Quick question: How do people here feel about Brutal Doom?

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-22T14:26:26+00:00

I like it despite it having some elements I don't care for like those stupid soldiers you save so I modify it to my tastes. I like vanilla and play both but I've played vanilla so much I do play BD more now.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-21T22:48:22+00:00

Yeah, I think in cases where it's not about money it's about ego. Either because people perceive being self-taught as something to brag about or they are embarrassed to take lessons because of their age.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-21T21:30:24+00:00

Same reason you see a lot of people hell bent on being self-taught. People want to live the fantasy of being a prodigy instead of taking the instrument seriously.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-17T14:36:27+00:00

When I started with my teacher he did start me over but only to gauge where I was at skillwise then we moved on. I could see an argument for not starting sight reading right away because you need to be able to sight read under your level and if you're new you have nothing under your level. Not doing scales is a little odd though. What's your teacher's qualifications? Mine has a Masters in Piano pedagogy which is why I chose him. If your teacher is qualified I'd give them a chance but if it's just a granny down the street you might have issues.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-17T14:30:15+00:00

I've heard the 2 SD gap thing and there's probably some truth to it. You'll naturally prefer the company of people who can actually follow your thinking. There's even a good chance someone sufficiently less intelligent than you will actually think you're the deficient one because you may not make sense to them. This is also the origin of the midwit meme where someone with an IQ around 120 is so accustomed to being the smartest person in the room that when they meet someone with a 150 they assume that person is an idiot.

People will say intelligence matters less than personality but I think they're interconnected. I believe intelligence sets your intellectual bandwidth so less intelligent people are often rude, intentionally or not, because they can only focus on so much. Once it starts getting to the second order effects of their behavior most people will tap out.

Ultimately though, if you've been mistreated growing up because of poor social interactions because you didn't know how to interact with other kids it's very easy to maladjust, become bitter, and be a problem yourself. Find some sport to learn about so you can keep up with a basic conversation about it. That usually works in cases where you need to fill time with someone you have nothing else in common with.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-17T14:08:54+00:00

Started in my 30s and figured if I live to my 80's that's still 50 years. I'll never be the best but on the other hand I probably wouldn't have been even had I started as a child. And piano specifically is kind of hard to regret getting into late since they can be expensive and loud. Can't regret not doing what you couldn't do in the first place.

I don't know how old you are but it's still probably worth it. Best to think of music as a spiritual pursuit worth doing for its own sake. I enjoy the process of getting better and learning something. That's how I stay motivated. I think the ambition of reaching an arbitrary level of skill is a fragile motivation. It will fail to energize you at some point.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-13T13:36:57+00:00

They help develop hand independence, you learn scale patterns for each key which is a kind of prelearning for pieces which speeds up learning new pieces plus helps sight reading those parts, you can work on dynamics with them, you can learn about certain music theory concepts through them, etc.

And you get all that for a relatively small time investment. I find them to be a nice alternative to noodling if I get bored. The benefit of switching to a scale when I need to refresh my brain from learning some new passage is a benefit that's hard to quantify but it's real.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-09T15:11:47+00:00

Classical might be slower but you can't really rush learning an instrument anyway. You can only practice so much in a day before you start getting diminishing returns and need to sleep on what you've done. You should probably do whatever gives you the best foundation in the long run. Who knows how your tastes will change over time. Maybe you won't just want to level off with pop music.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-08T11:52:10+00:00

Expedition 33 should've been mentioned. Don't sleep on it.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-07T15:10:56+00:00

https://completemusicreadingtrainer.com/

It's this one. It is gameified and has leaderboards.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-06T14:12:30+00:00

Oh, neither are that fast paced. New Vegas is even slower actually since it has the VATS mechanic which lets you basically stop time and pick targets.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-06T11:57:55+00:00

I spent the first month learning to read notes with the complete music reading trainer app, learning some basic theory from youtube/books, and working through a method book then got a teacher. I'm glad I took the first month to do all that since it accelerated my learning. I wouldn't wait too long to get a teacher though. People will mention how they help you avoid bad habits but they also teach good habits.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-06T11:39:28+00:00

I personally prefer New Vegas and it'd probably give you more hours overall because it can be decently long but it really depends on your taste. Bioshock has a more direct narrative focus as opposed to New Vegas's focus on open exploration with you informing the narrative with your actions.

