Musicians angry over the existence of Guitar Hero and Rock Band often feel better about themselves by claiming that fans of the games should "learn to play a real instrument." However, Harmonix has said that those musicians are missing the point of the games, and possess a narrow perspective.
"I think they're missing the point. I think that they don't understand why it's a phenomenon," explains John Drake. "From my perspective, anything that gets kids interested in music and gets kids playing music in their house that isn't an MP3 they stole off the Internet, is a good thing.
"Anything that's making money for music and making music relevant to kids again is a good thing. I think they think that we prefer people playing plastic guitars over real guitars, and that couldn't be farther from the truth. We would love nothing more than for every kid that buys Beatles: Rock Band in September to immediately ask for a real guitar for Christmas because they're inspired."
Personally, I feel that a guitarist telling someone to learn a real guitar instead of playing Rock Band is akin to a soldier telling someone to shoot real people instead of play an FPS. Some people just don't want to do the real thing, and that's why videogames are so popular.
It always amuses me when real musicians act threatened by a piece of plastic with squeaky buttons on it. Until people can take turns playing a real guitar when drunk and still have fun, music games have their definite place.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Music is one of the oldest art forms and mediums in the history of mankind. It's going to take a lot more than Bobby Kotick churning out GH sequels to kill it off.
You're actually finding that clubs who would have booked a live band are now replacing it with Rock Band/Guitar Hero? That's interesting to hear. I was kind of getting the impression that it was the "new karaoke"; the bars I've seen it in would rarely ever book bands.
if you think technoque id whay makes you a musician i dont ever want to support you as most likely your music sucks.
write a song that inspires and captivates and wory less about how to shred and hammer on scales
word. that reminds me of that sort of "I'd like to see you make a better (movie, game, work of art, etc.)" argument. it doesn't take a professional chef to realize when something tastes like shit.
I'm only good at singing and can hardly read music, and much too shy to take it up. RB is just a fun escape.
Brucelee didn't even care enough about his post to spell most of the words right. Don't put too much stock into what he is saying.
I certainly don't see the problem with music controller based games (I tend to agree with the guy quoted in the article), but I can also see why actual musicians would be "put off" by the genre.
Luckily I HATED live music nights. No offense to you guys or anyone who likes live music at a bar. But honestly, I go to a bar to hang out with my friends, drink, and bs with them. I can't hear shit with a live band playing.
If someone isn't going to be George Harrison, he isn't going to be George Harrison, whether you put a piece of plastic in front of him or not. But maybe if he plays at being George Harrison for a while, he can pick some of the "language" and be an educated listener who recognizes and rewards skill in musicians, instead of the number of dollar signs in the background of the club remix video.
My major complaints with games like RB or GH (and I will preface this with I am a musician, I play many instruments and I also have a good time with GH from time to time) are that
1) for the money that's being spent on the peripherals and game a parent could get their budding musician a decent knockoff instrument to practice fo' realz with other kids and make their own sound.. and probably still have some cash left over to get GH OR RB (not both, parents, show some goddamn restraint, plz).
2) I noticed that GH trains your hands to work in ways that are only vaguely similar to playing an actual guitar (much like a console FPS vaguely has a trigger), and even this veteran guitarist finds that works against me when switching between the two.. I can only imagine the mindfuck that happens for a student musician.
On the other hand, I'm still keeping my GH stuff for the future. I think that beyond the game itself the peripherals have great promise for synth creation, ala gameboy chiptune. It's the keytar, only simpler.. and cheaper.
I have no problem with people who like these kind of games.
I do however, have a giant problem with the attitude towards music it creates. A large amount of music showcased in rock band/GH have little to no depth musicially, and people start treating those songs like they are the end all, be all epitome of music.
Then again, that really isn't rock band or Guitar heros fault. I guess it's just the type of music people like. :\
As a casual fan of Rock Band/Guitar Hero AND a person who can play an actual guitar, I can distinguish between the two and can see how much fun it is to just place yourself in front of someone else's awesome song and try to rock it out.
Also, BOTH of my younger brothers got their musical interest started on Rock Band/Guitar Hero games and now BOTH are surprisingly good musicians (both are in high school), one on drums, the other on guitar.
Personally, I don't have the time or the interest to form a band; having an actual career will do that to you.
