Over the past month, four wannabe guitarists from across Canada have been taking part in the Rocksmith 2014 60-Day Challenge. Their goal is to learn to play as much guitar as they can in just 60 days using Ubisoft's Rocksmith® 2014 Edition and report back on the results. The candidates have been sharing their experience of learning guitar using Rocksmith — y'know, the cheers, the tears, the glory — through weekly Tumblr posts and video updates, competing for a chance to win $5,000. Playing through a variety of songs and features for just an hour a day, the four aspiring guitarists are being helped along with some virtual mentorship from Simple Plan string-cruncher Jeff Stinco. Via the magic of social media, Stinco has been providing guitar-playing tips and sharing his own memories of learning guitar with the participants. The Challenge will culminate with each candidate creating a final performance video demonstrating their newly-honed chops on a song of their choice from Rocksmith 2014. The track list includes over 50 songs from classic bands including the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith and the Who, alt-rock heroes Nirvana, Radiohead and Weezer and heavier tracks from the likes of Iron Maiden, Pantera and Slayer.
MEET EXCLAIM! PARTICIPANT: VINCENT POLLARD
Not to be outdone here at Exclaim!, we decided to take the Challenge ourselves and report back on the experience of learning guitar using Rocksmith® 2014 Edition. As the Dance & Electronic editor at Exclaim!, I'm probably the person at the magazine who knows the least about guitars, but growing up, bands like Fugazi, the Fall, Pavement, Nirvana and Radiohead were all on heavy rotation for me. I've played drums on a casual basis for years, but my only previous experience trying to play guitar was jamming with friends, and it was less than impressive. A couple of beers into a jam session we'd often swap instruments for a few minutes to switch gears and have a bit of a break on our instruments. The guitarist usually did alright on the drums, but it wouldn't take long before my bandmates would exchange frowns at what I was attempting to do with the guitar and ask for the axe back. I'm looking forward to seeing if I can master guitar using Rocksmith over the next 60 days. You can view the other candidates' profiles and follow the weekly updates where I'll be demonstrating my progress, or lack thereof, right here.
MEET EXCLAIM! PARTICIPANT: VINCENT POLLARD
Not to be outdone here at Exclaim!, we decided to take the Challenge ourselves and report back on the experience of learning guitar using Rocksmith® 2014 Edition. As the Dance & Electronic editor at Exclaim!, I'm probably the person at the magazine who knows the least about guitars, but growing up, bands like Fugazi, the Fall, Pavement, Nirvana and Radiohead were all on heavy rotation for me. I've played drums on a casual basis for years, but my only previous experience trying to play guitar was jamming with friends, and it was less than impressive. A couple of beers into a jam session we'd often swap instruments for a few minutes to switch gears and have a bit of a break on our instruments. The guitarist usually did alright on the drums, but it wouldn't take long before my bandmates would exchange frowns at what I was attempting to do with the guitar and ask for the axe back. I'm looking forward to seeing if I can master guitar using Rocksmith over the next 60 days. You can view the other candidates' profiles and follow the weekly updates where I'll be demonstrating my progress, or lack thereof, right here.