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Rock Band
/ Guitar Hero
Is it helping or
hurting?
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A
Look at Rock Band, Guitar Hero and the Music Industry
-
by George Broyer
Almost
everyone would love to be a rock star!
~ To be able to travel the world and live the lifestyle is a common
dream of musicians and others alike. Who wouldn't want the attention
of a legion of screaming fans clamoring for you to perform? Thanks
to the revolutionary video games Guitar Hero and Rock Band, now
anyone can get up on stage and become a Rock God. Using game controllers
shaped like musical instruments, players can perform songs by
popular artists from a variety of music genres. The original Guitar
Hero games featured only guitar and some bass parts with guitar
shaped controllers. Then the original designers of Guitar Hero
left the franchise to create another rhythm video game entitled
Rock Band and changed the world of video gaming once more. With
Rock Band, players were now able to play all the standard instruments
in a rock band including bass guitar, a microphone for singing,
and the drums. The Guitar Hero series followed suit and
also introduced the same instruments as well. So, now any person
regardless of musical skill could play guitar like Jimi Hendrix,
drums like Neil
Peart, and more.

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However,
there has been a firestorm of controversy in the musician's community
of whether these games are actually hurting or helping music and
musicians. The discussion has focused mainly on the fact that
people who are playing the games are equating that experience
with creating or performing actual music. Everyone from famous
musicians to players in garage bands seems to have a varying opinion
on the impact of these rhythm games. Some famous bands such as
Aerosmith, Metallica, AD/DC, Van Halen, and even the Beatles are
having their own editions of these games released which feature
a majority of each band's catalogues for people to play. There
are musicians who think that these games will introduce playing
instruments to a whole new generation. Chris Pennie, who is the
drummer for the band Coheed and Cambria, said during an interview
on the cable network G4 that it was "pretty amazing to have
something like Rock band because at least you get the motions."
Still
other musicians are not buying into the phenomenon of the games.
Prince has recently rejected the notion of having his own version
saying on PBS's The Tavis Smiley show that he thinks "it's
more important that kids learn how to actually play...
it's not easy." He went on to say, "It took me a long
time, and it was frustrating at first. And you just have to stick
with it, and it's cool for people who don't have time to learn
or ain't interested in it, but to play music is one of the greatest
things." Rush only made it 1/3rd of the way through their
own song "Tom Sawyer" on the Colbert Report before failing
and complaining about the feel and game play. So the debate rages
between musicians about these games and how people can get a false
sense of playing music from them. Out of the four instruments
currently available, the one that has seemed to receive the most
attention has been the drums because of the similarity of playing
the game and the real thing.

Discuss Rock
Band and Guitar Hero at DrumChat.com.
On
popular drumming forums such as DrumChat.com,
there are frequent discussions on the validity of the Guitar Hero
and Rock Band games as they regard to playing the drums. The talk
seems to side with either the video game drum set being a good
launching pad to an actual drum set or a tool of delusion to people
who simply drum by color on a TV screen while thinking they are
the next Lars Ulrich. The argument against the games is that the
drummers who learn on Rock Band or Guitar Hero can develop bad
drumming habits because they are imitating without learning the
fundamentals of drumming. Rock Band drummers learn by repeating
a rigid set of "notes" and thus do not learn how to
be creative or improvise. Also, that people will take making music
for granted without putting in the hours of practice need to play
the drums properly. People who favor the game point out that it
can help build the hand and foot coordination necessary to play
the drums as well as being a tool for keeping up with current
music styles. It can also boost the interests of people for the
instrument and lead more people to start learning how to play
the drums correctly. Alex Rigopulos, the co-founder of Harmonix,
who makes Rock Band, seems to agree with the latter. He recently
told a blog on The New York times that he's "continually
seeing people migrate from 'Rock Band' onto real drums naturally."
So the question is, how exactly does playing a video game drum
set translate to being able to play the drums for real?

First,
we must look at how the Rock Band and Guitar Hero
drums are played. The drum sets are made to emulate the set-up
of a 3 piece drum set. Substituting rubber pads for drums, cymbals
and hi-hats, the players strike the color-coded pieces with drumsticks
and use a foot pedal to play the bass drum. Newer models of the
drums can even attach pads that resemble cymbals instead of playing
the lower coordinating rubber pads. For advanced drummers, a company
named ION built a Premium Drum
Set for Rock Band and Guitar Hero which is one step away from
being an actual electronic drum set complete with the ability
to arrange the pads wherever you want unlike the stationary standard
drum sets that come with the games. So unlike playing the guitar
controllers which require only pressing buttons while moving a
strum bar, playing the drums does require basically the same motions
needed to play real drums. Players are made to strike the rubber
pads for drums and move their foot for the bass drum in rhythm
with the song. Guitar Hero: Metallica also introduced a second
foot pedal so drummers could emulate playing double bass drums,
which are very popular in heavy metal. Thus, players must have
some basic coordination to play the drums in these games. But
does going through the motions on a video game help people be
able to start drumming on a real drum set?
In
order to play drums, there are several factors that must come
into play. As with any musical instrument, a level of natural
talent for making music is greatly helpful when playing. Most
musicians have a natural affinity for creating music while there
are some people who can become technically proficient while lacking
some of the creativity. It may be that Rock Band / Guitar Hero
drummers can join into this latter category or that the game awakens
a dormant existing talent in some people. The same basic coordination
and rhythm needed to play the Rock Band / Guitar Hero games must
be present as the drummer is the backbone of the group and must
be able to keep the entire band in time. However, most drum sets
consist of more than four options as a standard 5 piece drum set
has two tom tom drums, a bass drum, a snare drum, two cymbals,
and a hi-hat. Experienced drummers often have larger set-ups with
even more drums and cymbals. There are also basic drum
rudiments that drummers must learn in order to create and
play simple and complex beats. There are several styles of drumming
such as samba, reggae, and more that require their own drumming
skills, nuances and techniques. Many drummers learn to play drums
by taking drum lessons
through experienced teachers who have gone through the process
themselves. The most important requirements to play the drums
or any other musical instrument are dedication and perseverance.
Learning to play music does not happen overnight for most. Guitar
Hero / Rock Band are the complete opposite of this as almost anyone
can pick up the games and start playing right away.

