Rocksmith rocks! Sometimes in miniskirts and stilettos.

I've decided to start using this as a more general archive of my thoughts rather than just the trans-related ones. I'll still keep my other non-trans-aware blog since I'm still not out to most people in my life yet, but I want to keep integrating more and more of my life, online and otherwise, with the eventuality of my living life out loud as a woman... hopefully.

So, I'm starting with my latest non-work obsession: learning to play the guitar with Rocksmith! Until my first kid came along in my second year of college, I was a serious amateur musician - mostly classical, and really good on the violin, decent on the viola and string bass, and fair on a few other instruments. But, other than just messing around for fun, I never really tried to learn to play the guitar. Just from vague familiarity, I can pick out tunes, but I never bothered to commit any chords to memory or practice my fingering, shifts, etc. As my musical tastes have broadened over the years, I've wanted to apply myself to learning the guitar, but didn't really want to commit to actual lessons with a teacher (because of my work ebb and flow, it's hard to know when I'll have time). Then this Christmas, along come Rocksmith. You probably know about the pretend-guitar games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, but those games, while fun, really had very little in common with actually playing a guitar other than maybe building up a little finger dexterity.

For me, this more or less can take the place of a guitar teacher, at least for the purposes of learning the basics.  HOWEVER, I would also say that is because I've had years of lessons in other instruments, and I am very familiar with how to practice to get better, and have a realistic idea of how much time it takes (lots).  If you've never played a musical instrument before, Rocksmith may be a little frustrating, and having a real teacher help you with hand positions and other things the game can't see, is strongly recommended (by me :-).

So my lovely wife got me Rocksmith and a pretty yellow Epiphone Les Paul Junior Limited Edition electric guitar for Christmas, and I've been having a blast with it ever since.  I think part of it is the nostalgia of learning a new instrument again like when I was a kid, but mostly it's just about making music.  Oh, and of course, now I have a reason to wear the various over-revealing tops and micro-miniskirts, etc that no woman of my age would remotely consider wearing in public...unless they were some kind of rock star!!!  hahaha   I'll put up a pic sometime soon - part of the fun of pretending to play a rock concert is the dress-up, right!?

Anyway, I'm amazed at the technology that allows the Xbox 360 to be able to tell what I'm playing with great accuracy, and while the menu system isn't the most intuitive, there is a lot of content and I can't imagine getting through the whole game without learning to play pretty comfortably.  Some reviewers have had issues with synchronization of the sound, video, and the physical act of playing, but with my setup at least, I haven't had those problems.