Tue May 10, 2011 1:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I want to report that I am getting better and better all the time.

Not long ago I downloaded 10000 xbox points worth of DLC and because I wanted them to show up on rockbandscores.com I made a setlist out of them and played them all straight through as a one pass sight read on Expert PRO keys.

This was like bootcamp for me and I could feel things clicking as I progressed through the setlist.

Honestly I cannot begin to express how in love I am with Rock Band.

I only wish I had more access to our living room TV. I'm sort of "afraid" (for lack of a better word) to keep relocating my Xbox from one room to another. And the living room is the only place where the whole family can play Rock Band at once.
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Skyp1e  





Joined: 01 Mar 2011
Posts: 132

PostPosted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 9:32 pm    Post subject: Re: Not discouraged, but feel I'm not progressing fast enoug Reply with quote

Skyp1e wrote:
I can't help but feel that I should be further along after two weeks than I am with PRO keys.

I get that my timing chops are not nearly as good as I thought they were and I'm working to fix that, but I wonder if it's taking me longer to get things under my belt than it should be.

I hardly have any FCs (and the ones I have are breezy simple). I don't know if it's that I'm choking or if I have blind spots, but I would have hoped to have advanced more in the game by now.

The worst part is that the Xbox is in my living room and that TV gets a lot of use in my house so I really only get an hour or three at night when the rest of the household is asleep to play.

Even so, an hour or more a night for two weeks is more than I usually spend to get a dozen songs show ready, yet RB3 is kicking my ass.

Again, don't think I'm discouraged. I'm not. I'm determined if anything. However I feel awfully shamed by my lack of progress here.

Just wanted to get that off my chest.


I started this thread just over a year ago. Seems a lot shorter than that though since I started playing. Things sure have changed since then. I want to again thank everyone that supported me in this thread. I still LOVE Rock Band and I'm improving every single time I play it.
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Skyp1e  





Joined: 01 Mar 2011
Posts: 132

PostPosted: Tue Oct 29, 2013 3:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yep, still getting better. Just thought I'd report that.

Hopefully there is no limit to how good one can get.

If anyone is wondering, I haven't tried to be first to FC (or at any rate I haven't reported any FC's even when I am first) because I lost that sort of gear (capture card and camera) in a house fire about a year back. When I get such things again I might contribute once more, but it looks like there will be nothing left to FC by then.
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