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Another
factor when discussing the relationship between real drums and
Rock Band drums is the financial aspect. The Rock Band / Guitar
Hero games with the instrument bundles retail for under $200.
It would be very hard to find a quality drum set for that price.
Most starter drum
sets cost several hundreds of dollars and most of those don't
always include all the parts you need like cymbals which can be
another couple hundred dollars. Then include the cost of drum
lessons and drum
accessories and the total amount needed to start playing the
drums for real can added up pretty quickly. So, for the investment
to make sense, you must be really certain that drumming is something
you want to do and so it requires a level of commitment not needed
for playing video games. The Rock Band / Guitar Hero games only
need a one time small monetary commitment, where the drums will
be something that will be ongoing.
So again, the question remains if playing the drums on Rock
Band / Guitar Hero can translate over to really playing the
drums. Several different people have attempted to test this theory
out. On the cable network G4, a reporter who usually was able
to correctly play up to 99% of Coheed and Cambria's "Welcome
Home" on the Expert level swapped places with the drummer
in the band to see if he could play the song for real. He used
color coded mats to help mark the drums since he was not a drummer
and proceeded to play the song pretty well. Still, was this just
an exercise in imitation of one song or someone playing the drums
after doing the same on Rock Band? According to Harmonix's Alex
Rigopulos, the answer is the latter. He said in an interview with
OXM that "you can take a person that's playing on the expert
levels in Rock Band on the drums and put them on a real drum set,
and they can play the drums
these people have learned the
fundamentals of drums, and this isn't abstracting fundamentals
- you can put these people on a drum set and they have some basic
skills now."

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On
the other side of the coin, people have also attempted to see
if playing drums can help you play Rock Band and Guitar
Hero. As previously mentions regarding Rush, this is not always
the case as the game works more of timing and following the color-coded
"notes" rather than intuitive musical feel. Another
study by MTV featured the band Cartel as they tried their hand
at Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" and David Bowie's "Suffragette
City" with each member playing their natural instrument.
The group also failed at first but, over a time span of 45 minutes,
they got better and better. The drummer, who failed on the medium
skill level, said that drumming was closer to the real thing on
the Expert level as there was more of the song to actually play.
The guitarist of the band who fought his way through three songs
on Expert drums stated that he did not think that playing the
drums would enable anyone to play real drums right away but was
a good tool to just have some fun playing music.
Whether you want to keep playing the Rock Band / Guitar Hero
drums, your real drums, or go back and forth between the two,
there are a great number of resources to help you get better.
For playing the drums for real, there are numerous online drum
lessons sites as well as many drum
lessons books and drum
lessons DVDs to help you become a better drummer. You should
have no problem finding plenty of drum tips to improve your drumming.
This is also true with Rock Band / Guitar Hero drumming as there
is a plethora of places to find Rock
Band Tips and more. There are even Drum
Play-Along Books which take some of the songs found in the
Rock Band game and offer drum transcriptions and drum-less tracks
to help you play those songs on your drum kit. These resources
can help take your drumming to the next level no matter what format
you decide to use.

With
all of that being said, it may still be too early to accurately
determine one way or another if the skills it takes to play the
video drum set will lead to those players being able to play a
real drum set properly. What is known is that the games should
at least peak the interest of potential drummers to take up drumming
and use the resources at hand to become a full fledged "drum
bum" (like how we worked that in?
). The basics can certainly be picked up by playing the fun and
entertaining game whether real musicians are crazy about the idea
or not. However, more dedication and work is needed to transfer
those skills into something more. The makers of both these games
may continue to tinker with their drum set design so that it emulates
a real drum set even more so. They may end up offering drum lessons
content to help push the next generation of drummers to become
better using their equipment. Who knows what the future holds
when it comes to these innovative games. All we know is that regardless
of the shortcomings of the games in regards to making music, they
should help foster interest in kids to want to make the real deal.
So have fun playing your video game drum set or your authentic
drum kit and just remember that music is all about enjoying the
sounds and getting lost inside the intricate web of music notes
and beats.
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