When I was attending the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, I had a roommate who was always practicing on his guitar. It was interesting that he could play in his room, and it was barely audible when it wasn’t hooked up to an amp. From that perspective, it seemed like a good instrument to practice on in a sensitive environment, such as a trumpet or an acoustic guitar.

In late 2008, my brother and I went to Guitar Center to browse a few guitars. He was more interested in the keyboards then. We didn’t get anything that day, but I was focused on the kits, which I eventually purchased. I received a Black Laguna Guitar, guitar case, strings, strap, chromatic tuner, 1/4″ to 1/8″ adapter, 1/4″ cord, picks, and a 15 Watt 8-inch Line 6 Spider III amp. I found a value package that looks similar to what I purchased on Musicians Friend: “Ultimate Rock Rack Electric Guitar Pack with Spider III 15W Amp Black”.

Once, Guitar Hero and Rock Band were huge on gaming consoles. I refused to try them, because it didn’t look at all like learning to play the guitar. Instead, it was a few buttons on a controller in the shape of a guitar. They didn’t even have MIDI capability. It was pointless to learn how to use the guitar controllers if they didn’t play music and were limited to gaming consoles. If I were going to play, I wanted something real.

I was searching for computer programs that were interactive with “real” guitars, or Guitarware. I had found Guitar Rising and GuitarGames.net, but on December 23, 2008, I found another one, called Little Big Star, developed by Ole in beta and free for personal use.

I had to buy a special adapter to connect the guitar to a USB port. It was fairly expensive, but it was worth it because I could also record my guitar alongside other audio in the computer’s audio software. It turns out that Little Big Star was exactly what I was looking for. It had gamified the learning experience of playing the guitar. It could recognize which notes or chords you were playing.

The software had a successor of OFFBEAT Guitarist at Jam Origin. The community was frustrated that the open-source software went commercial. I didn’t invest much time into it.

Rocksmith was released on PlayStation in 2011. It blew Little Big Star out of the water with what seemed to be a top-of-the-line software product. It played just like the Guitar Hero games of the day on-screen, but with you listening to your own guitar. When you first start out, most songs don’t display the chords and begin with simple notes. You could play riffs over and over again. If you messed up on a riff, it would slow it down for you to get the hang of it, and then return to normal speed once you get it. On top of that, there was all the downloadable content, including additional songs.

I was learning how to play songs by The Cure’s Boys Don’t Cry, and The Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop. One of the hardest songs on the list was Knights of Cydonia by Muse, so I would practice it every now and then as a challenge. I purchased a set of rainbow-colored guitar strings that matched the colors of the strings at the bottom of the screen, so they would help me locate them more easily.

One of the coolest things at the time was seeing people invited onstage at rock concerts who had learned to play songs with Rocksmith, so it was fairly motivating to keep practicing.

A problem I ran into was wrist pain. I suspect the guitar isn’t being held correctly. Eventually, I may need to get some lessons to see what kind of advice I can get for holding the guitar. I often struggled with chords, and my hand placement was probably a major factor.