What's a "Moral Compass Cricket Thingy"?

[Moonface]

But right now, I just don't have that motivation in me.

Aww, I hope you get to find it some day so you can get to practice the way you'd ideally like.
Would you say learning to play a guitar with fast strumming/chord changes is the hardest instrument in a typical band to get down, or is drums or something harder overall instead?

[Maniakkid25]

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUH...

I cannot speak for how difficult drums are; I've only played drums on Rock Band, but I happen to know that my co-ordination between my hands and feet to keep on beat is lacking. That could probably be trained out of me. But the problem is, as many things, it's not that simple. If you were asking me "which is harder: lead or rhythm guitar", I'd have an easy answer: rhythm. While lead is all the flashy skills like tapping and stuff, for me, just the action of strumming up across multiple strings is a major challenge to me. Unless you're sweep picking, the hardest part about lead guitar is just getting your fingers fast enough to move about the neck. Also, my up strumming is a little bit slack, so I slowly go from straight rhythms to a swing rhythm as I strum for longer. So yeah, my rhythm guitar ability is SIGNIFICANTLY worse than my lead guitar ability, and my lead guitar ability isn't that good to begin with!

But judging across instruments brings up far more variables, and it's not as easy as saying "one is easier than the other". Sure, drums are just "hit things to make noise", but they are often used as the foundation that a song is built upon on recording, meaning that the drummer is on their own when recording. All they have is a click track to keep the beat. And blast beats, which are ridiculous, involve multiple limbs moving at once in a very specific coordinated fashion, and slipping destroys the whole thing. Bass is usually individual notes, but if your muting sucks, you will just get dense fogs of low end that muddy your track. And you're still playing as fast as the rest of the band, so your movement better be up to snuff! Unless your Lemmy, in which case you're basically playing rhythm guitar anyway, so go nuts! POINT IS, it's not that simple.

[Moonface]

Reading your comment about moving the hand really fast along the neck when doing lead guitar made me think of how I always wonder how nobody just grinds their fingers into pure pain when doing stuff on a guitar at fast speeds and don't appear to be using anything like a plectrum or whatever. Unless I just somehow always miss them holding it but whenever I've watched a live performance that has a moment where the guitar player gets focused on by the camera it always looks like they're just doing it bare handed.

I feel like every time I ask a music question to you that seems like it'll be simple it never turns out to be the case and there's way more to it than I was aware of. So is there anything about music that actually is simple?

[Maniakkid25]

*WellYesButActuallyNo.gif*

First the plectrum bit. This is how you are "supposed" to hold a pick, as viewed from the player side.



You will note how the damn thing is completely shielded by the hand. That's why you basically never see one when someone is using it. Now, this is how I usually hold it.



This is probably visible from your perspective, but it's also completely terrible technique. But, my knuckles keep raking the strings the "proper way", so I have trained myself to do it terribly. I really should look into a tutor, just so I can properly learn the basics...

Very few things in any subject are just "that simple". I mean, we take for granted that 1+1 is 2, but how would you actually prove that to someone who has no concept of numbers? Sure, you say "one sheep, one sheep, two sheep", but that doesn't actually explain anything. You have to get more complicated than that.

Certainly, there are some things I would consider simple: time signatures and the American way of labeling notes are two of them. Oh yeah, that "whole note, half note, quarter note, etc." thing? Yeah, chuck that out the window in the UK; they would say "Semi-breve, Minim, Crochet, etc." But, humans are gonna human, and when humans human, things inevitably get complicated. It's the reason why Legalese is a thing, after all. This leads to all sorts of mayhem once you start poking around, so it's hard to just say "this is how it is" to a lot of questions without, you know, eliminating all sense of nuance.

Basically, imagine if I asked you "What's the strongest monster in Pokemon?" Sure, there is an easy answer to that question (it's Mega-Rayquaza), but that doesn't mean it cannot lose to FEAR (Focus Sash, Endeavor, Quick Attack Rattata), so does that still make the strongest monster? There's more to the answer than that. That's what I'm trying to express when I say "It's not that simple."

[Moonface]

Ah, I see. The way I held one when I played guitar as a kid was like I was pinching the top of the plectrum like I'm trying to pluck something out of the ground so it made the thing super visible. I dunno if they just had us do that way though to be able to better see our strumming technique or something.

And yeah, good way of explaining how nothing is ever as simple as it seems. Guess it's just one of those things I've always taken for granted.

On a side note, do you own any DnD dice? The thought came to mind from seeing some vendors selling dice at Supercon on Friday (I put a photo of some of them in the "Conventions" thread in General Chat I think).

[Maniakkid25]

I do own a couple sets, but not a whole lot. I do almost all my play over the computer, and they have dice simulators built in, so there's almost never a need for it. Dice are cool and all, but I have no place of using them, so I haven't fallen into the trap of needing new dice every three days.

[Moonface]

Ahh, the issue most people seem to have with dice whenever I hear them talk about it. Everyone finds them pretty but usually plays via DnD Beyond so yeah, no need for them in terms of use. I don't ever have a use for the dice since I don't play DnD much nor very often but I always love how nice so many of them look.

[Maniakkid25]

Now you're just giving me the urge to run a DnD game with you guys here. I wish I had the spare time for it, but I just don't right now...

[Moonface]

Now you're just giving me the urge to run a DnD game with you guys here. I wish I had the spare time for it, but I just don't right now...

I feel you on this; the last time my DnD group played was January 2022 until this past weekend when we all finally managed to carve out a moment to play a session again (minus myself because migraine yay).

If time wasn't an issue, what things would you like to do that you currently don't at all or very much due to a lack of spare time?

[Maniakkid25]

Play more games, both of the video and tabletop variety. That's pretty much it.

[Moonface]

Play more games, both of the video and tabletop variety. That's pretty much it.

In case you never saw it I made a thread for tabletop games a couple of months back: https://universalgaming.net/showthread.p...6#pid27846


Is there any video game or tabletop game you've been unable to start/pick up due to lack of time? Or do you at least get to experience some amount of everything you want to even if it isn't as much as you'd like?

[Maniakkid25]

Oh, many many tabletop games I have not been able to play because of the lack of a consistent time to be had. There's a 5e game on Wednesdays in my friend group that I'd love to be a part of (the GM is supposed to be really good). Hell, I have a pathfinder game that's currently in scheduling hell because we just cannot get a time where all 5 of us are available.

Video games I generally just drift wherever interest takes me, so it's not hard to, say, fit in a few hours of something if I feel like it. I just have to be in the mood for it.

[Moonface]

I can relate on the trying to line up free time with others for DnD stuff and such. XD

What game(s) do you tend to float around on these days?

[Maniakkid25]

Yu-gi-oh Master Duel right now, mainly. Beyond that, it depends on what my friends can drag me into. I have a list of games I need to get back into, but we'll see what happens.

[Moonface]

Have you ever been dragged into a game by friends and you found you disliked the game?