Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Playing Rock Band Does Not Make You a Musician

Rock Band

I was watching a video of Rush playing Rock Band yesterday and that clip inspired me to comment on those that think that playing Rock Band makes them something like a musician. Sorry kids, it does not. If there is any benefit to that game, it may be related to keeping time. After that, it's just another game.

Rock Band is Not For Actual Musicians


I found myself sitting in my nephew's basement one day, plastic drum set in front of me, plastic drumsticks in hand. He wanted me to try my hand at the game. After all, I have been playing drums for almost thirty years, so he felt that I would be an expert at Rock Band with little effort.
All I had to do was hit the rubber pads when the little colored lights tell me to. There was the first problem. I'm an open handed drummer. That means everything that the game is set up for is backwards to me.

Rock Band is not about feel or grove. Its all about hitting the buttons at the exact time that the game requires you to. Keep your feel out of the effort, and you will do better. Who wants to keep a groove out of music? That's insane. Robots do better at Rock Band, than actual musicians.

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