A musician friend of mine mentioned to me that playing guitar hero for the length of time that I have, I would have been able to learn the real guitar to a decent standard.

Initially, I didn't take that on board, thinking about it more rationally, he's absolutely right! I'm getting to the stage now after a good couple of years of playing through the various versions and nearing the coveted status of expert. 

I’ve been known to dabble in playing the drums and the bass guitar from time to time. One thing I hated about the whole thing was the endless repetition of boring scales or rudiments that I used to curse my teachers for making me do. I know you don’t get better without practice, but isn’t playing an instrument supposed to be fun? It seems as though it only becomes fun when you can play the drums like Lars or the guitar like Kirk. 

That’s where Guitar Hero comes in... Now it has been said that Guitar Hero and Rockband have been accused of robbing the younger generation of the opportunity to play a real instruments and thus going the simpler route. If anything these games do a lot to promote musical interests. The other common misnomer is that Guitar Hero is easy, it’s not. It takes time, patience, skill and a lot of determination to beat the machine on expert. Not only that, your emulating your favourite rock gods, you are much more inclined to think “I’d really like to do this for real” as opposed to being nagged nightly by the parentals. 

This has troubled me over the weeks and months and I have reached a peculiar conclusion. All the things I used to hate about playing a “real” instrument has been twisted round full circle whilst playing Guitar Hero and find all those things, the practice, the failings and endless repetition and the allure of the video crowd, most appealing because with everytime I play I can see the progression, which is maybe something I was blinkered too previously. 

Rocking in front of Guitar Hero or Rockband is fun even when you are hitting only half the notes. You’re playing your favourite tracks in the comfort of the living room, with no distractions and nobody judging your performance aside from a piece of silicon. If only they could have made drum lessons a bit more exciting, maybe I would have practiced more. As it was, my dowdy Canadian drum teacher came second fiddle to much more exciting things that were going on at the time (pot and girls, mainly). As I dive into my 30’s and as enjoyable a blending a few hours playing you favourite tunes is. I can’t help that feeling of remorse that if I’d only applied myself, it could have been so different. 

I have a feeling that technology like this could be put to better use. You hear about Slash playing and enjoying Guitar Hero and telling us it does wonders for his dexterity. But what if you could play a game like this and gain some real world experience from it, rather than just bragging rights. 

Although it’s a rather expensive solution, manufacture some sort of MIDI interface that would work with the console. Swapping the falling runway of colours with the appropriate tablatures for guitar or bass and drum music. In fact, the interface could stay pretty much the same although with the addition of strings and drums where needed. Then take up your MIDI instrument and play through your favourite songs in the same way. But in doing so you would be able to practice and essentially learn to play your instrument of choice. 

With a little consideration and application there is no reason why this system couldn't be implemented. With the amount of people that are playing music games at the moment, some of them must have thought about wanting to play an instrument for real. It would also silence those who say Guitar Hero is the devil's work and those who bleat on about little Johnny not picking up his guitar or going to his lessons. You could invest a little cash and let the console be the teacher.