Guitar Hero: Good? Evil?
Just thinking on my previous post, opinion on the relative value of Guitar Hero is quite varied among musicians. On the one hand you have some who vilify it and on the other hand you have those that praise it. While up the middle is the “Relax, it’s just a game” crowd. I used to play UmJammer Lammey in the day, which is more-or-less Guitar Hero without the fancy guitar-shaped controller. It was fun, I mashed buttons, I rocked out in the ‘Cool’ level, I improved my anticipation and timing (maybe). Now I’ve never tried Guitar Hero, so I feel I’m unfit to comment on whether or not I like it. Though I can see both the pros and the cons of virtual musicianship, I don’t have the data on how this is playing out in the real world. My question to you, dear reader, do you feel there is anything of value in Guitar Hero, or is it just a distraction from experiencing the real, tangible world of playing a guitar?
Originally I had played it once and thought it was frustrating, that as a guitarist, I could play these songs in real life but was subject to pressing some random buttons in time with the music, and not doing particularly well (first shot though).
That was until Saturday night when I played that World Tour thing with drums and everything else. THAT was fun. Maybe it was the alcohol, but it was definitely fun, and I thought the drumming part in particular was quite good, and when I saw how hard it is to play the guitar parts on expert mode I was quite blown away — yet equally frustrated at why the bassist in my band was better at guitar hero than at real bass guitar (obviously he’d spent more time practicing guitar hero).
At the end of the day it’s just a game and it’s all fun, and if anything it should be a good boost to the sale of instruments if some kids decide that the real thing might be more rewarding. And it takes some serious skill to be good at both.
I figure that some musicians are getting their nose bent out of shape over Guitar Hero in the same way that some recording engineers poo-poo Garageband. Both things are packaging up hard earned knowledge and experience, making the rewards available to those who haven’t gone through the same lake of fire that they themselves did. But I think that at the end of the day, we all recognise the skill and knowledge that go into being a guitarist or engineer. I don’t think anyone who plays Guitar Hero in lieu of an actual guitar is delusional about their own musicianship.