What Real Musicians Can Learn from Guitar Hero

I am an instrumental musician, and a fairly serious one. I have studied, practiced, and, to varying extents, mastered several instruments in my lifetime, starting at the age of 5. In the nearly 20 years I've spent developing my skill, I've learned that a musical instrument is a lifelong commitment requiring

I am not, however, a regular consumer or player of video games. So when a friend told me about the concept for the now-hugely-popular game, Guitar Hero, I was greatly amused. A video game centered around pretending to be a rock musician? With points and success based on how well you manage to "finger" and "strum" a game controller shaped like a guitar? How fun!

Though many instrumentalists may roll their eyes at this game, I'm thrilled to see that the video game developers responsible for Guitar Hero have picked up on something that we musicians already know: playing music is fun, not just for the creative aspect, but because the development and mastery of the physical skills is, in many ways, not all that different from mastering your favorite video games.

Upon hearing about the game, I also thought, "I bet I'd actually be good at this one." Though I'm a trombone player primarily, I did dabble for a couple of years in electric bass, so I figured the skill development I'd picked up there would make Guitar Hero a walk in the park.

To my surprise, I found playing it nearly impossible at first. Not because the game controller felt foreign, but because of the way the game is set up visually. As a sheet-music reader, I'm used to visual instructions about what I'm supposed to play coming in the form of a code made up of graphs and dots which represent pitch in terms of height and time in terms of symbols that represent fractions.

However, Guitar Hero's system of "music notation" is a different animal completely. Instead of having pitches indicated by their height on staves, they're indicated by color. Time, on the other hand, is indicated by...well, time, as the notes being played scroll across the screen at the speed of the music and must be played at the moment they hit the bottom of the display.

Frankly, it boggled my mind at first, and made me angry. How could anyone follow musical instruction dictated this way? Yet I soon discovered that for those unused to sheet music, Guitar Hero's system is infinitely easier to pick up.

This got me thinking and questioning a few things about how we musicians do things, particularly those of us who read printed charts. In what ways to we limit ourselves when we use a form of written notation that has its roots in the middle ages? Are we neglecting to explore what technology has to offer us in terms of pedagogy, composition, and music creation?

The fast-moving, colorful images that represent music in Guitar Hero seem, to me, a more emotionally accurate and vibrant representation of the sounds being reproduced than the cold black dots and lines I'm so used to. While they are by no means as capable of providing specific instruction as sheet music is, perhaps an electronic system which is as good could be developed along similar theoretical lines.

I went back and tried Guitar Hero a second time, but first, I spent a great deal of time watching other people play it, trying to unravel my conditioning and learn to think of visual music representation in a new way. Once I finally could, it was like a lightbulb had switched on in my head, and not only was I seeing things differently, I was hearing them differently. Seeing the music notated in a different way reminded me that above all, music is about sound. Any way we choose to represent it is nothing more than the barest symbols, and if we think about them too much, our performance can lose its vitality.

This time when I played, I had a great time. It's an experience I would recommend to any musician.