I'm a designer, and I know that a lot of people use Photoshop to make forum sigs, avatars, etc. Do I expect all of them to becomes designers one day? No, because some people use it because it's fun to do. Same principle applies to music games.
why the hate?? its a great thing for you, esp w/the rock band network coming out soon. its a new channel of distribution in which you can actually make a decent commission from.
i play piano, trumpet (both decently), sing, and attempted to learn guitar on quite a few occasions. i honestly would love to learn guitar but when it all comes down to it, i just don't have the time or patience anymore.
sure, its not like a real guitar; thats the idea and why we love playing these games! we get to live out our rockstart wanna be daydreams without having the drug addictions, strung out tours, crooked managers/labels.
just saying.. we don't pretend to be real guitars or musicians but more music fanatics. embrace us and maybe you could make a few bucks off of us too in the DLC :P
...That looks worse now that I see it spelled out before me... But regardless, music games are another outlet that musicians have to connect with their audience. And due to how it works... It's a good way to *sell* your music to an audience. You'd have to get Frets on Fire to "pirate" the music. But let's face it, it's easy as hell to just get the mp3s.
Be thankful people want to spend $2 a song to play it in a rhythm game!
this analogy is so off the mark and ridiculous and the reasons why are pretty obvious. my only problem with the game is when i see a video of some ten year old beating the hardest song in the game on expert while the same amount of attention to a real instrument would have added real value to his life. as a party/casual game, i don't have a problem with it.
And that brings me to essentially the whole point of RB/GH; instant gratification. If I wanted to learn my fave metallica/the who/black sabbath song, starting from nothing, it would take months, years even before I could play the song, start to finish, and have it actually sound right. With GH/RB it can be done in about ten minutes, when people want to have fun they want to have fun NOW, not in two years after they've learned all these scales and memorized the complex finger patterns, they want to be able to jump in and have fun immediately.
Not everyone wants to be a 'real' musician, those that do are willing to put in the years of work to get there, those that do not can now have fun with a similar but not equal experience, whats the problem with that? I know no-one who has given up dreams of being a musician to play RB/GH, just the thought of that is ludacrous to me.
I love videogames and I love music and anything that brings the two together is gold in my books, now put down cooking mama and go make real dinner, it tastes better (did I mention I was also a cook for many years...?). Also stop playing trauma center and go to medical school.
You know people can pay to download your songs for the game don't you?
"learn to play a real instrument"
You know they would just pirate your music normally right?
"learn to play a real instrument"
Personally as a musician, I feel that it is actually better to pick up and learn how to play an instrument for real, but that doesn't mean that RB/GH can't be a fun, challenging experience in its own right. It still takes a hell of a lot of skill to play a plastic guitar well on Expert.
Well said!
They shut up when I got my 1959 Gibson Les Paul out it's case.
/somewhat irrelevant anecdote.
But yeah, anyone who complains about these games needs to start providing real justification when they do so. What do they take away from anyone? It's not like a group of really good Rock Band players could headline Wembley Stadium.
Couldn't agree more, Jim. In fact, I made a joke about this during my last standup show.
Also, I can speak as one of many that started out playing Guitar Hero with limited musical ability and was inspired by it enough to learn actual guitar. As much respect as I have for Page and White as musicians, they really are missing the point here and not seeing the benefit these games provide.
I do indeed. Although I'm very new to the game. I also do sketch comedy. Our troop had our second show last night.
I'll be sure to post videos as I did for our last show.
musician at 08/31/2009 10:59
I would love to see a feature that let bands upload they're own stuff, but that would probably be impossible with copyright problems and fraud.
It's called the Rock Band Network, should look into that
Well, I can see why they would, but they need to realize that people are just having fun playing a videogame and not trying to replace learning guitar with playing guitar hero. I could understand better if they said "why not take up a skill like playing an instrument instead of playing video games", but singling out instrument-based arcade games just because they use plastic instruments is dumb.
The only pitfall many ppl who play a real guitar is that of it will take along time to get to the level many ppl want to be at eg play like hendrix. Where guitar hero can give the illusion of been a guitar god from day 1. But saying that there ae simple to play songs whicg sound really good with nice effects and singing with them. Take beatles songs they are very easy to play all that is needed is to learn the chord shapes.
(only half kidding)
In other news, people will be elitists about anything and everything possible.
First off there are no GH/RB setups replacing real venues or live shows. That's the silliest shit I have ever heard and if your local bar is seriously doing that they were untrustworthy source of income anyway because clearly they were dying for the oppurtunity to trade you out for the cheap alternative. But again that's silly.
