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Denver, 9:29 AM
Sat Nov 21
44 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/09/09
10/09/09
I used to be dead-set against music games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. I thought they were a waste of time and that kids should be practicing real instruments instead. Yes, I thumbed my nose at the music game genre and then put on my monocle and sipped a cup of Earl Grey.
A few summers ago I worked at a local band/orchestra/guitar retail store to pocket some money to pay for tuition. In the span of 2 1/2 months, I sold over $15,000 in guitars primarily to kids between the ages of 10-15. I'd never quite seen a run on guitars like this before. In my usual banter with customers while they're looking at instruments, I usually ask what's inspired the customer/recipient (in this case, mostly kids) to want to pick up the guitar. Answer in a shocking majority of purchases:
Guitar Hero and Rock Band
Fast forward to last winter where I'm student teaching with an elementary music program. I brought my Wii and a copy of Wii Music in as sort of a treat for kids who behaved well during class. Once every other week or so I'd let them play Wii Music for the last half of class (and every day during lunch when the weather outside was foul I'd have the music room open for them to play as well). A week or so after starting this I get a phone call from a parent that goes something like this:
Parent: Would you happen to know where I can rent a trumpet?
Me: Sure, here's the name of a music store I work for and contract with. Might I ask why you're interested?
Parent: Oh, [Child's name] said he enjoyed that Wii Music game you let him play during lunch so we went and bought a copy for home. He played a lot of the instruments in it and really liked the trumpet, we asked if he'd like to learn to play for real and he jumped at the chance.
I'm not sure if music games can actually teach music (though I think there's possibilities to teach rhythmic feel which is wonderful), but what I am sure of is that these music games have opened up a lot of possibilities for kids who would otherwise be uninterested. As far as I'm concerned, if music games can pull kids into music and perhaps inspire them to pick up real instruments, they are nothing short of successful.
10/09/09
10/09/09
Or better yet, in musician terms, a gateway drug.
10/09/09
10/09/09
Perfect for people like me!
10/09/09
Edit: OK, never mind.
10/09/09
10/09/09
That is all.
p.s. I have a picture but for some reason uploading is not working for me today.
10/09/09
10/09/09
Personally I think the Dreamcast was the first to pioneer both formats. Rez used music as a companion that accompanied you throughout the game. Although the interactions did not depend on music so to speak, the game became synonymous with beat creation.
Space Channel 5 was one of the first games based solely on music user interface reactions. Simon Says, but much much cooler. I might be wrong here but you could even go as far to say that SC5 was the precursor to the DDR game fad that was so popular at one time.
Wipeout is another that turned a corner in terms of musical involvement. Although it did not use music as a mechanism for gameplay, it was if I recall the first game to publicly market itself based upon what music the game actually contained. The game tailored itself around the electronic music explosion that hit the US and Europe during the mid 90's. At one point Sony showcased the game in trendy nightclubs across the country. The Soundtrack was as big of a hit as the game itself.
I won't venture into what Guitar Hero and the like has achieved or what the latest and greatest is, but it is nice to reflect on how Video games have proven to be an outstanding medium in terms of reaching out to people that would otherwise have no desire to pursue music in other ways.
*Whistles some Ocarina of Time tunes*
10/09/09
After explaining that it was video game music, he said "Why don't you play video game music like guitar hero?"
So there we have it, after a brief discussion he believed that all the songs in Guitar Hero was just well, from guitar hero.
I wanted to share.
10/09/09
Then I realized that maybe this kid is only new, and he had only played music games so far.
Then I reread the last paragraph, highlighted the "13 age" part, and sighed again.
10/09/09
10/09/09
10/09/09
Isn't that the song Battlestar Galactica wrote to use as a homing beacon? Whos this Jimi Hendrix guy, he must have copied them. :P
10/09/09
10/09/09
however, it's a good alternative for the 95% of the population who won't ever do that.
