Advice on how to play The Way It Ends?

**charlottesophie** · Joined: 07 Aug 2013 Posts: 6

I absolutely love the song and I am good at alt. strumming, however I can't get round the short pauses. Does anyone have any advice? I'd greatly appreciate any help, thank you!

**nunovanhalen023** · Joined: 01 Sep 2009 Posts: 635

This kind of fast strumming with pauses is generally referred to by the community as burst strumming. You'll also see it frequently in the Dragonforce DLC pack.

Anyway, oddly enough, most people find it more difficult to have good endurance with burst strumming than they do with regular fast alt-strumming. Unfortunately, there are no easy ways to improve at this skill. My advice would be to warm up your strumming arm with some normal alt-strumming (Knights of Cydonia, perhaps) and then tackle a run of The Way It Ends. Play TWIE frequently, like one run every few days or so, and you'll see some gradual improvement.
_________________

**nunovanhalen023** · Joined: 01 Sep 2009 Posts: 635

This kind of fast strumming with pauses is generally referred to by the community as burst strumming. You'll also see it frequently in the Dragonforce DLC pack.

Anyway, oddly enough, most people find it more difficult to have good endurance with burst strumming than they do with regular fast alt-strumming. Unfortunately, there are no easy ways to improve at this skill. My advice would be to warm up your strumming arm with some normal alt-strumming (Knights of Cydonia, perhaps) and then tackle a run of The Way It Ends. Play TWIE frequently, like one run every few days or so, and you'll see some gradual improvement.
_________________

**ThunderShade** · Joined: 12 Jun 2008 Posts: 350 Location: Scotland

If endurance is your problem, then yeah just play things like this a lot. Thrasher on the Rock Band side is a way more taxing song (especially on bass) so it's very good for endurance. I found playing the strumming sections over and over again from The Way it Ends very helpful for building enough endurance for the FC.

However given the phrasing of the question I'm going to assume it's burst strumming in general you're having trouble with. If you have Beast and the Harlot on GH2/GHSH/RB3 then that's a good song to get the hang of it. Other than that, practising the song on lower speeds is the best thing to do. It's worth noting that all the bursts are an odd number of strums long, so you end on down and up strums alternately.

It's also worth considering how good you are in general and whether you should try to improve in general first. I have nothing to go off of regarding your skill. I would say you should be able to five star pretty much everything else on disc except for TTFAF and maybe Raining Blood before trying to get combos on The Way it Ends.
_________________

**Bradmasta** · Joined: 17 May 2008 Posts: 2276 Location: Virginia

Endurance is the biggest key here. Also, try working on the timing. For most of the bursts it's 5-5-3. That's really all there is to it imo, good luck!
_________________

12-10-2010: Date I started dating my Fiancee

/5-11-2012: Date I became the 188th Freebird

/3-10-2015: Date I FC''d Revolution Deathsquad

/2-16-2017: Date I FC''d Through The Fire And Flames

/
2-17-2018: Date I FC''d One and FGFC''d GH3 on Expert

**charlottesophie** · Joined: 07 Aug 2013 Posts: 6

No problem with endurance, just can't burst strum, it seems. But I can full combo things like Knights of Cydonia, lol.

Thank you guys!

**f4phantom2500** · Joined: 15 Mar 2007 Posts: 2885

**ArmourTheLlama** · Joined: 19 Nov 2008 Posts: 501 Location: Surrey, England

Without meaning to hijack a thread, I have a question related to this, cos I want to build my strumming speed/endurance - when my arm/wrist gets too tired and I can't hold combo any more due to fatigue, is it good to carry on and try to play through it? Is this beneficial or just bad practice?
_________________

Master-tesuch is a legend

**ThunderShade** · Joined: 12 Jun 2008 Posts: 350 Location: Scotland

**Bradmasta** · Joined: 17 May 2008 Posts: 2276 Location: Virginia

**PiemanLK** · Joined: 03 Dec 2007 Posts: 4711 Location: /export/home

DUDUD DUDUD DUD

Also keep in mind that the tempo changes during the verse and the bursts with the lowest note being green are a bit faster than the ones with the red bottom note.
_________________

[quote=''Otend'']Id come up with a long post, but Pieman said what we are all thinking, as usual[/quote]
[quote=''youhas'']EDIT TO ADD: Hey, post #3000! Neat! I will eagerly anticipate my set of ScoreHero-branded steak knives within six to eight weeks.[/quote]