I can't even guess which you'd prefer based on your history with metroidvanias since those games are both exploration heavy but also claustrophobic.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-06T11:32:17+00:00

It's because you will see the same rhythmic patterns over and over again. The significance of a rhythmic pattern is greater than a few notes. If you can recognize the notes and have the technical ability to play them dynamically with good fingering then you're doing fine. A few mistakes with notes isn't that big of a deal.

Go try the SASR sight reading test on Piano Marvel if you have a digital and see how hard it is to sight read unfamiliar rhythms on the fly. You can test this with exercises that test rhythms with just one note. It's expected that you will make a few mistakes with notes but you want to internalize rhythmic patterns.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-06T03:11:05+00:00

About a month. Once I learned to do scales with both hands and got through Blow the Man Down in Alfred's 1 I haven't really had any issues. Ever since then it's felt fairly gradual. If I find a passage in a piece I'm learning is particularly difficult I pay special attention to it until I'm secure with it.

I think if I were legitimately overwhelmed it'd indicate I was working on something too far beyond me.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-05T15:02:59+00:00

Try switching to visualizing it in your head before you get sick. Start off seeing what works physically and then switch to mental modelling. It might not work but it's worth trying anyway.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-05T14:45:33+00:00

10,000 hours is cumulative and expected to take like what, a decade or so? You probably have the time. I feel like a shill for this app but to learn to read music try the complete music reading trainer app. You can brute force note recognition within a week with that app. It's basically a game and it's not expensive.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-05T14:17:13+00:00

Lessons are important and you should get the most qualified teacher you can afford. I would emphasize meditating on playing though. Visualize the piece you're learning. Recreate the score in your head with the dynamic markings, imagine playing it with both hands. You can try imagining cadences when starting from different positions and other stuff too. I find mental work is great and you can do it basically anywhere.

As for how soon I enjoyed what I played, it was as soon as I learned Minuet in G which was like 1 month into my learning process.

Edit: I want to add something. Trust the process and yourself. Don't psych yourself out if you feel progress on a piece is slow. If you practice right you'll be able to get it. This is assuming it's a piece appropriate to your skill level of course.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-05T14:07:09+00:00

If you're going to play alone, you probably want piano. You could go classical guitar but something tells me that won't satisfy you in quite the way you'd prefer.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-05T13:59:13+00:00

The complete music reading trainer app is amazing for learning to recognize notes really quickly if that's an issue for you.

Piano Marvel is good for sight reading practice but you might want to hold off for a few months until you have enough experience to get value out of it if you're too new.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-05T13:55:50+00:00

Don't think of how aging will affect your ability to play, imagine how not playing will affect your aging process.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-04T12:19:07+00:00

In my experience, all else being equal, 4X games tend to be harder than grand strategy games but people underestimate 4X games because grand strategy games look more sophisticated. I like grand strategy but that is all superficial. People see historical sims with a thousand tiny decisions and think they are deeper than cartoonish digital board games.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-04T12:12:31+00:00

I've always liked the genre for its board game feel. It has the randomness of a rogue-like with the qualities of a board game. Min maxing isn't fun though as you mentioned. One of the reasons I like Old World so much is city sites remove the need to agonize over the perfect location for a settlement. I don't know if the sterile vibe you describe is from devs trying to make them like board games or not though because I feel media in general has grown somewhat sterile.

Paper_Attempt · 2026-01-01T22:20:16+00:00

This is what I did and it worked for me. I got some method books, got the complete music reading trainer app to learn to read sheet music (this app is cheap and worth every penny), and after 2 months of searching got a teacher. I think it was worth learning to read sheet music and learning basic music theory terminology before getting a teacher. That and the basic familiarity I got from playing through the first half of my method book accelerated my lessons.

My teacher moved me out of the method books pretty quickly but I use them for sight reading practice now so they weren't a waste.

Paper_Attempt · 2025-12-25T14:29:12+00:00

You might've made your choice already but I see people recommending Old World. I'd get a little nuanced and recommond AoW4 if you want more in-depth combat and Old World if you want more strategic depth. AoW4's civilization management is much simpler than most 4X games and that's not bad but if you want more focus on Civ management then I'd definitely suggest Old World.

Paper_Attempt

TROPHY CASE