09/23/09
09/22/09
Gives an interesting POV in regards to Chinas business activity and how a lot of it supports terrorism / anti-western related countries along with general expansion across the globe which a lot seems to point towards the securing of natural resources and safe logistics routes mostly hidden from the hands of the western world.
Interesting book and do like how the author goes around the asia region explaining his theories supported also by facts and data in regards to Chinas expansionism.
Dragon Days - Time for "Unconventional" Tactics : By H. Joh...
09/22/09
Instead of reading that, I suggest that you take a look at Rand.org . At least their people show up for Congressional testimonies more often than any other think-tanks.
09/22/09
Personally I had picked up that book in regards to seeing his views on tactics and such and was not expecting the whole part with his pov in regards to the situation with china and the rest of the world.
Still though overall Id trust the US of A over China regardless of all the crazy bullshit we pull around the world during our span of history.
09/22/09
There are times where you can actually preempt the other side by taking a strategy that blunts/negates the advantages that the other side enjoys. The Chinese strategy at the moment seems to be to maintain the political status quo while improving its self-defence capabilities.
09/22/09
Though I have been personally looking into the private sector situation more although unfortunate I have not had as much time as I used to in regards to reading and such.
Currently am trying to catch up on the South East Asia situation. With all the reading ive been doing I swear to god my corrective eye surgery is going bust.
09/22/09
I'm wearing glasses as it is and yeah, I do tend to lose myself with reading a ton of stuff when it has my interest.
09/22/09
I personally would like to play a mech game, where the mechs were designed by mechanical engineers, and not artists.
09/22/09
Sometimes these plots that game developers come up with makes my head want to explode and this was one of them!
09/22/09
Two things i want to relate here:
1) Chinese economy: While it is universally known that its economy IS good, the numbers (gdp, etc) are official numbers (can not be trusted), and more importantly, if any of you try to make any kind of transaction in a n international stock exchange market (US, Eurozone, Israel, etc) you'll find out that you CAN NOT make almost any tranzactions with 100% chinese controlled companies FROM china, because there is no "translation" for their value (in short, you don't know WHAT they are exactly worth just so you won't be able to trade with them). So i'm not so sure about the current chinese economy being in SUCH a big boom, it's more probably hyped because they want to attract investors (smart!)
2) "After all, sometimes real-life is scarier that the "what-ifs" video game developers imagine for us". Damn right. I am Israeli, 23 years old. All my friends are about that age. What that means is that we all went through our 3 year army service, and met numerous soldiers/generals/etc. While we did not go through an actual war (luckily) we have trained for 3 years and patrolled mostly hostile territory, and i must tell you, games like call of duty 4 and bad company are for real soldiers what burnout is for F1 racers. The only shooter game that REMOTELY resembles a war/patrol in enemy territory on the PSYCHOLOGICAL level is dead space, hardest difficulty, volume to the maximum and worst armor.
09/22/09
That's interesting. I too have heard that our media (i.e. Games and movies) hasn't even come close to mimicking real life situations like being in a war.
Though, you say Dead Space on hardest difficulty level Psychologically resembles the real thing more than anything else. Did you really mean that? That's crazy. I've yet to get that game but I really wanna get it.
09/22/09
09/22/09
At least I'm pretty sure that's how he meant it.
09/23/09
would think the sheer terror of what could happen is more reflective of actual combat. A realistic sim like ArmA seems closer to what it would be like to play Paintball. Exciting for sure, but with the underlying knowledge that nobody is going home in a box.
09/22/09
They have a large history of border skirmishes and such. Despite relations having cooled post-Soviet Russia it still seems far more likely for those two to go to war in one way or another than the US going up against either one.
I just think it's an interesting concept for a video game story. How would the rest of the world react? Could NATO or Japan get pulled into the conflict? What about areas in the region that are very tense right now like North/South Korea? It would be cool switching between the two sides and the US/Europe taking a more backseat role.
It would be something different, at least.