Guitar Hero Is Big Hit With Bands

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "An unlikely but growing group of rock stars are also avid players of Guitar Hero, a PlayStation title that uses a miniature plastic guitar to let gamers pretend to be, well, rock stars, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'Michael Einziger, the 30-year-old guitarist for the hard-rock band Incubus, says he was "shocked at how hard it was" to play the videogame's version of his song "Stellar." He admits he was handily beaten by his then-14-year-old sister, Ruby Aldridge, when the two of them squared off earlier this year. "It doesn't have anything to do with playing guitar," Mr. Einziger says. "It's all rhythmic." When the four members of the punk-pop band the Donnas got together to play Guitar Hero last week, guitarist Allison Robertson took some good-natured ribbing from her bandmates, says drummer Torry Castellano. That's because Ms. Robertson had a hard time playing along with the band's own song "Take It Off." "Expectations for her are pretty high because she's the guitar player and because she's so good at videogames in general," says Ms. Castellano.'"

Comments

I Don't Understand

[eldavojohn]

I'm an electric bassist and personally, I care not for Guitar Hero.

I mean, I've got a freaking bass & a computer with Linux & audacity in my living room ... why play guitar hero? To play with the bands? If I want to do that, I strip the low end out of an MP3 on my computer and just play along with it.

I find it odd that someone who probably has their pick of basses/guitars & effect pedals would prefer the not as rewarding feeling of playing Guitar Hero. Well, to each their own I guess. I think the guitarist of Korn should go buy some Rickenbacker guitars ... I can't imagine ever getting tired of those.

The funniest thing is that my friend wants to play guitar ... so he buys Guitar Hero. Which provides you with no guitar skills whatsoever. This summary hits it right on the head that it improves your rhythm but does nothing for your melody or style of playing.

PS2 + Guitar Hero = $300. Decent acoustic starter Yamaha guitar is about the same. Take your choice. I suspect Guitar Hero would be a great toy for working on your sense of tempo ... but it's still a far cry from the coordination to play any other instrument.

Re:I Don't Understand

[focitrixilous P]

It's like saying you could go out dancing, so why play Dance Dance revolution? It's fun for completely different reasons then actually dancing. The same thing applies to Guitar Hero, it's almost completely different from actually playing guitar, but it's still fun for some people.

Re:I Don't Understand

[Ackmo]

Tell that to Denny Hamlin...

Re:I Don't Understand

[drinkypoo]

Yup, it would be like learning to race by playing video games

If you knew anything about driving you would know that this is a completely valid strategy. Most people, even people who own and operate a car, really don't know shit about driving, so this isn't much of a surprise.

My driving skills - street driving skills - were greatly enhanced by playing the Gran Turismo series of games. Reading through the "driving school" data in the handbook and putting those skills to use in the video game taught me a lot about how cars behave - and not every car in the game is a supercar, either. It's not strictly true to life but the cars do behave in a quite realistic manner (aside from a lack of damage) and you can learn a lot from a racing game with good physics.

Every day I see people who clearly don't know how to drive. They're jerking their car around turns (or slamming on the brakes before a turn) because they have no idea what a proper line through a corner looks like. I frequently end up gaining on people with cars which are capable of handling vastly better than mine simply because I don't have to slow down [as much] for a corner because I know what I'm doing. The same technique, by the way, can be employed to keep your speed up to something reasonable without throwing your passengers all over your car, so it's not all about making the best speed. You can use the same skill to limit your maximum G force.

If that weren't enough, driving simulated cars is now S.O.P. for racing teams of all types. It lets you get a feel for the track, where the turns are, and so on, without spending costly track time. It's not exactly a substitute for the real thing, but it is training for the real thing, and moreover, it has been proven to be useful.

Re:I Don't Understand

[Listen Up]

While a lot of what you say is true, what you say about braking before turning is not true. I race on a semi-professional and professional level in a variety of real motorsports including Autocross, Road Racing, and Rally (www.rally-america.com). The proper technique when racing around a corner or curve is to brake in a straight line before or into the turn (late braking) if needed to set up the turn, ride into the turn at a constant speed, and then power out of the turn. The most important part is to try to never brake while in a turn (unless Rally hand-braking ;-), as the turning grip of the front tires is reduced by the braking grip. Active differentials/active braking/dynamic vehicle control systems can help to reduce the effects of braking during turning, but proper line braking is very important nonetheless.

Also, Rallyists really love to play Rally video games as much as they can, especially to practice course notes with their Co-Driver :-) The Richard Burns Rally simulator is amazing and the Colin McRae series is absolutely fun to play.

Well duh...

[Chaffar]

Just because you're an expert at Fight Night doesn't mean you can take out Mike Tyson in a real fight... or vice versa. It's just mindless fun. I don't think it was written anywhere on the box that it would turn you into a guitar god overnight (or if it did, you're an idiot for believing it).

Incubus?

[bubbl07]

As much as I love Incubus, I'd hardly classify them as "hard rock." When I think hard rock, bands like Metallica (Black Album era) and ACDC come to mind. Maybe that's just me, though.

Re:Incubus?

[Alzheimers]

And Sugar Ray is just a boy band, music for chicks, right?
On the radio.

Do you even *own* S.C.I.E.N.C.E.?

It's a video game, y'know.

[emmagsachs]

The only relation Guitar Hero's controller -- with its five coloured plastic buttons, in single file, to be pushed when the correctly coloured circle is shown -- is that they're housed in a casing built to resemble a guitar.

You can play Guitar Hero 24/7, practicing until your fingers bleed, but at the end of the day, you still can't play guitar. It isn't Guitar Simulator, it's a video game with a miniature plastic guitar for as its controller. It has nothing to do with actual guitar playing skills.

GTA won't teach you the skillz to be an archcriminal, and America's Army isn't a replacement for boot camp.

Re:It's a video game, y'know.

[tholomyes]

Personally, as a long-time self-taught hack guitarist, I find that it improves my guitar playing-- it really has increased my finger speed, and can't hurt my coordination or sense of timing.