Second a lot of our "special" bands get a decent following when they can tell kids they're like ______band from Rock Band. Our synth bands can point to Freezepop, our loud angry chick bands can point to Bikini Kill (or better yet the three Bikini Kill cover bands we have have received a boost in headcount), and so on and so forth. Rock Band has opened people up to music they would've never found or cared about otherwise. Bands like Bikini Kill, L7, That Handsome Devil, Freezepop, and yes I do like Abnormality, would've never caught my ears.
Third Rock Band is now more than just an attention getter it's a new venue for music. Now losers like the rest of us can all get a shot at some Rock Band fame with a measly $130 (chump change, trust me, this is the music biz here), a little theory, and a lot of patience. Which is all nothing any musician is unfamiliar with. You know how many people I know who are pumped that they will not only be getting exposure in arguably one of the most exciting new music venues in recent years but also they'll get paid!? Seriously it may sound sad but it's true.
Lastly I have to point out that Harmonix is made of musicians. Damn fine musicians at that. Prior to the RB1 launch I had the privilage of being a very active forumite and actually chatting with a lot of them including my longtime crush Helen McWilliams (I love you Helen!). These guys are the real deal. That's why it's ridiculous to say these guys are killing music. Don't you think they would notice? Don't you think they would care!? I mean some of these guys are mo small pawns either. The biggest that comes to mind is The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. A lot of these guys stand a lot to lose if the silly notion that GH/RB will somehow replace that rockstar were true. But it isn't. Again as I laid out in the previous points RB can do nothing but further their presence in their respective scene.
To say music games are killing music is no more ridiculous than saying racing games are killing racing. There's a million way to simply say "You're wrong." It's the flat out simple truth. Old geezers like Jimmy Page who can't get that or guys like Jack White or wanna be cool like Jimmy Page are all being mislead by their own paranoias and closed minds (seriously Jack this isn't the first time you've had a closed mind).
There's a great NYT article titled 'While My Guitar Gently Beeps'. It's primarily about the making if The Beatles: Rock Band but about the last quarter of it goes through the criticisms of music games and kind of tries to scientifically explain why people are so afraid of music games. It's brilliant. The article says that it's a similar reaction to the fear we had when recorded music first hit the scene and everyone was paranoid live music was going to die somehow. There was the very same reaction we see today with music games. People have a knee jerk reaction and they'll find anyway to disown the new media as being irrelelevant or dangerous. The reality is they can't wrap their heads around therefore it shouldn't exist. Or worse they feel to play music there some rite of passage you need to gain via lessons and practice. Not everyone wants to learn an instrument. Some people just wanna rock out. The people who want to learn guitar, dammit they'll do it, and they'll go places with it to.
I could go on for hours, hell I could write a blog, on this subject and the numerous stories and historical allusions. The fact is tommorow in between Sociology 101 and College Writing 101 I'm going to pick up my copy of Guitar Hero 5. And I'll play it standing right here next to my Les Paul; Ayita. And when I'm done my drive to play Ayita will be no less than before when I got GH5. Heck it may even be greater. Worst case scenario maybe Neversoft didn't get the mem. And the charting will be so bad I'll need to remind myself that real guitar doesn't feel like that. Point is I have been playing these games two years after I started guitar and they have done nothing but point me in the right direction. The bands I've found and even the seemingly simple act of pull-offs and hammer-ons would've never happened without these games. While they don't have the same affect on me now, being that I'm deeper into music and a style and not so easily swayed by games, there is absolutely nothing but good that can happen from these titles. It's a shame more people don't see it.
But that's the thing: People want to feel like rock stars without having to learn an instrument, and that's fine. If you feel that playing RB or GH will somehow make you a good musician, then there's a problem with that. But there is nothing wrong with wanting the feeling of being a rock star and just having fun without caring to learn an actual instrument. People like you get bent out of shape because people want to spend time playing a gam when they could be learning an instrument, but you miss the point that most of the consumer's who play those games just do it to have fun first and foremost. Personally, I don't care if someone calls themselves a designer if they only use a light version of PS, so I don't know why you care so much that people aren't learning instruments when they could be. What ever happened to people wanting to make their own decisions? I think musicians should stop telling people what to do and just let them have fun, which is the main purpose of RB.GH.