I understand dude, sometimes when I'm playing a song that I know how to play on guitar it f's me up. Like, that's not supposed to do THAT.

Well I agree, and disagree. My wife's father is amazing at guitar, but cannot play rock band because he is old and set in his ways of how a real quitar is supposed to work.

However, on the other hand, I have many friends in punk/rock bands and are incredible guitarists, and they can play RB just fine. I think it's more of a mindset than anything else. I guess they are just easily able to flip the switch between real musician to fake musician. I think alcohol helps a lot too. ;-)

Beer helps with the transition... I don't even bother playing Rockband unless I've got a 12-pack in the fridge. Try it out.

It comes down to practice -- much like it did with the real instrument. I've been playing guitar for 12 years and I'm not shitty at Rock Band at all. I would agree that someone who's good at RB or GH guitar on Expert isn't going to be able to pick up a real guitar and play it worth a damn, but I have to disagree that there isn't some skill developed in being able to play these games.

The first time I played GH (when it first came out), I scoffed at it. Some of it was probably elitism, but the majority was that I wasn't any good at it. I knew I could play some of the songs for real, right then, by ear -- but I couldn't keep up with single notes melodies on the GH track. It was frustrating to say the least. Years later, a friend of mine picked up Rock Band 2. I've always wanted a drum set (my parents got me a guitar instead) and the chance to at least play something similar was too good to pass up. I gave it a shot. I failed...miserably.

I wanted to use the RB kit to determine whether or not I'd be capable of playing "real" drums. The motor skills would be similar, as would the hand and foot coordination (and most importantly, independence). I worked that RB kit for months. I'm up to playing many songs on Expert now, and some of them are pretty damn challenging. I've got a few friends who are pretty good drummers, and I've had them sit down, and they choke. A lot of it has to do with them trying to play it like a real instrument -- which is impossible. One of them gives drum lessons to neighborhood kids, and I asked him to sit me down and go through something. I went to his house, sat on the throne, and he told me to play something -- anything. I actually didn't suck. It was weird as hell being on a real kit, and getting used to playing on the far left for high hat and in the middle for snare was difficult, but I didn't feel hopeless.

As a guitarist, I've never really used my pinky finger for shit. I hate that finger because it's weak and slow (in comparison to the other three fingers). RB bass parts (and guitar solos) have actually forced me to use my pinky finger more, and get used to switching between the pinky and other fingers for better fretting. I truly believe that, if the charts are written in a way that fingering is natural, the solos and single-note melodies can actually contribute to finger speed. It's helped me incorporate the pinky finger more when playing scales and such for real.

Now, for the cons of these two series of games: The guitar chords are all fucked up. It's EXTREMELY unnatural to play a barre chord with the fore and middle fingers. This is one of the compromises that had to be made because it would be too complicated to create a peripheral with more buttons. To address the "My Name is Jonas" comment previously, it's ridiculous in RB2. If you play that song on a real guitar, the fingers don't move anywhere near as much as they do for the RB track. Again, this is a necessary compromise, but one that isn't going to transition well to a real instrument.

Also, with drums in particular, the timing window is something that must be considered. The thing I was worried about before I sat in front of a real drum kit was -- will I be able to stay in time? In RB and GH, you have a window in which you can press the note (or hit the drum) and the audio will continue to play -- in time. There have been plenty of difficult drum sections in RB2 that I know I haven't played cleanly in time with the song, but still got credit for hitting the note. It turns out that I wasn't off much on a real kit, but I've been involved in music since I was in preschool. I would see it being a pretty big problem for someone who doesn't have an understanding of time signatures or meter to be able to transition from music game guitar or drums to real guitar or drums. When you're playing a real instrument, there's no timing correction (well...you can fix timing errors when recording, but that's cheating).

Anyways. This may have been a little scattered because I'm rushing. I'm in the middle of working on some homework and found this Cblog during my brief internet interlude. Great write up Oncomouse. I definitely understand where you are coming from as a musician, and I'm not saying you should try to get good at Rock Band. If you don't like it, don't play it. I hate the chords for guitar tracks, so I usually just play the ridiculously hard guitar songs that mostly have solos and single-note melodies (like Painkiller, Prequel to the Sequel, Panic Attack, etc). It just boils down to whether or not you want to get good at it. I would also be willing to say that it would take more work to get good at GH and RB if you already play the instrument in question than if you start without any experience. A certain degree of unlearning has to take place.