There is a prevalent feeling on the Internet that these darn kids should put down Guitar Hero and Rock Star in favor of the real thing. The argument goes that all the time put into mastering these games could just as easily have been spent mastering real guitars, as that is held to be culturally more significant.
Never mind that kids who play Guitar Hero are picking up real instruments, I take umbrage with the idea that somehow learning to play songs on a real guitar has a greater real-world impact than mastering a video game. Of course being a legendary player of Guitar Hero is not going to make you rich and famous. But honestly, playing a guitar probably isn’t either. The best guitarists in the world undoubtedly play because they just love playing their instrument (or at least that’s where it all got started).
Why is that? The truth is that mastering an instrument and mastering a video game are similar experiences. Here you have this thing invented years ago by someone else, and out of this invention emerges a whole system of methods to learn, practice, and master. It’s this learning system at the heart of each endeavor that people love about playing music or games. When it comes down to it, structured play is a form of work. It’s a matter of narrowing your focus, finding flow, and entering the magic circle for a few hours a day. As long as this learning paradigm is being studied, practiced, and worshiped, who cares if the end result is a song or a high score? If the songs don’t get famous (and they largely won’t), the difference in cultural impact is nil. That’s not to say that playing a song on a guitar is useless. It is to say that playing a song on Guitar Hero is not useless. Either way it’s teaching people how to learn by doing.
October 9, 2009 at 11:32 am |
especially when the person who claims it’s a waste of time doesn’t actually play a real instruent themselves.
October 9, 2009 at 11:38 am |
I agree completely. Who is to judge whether or not the way one person chooses to spend their time is valuable or not. We all learn differently, play differently and require different kinds of stimulus to grow our brains. Jeez. People can be reaaaal jerks.
October 9, 2009 at 3:49 pm |
Hmm… I’m not sure I agree with you 100% on that, Phil.
I think the difference is that the level of accomplishment in Guitar Hero is limited only to the game itself.
You say most songs that are written don’t become famous, but you’re operating on the assumption that the only reason to write a song is so that it will become famous.
In fact, learning one musical instrument unlocks an entire language of music which will lead you to be able to play another, and another, and another. Beyond that, it’s a language that then extends to other art forms, math, physics, and potentially even spirituality. Will everyone take it that far? No, but the point is that music has a lot of applications beyond just becoming a pop star.
Maybe that’s true of Guitar Hero too, I don’t know. I wouldn’t go so far as to say playing a video game is totally useless, and I won’t begrudge anyone for a hobby they enjoy. But I do think that learning to play music probably both engages and expands the mind a bit more.
October 9, 2009 at 3:54 pm |
The larger point I never got to was that music and gameplaying are done for funsies, at their root. I’m not trying to knock musicality; I play a few instruments myself. But there is a group that targets the time spent playing games as useless when compared to learning an instrument. I guess I’m just trying to say don’t say that playing games is useless just because playing a guitar is clearly not useless.
October 26, 2009 at 4:56 pm |
I don’t know what you people are talking about. Playing Guitar Hero has totally gotten me laid.