I played this game at a friends house and was totally humiliated. Smoke on the Water. Toy Guitar. Karaoke-style. I play guitar. I know this song. I taught it to a bunch of 4 graders and they played it in an ensemble to all their parents at a Fine Arts camp at a Baptist Church. I even instructed them to all stand up and do the "Elvis Leg" thing at the end. It got laughs. The parents said "That Seth, he is such a good Guitar teacher." You would think that I could play this game. I sat in front of a bunch of non-musicians in Oklahoma and try after try, I humiliated myself attempting to score more than a 70 percent... playing Smoke on the Water. "Wah Wah Wah... Wah Wah wawa... Wah Wah Wah... Wah wawa." Yeah that one. The onlooking non-musicians tried to make light of my poor performance by saying things like, "Man, this game really makes you appreciate how hard the guitar is." It took everything in me to NOT tell them that playing this game was ZILCHO like playing the guitar. It is about as much like playing the real guitar as playing Frogger is like driving a car... shaped like a frog, because the only resemblance this game has to real guitar playing is that this plastic baby-toy-thing I am holding and can't seem to tear myself from, is vaguely shaped like a guitar.
I didn't resort to letting that bust-their-bubble-cat out of the bag because later in the hour I went to a higher level on the game and jammed my burning fingers off on "More Than a Feeling" which in turn delivered me from total humiliation.
Pride truly goeth before the fall. Dadgummit.
Thank God for Boston.
and Jelly Bellys
5 comments:
I saw some researchers talking about this, saying how playing "Hero" can make your brain develop in ways "like playing a musical instrument."
Uh...how about ACTUALLY PLAYING A REAL GUITAR, FOLKS?
Sheesh,
Brant
I too, play guitar and also look like a total idiot playing that stupid thing. I played it with a bunch of guys who were musicians, and we all sucked, except for Mark, Audio Adrenaline's singer, who can't play a single chord on the guitar. My four year old was really good though.
It would be the equivalent of saying,
"Researchers say that playing the new 'Shakespeare Hero' game can make your brain develop into a Shakespearian actor and help your acting skills. When you play the game, a real Shakespeare play is taking place on the screen. You wear this vest and a microphone and 'quack' every time hamlet is supposed to speak his line. You quack, the line is spoken on screen. From normal Joe to Sir Lawrence Olivier just like that in a few quacks!!!"
However, intrinsically the game is fun if you ignore the music and play it like you would a regular Mario game.
It is a fun game. I've only played it once, and when using only three or four "notes" (buttons) I would regularly hit 95% of the notes. I played guitar, when I was six or seven, so I have forgotten all I once knew about the proper fingering of notes. I'm sure not having that ingrained in my brain helped me and hurt you. You really have to disconnect all thought that this thing that is shaped roughly like a guitar has any relation to the real thing.
What frightens me is the possibility that some genius will develop and sell as an actual musical instrument a smart "guitar" that uses this very simplified button systeml; ya know, for the wannabes out there. That would be the end of music as I know it.
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