Yesterday was awful for me too. I'm always doooog-tired on a Friday night. Couldn't convince myself to play and kept looking at the time.

Eventually I dialled back the tempo MUCH further back than I normally practise and I added my own groove to it. Didn't hate that and it got me tapping my foot and enjoying it again. Slowly increased the tempo until I got to my current practising speed.

This duel has been incredibly useful for learning how to focus my practise. I figure this is the "right" way to do things. Pick one thing and hammer it dead. Make sure you have fun in-between but don't go off learning something else. Deadlines are great too.

Hopefully this is the start of many a "chops building" challenge / duel!

Day 13 : 0m...again. The sun was shining and it was a rather out n about day. Gotta get some time in today or I'm toast ?

NorioDS Hopefully this is the start of many a "chops building" challenge / duel!

Yeah, this was a great exercise! Though I'd rather have a week of it than two, the second week has largely been a slog.

V8 I'll be submitting two things tonite - 1xvideo, as fast as I can go. 1xaudio trying to dial in a decent tone at more reasonable speed.

Wish us luck, we'll definitely need it.

I like that idea. I think I'll do the bloody same. I was mulling over submitting something more "reasonable" this whole morning. I nearly broke every bloody thing in the room.

There's so much of this right now: ?

I reckon 1 or 2 weeks more and maybe I'd get there but, bloody hell, this has been painful! ?

So yeah, one fast-as-we-can-go-video and then something tasteful ? Thanks @V8. You may have saved me from trashing my office!

NorioDS So yeah, one fast-as-we-can-go-video and then something tasteful ? Thanks @V8. You may have saved me from trashing my office!

LOLOL, I was just being lazy again. I didn't feel like splitting the signal - too much like hard work ?

IMHO, your's is sounding quite legit, can tell you've spent a goodly amount of time on this. There's some feel in your lick, I'm not hearing in mine ?

I think YOURS is fantastic. Mine is sooo dirty. Maybe I'll clean it up for the final submission (if I'm not too tired tonight!)

If anyone's wondering what we're talking about, we've posted some progress vids on the WhatsApp group. If you weren't on there, sorry for you ?

By the way, anyone following this thread should know... using Rocksmith to learn a song or a lick can be good (for seeing all the notes on your screen and being able to slow it down) but also bad... because their 95/100 speed is MUCH slower than you think.

All this time, I figured I was playing at a decent speed when I practised at around 90% or 95%... turns out it was slower than 145bpm. The song is in 160bpm.

Today I practised with a metronome and that really helped me pick up some speed (although I swallowed a LOT of notes at speed and eventually gave up ?) Too little too late but I won't make the mistake twice.

So my advice to you is:

Use Rocksmith to learn the song but once you get to 85% or so, ADD in a metronome to your practice.

That way you can also push past the tempo (I went up to 175bpm) as it will make the normal tempo feel way easier.

But, most importantly, you can know your real tempo and slowly bring it up to the album version. It also makes you pay far more attention to the notes and timing. Again, I learned this all too late. (Not that I feel I had a chance at beating @V8 after hearing his clip on the WhatsApp group! The chap can play ?)

I'm just glad I had an awesome excuse to pick up my axe every day (most days twice a day) for 2 weeks!

i hate you both. seriously.

Gents, this has been an inspiring read! Thank you for sharing your trials. I have not listened to the final entries yet, gonna do it now, but I have to say I believe this is what makes the forum great. Well done to you both!! And I agree with @domhatch . I envy the time you have had to do this. Again. Thank you

V8 Totally agree with about 99.999% of this ?

The deadline and the public "shaming" really made me focus on this. And although I didn't reach "perfection" in playing this lick, I picked up my guitar today and jammed it and that was fun.

Hopefully I can start adding my own stuff into it and eventually turn it into my own thing.

The biggest thing I can say I gained from this is the rhythm playing. Although it's a tiny part of the whole challenge, I've never practised rhythm. Only soloing and melody. So that has really started influencing my jamming already and I love it.

Time to learn some triads and jam some more like that!

NorioDS Although it's a tiny part of the whole challenge, I've never practised rhythm

...C'mon take up the Metallica gauntlet - I'll have ya James Hetfield'ing in no time ?