Has Guitar Hero had a Positive or Negative Impact on Musicianship?
The Guitar Hero franchise from Activision, has been a highly successful one, and journalists described the first installment of the Guitar Hero series, as the most important gaming development in the first decade of the 21st Century. With over 25 million units sold worldwide, on almost all gaming platforms, the cultural impact has been incredible.
Guitar Hero's Appeal
Guitar Hero is instantly appealing to the majority of console gamers, even those who do not have a great appreciation of music. Its simplicity, aesthetics and addictive gameplay elements, make for a wonderful gaming experience.
With Guitar Hero making use of a simplified rhythm game to represent the complexities of playing pop, rock and metal guitar music, most people would think that the game encourages youngsters to choose the fantasy world of musicianship in the game, over slogging it out and actually spending years learning to play a real instrument. The complete opposite is true.
According to research done by one of Britain's music charities, Youth Music, 20 percent of children who play video games, have started playing real musical instruments - as a direct consequence of playing musical rhythm games. Not only have children taken an interest in real instruments, they have also started taking formal music lessons.
This has been good news for both music teachers and musical instrument retailers. This phenomenon of increased interest and higher instrument sales has also been felt in the USA: in 2007, there was a massive increase of 27% in guitar sales alone.
Why Guitar Hero has Sparked Interest in Real Guitar Playing
The music in the Guitar Hero series has always been a mix of classic rock and metal, along with a few current favorites. What this has done, is expose children to the magic of great guitar playing, from the 60's, 70's and 80's – music that many of them would never have bothered listening to, due to the dominance of electronic dance music, manufactured pop stars and hip-hop over radio stations during the last decade.
Suddenly, children have discovered that Black Sabbath and AC/DC is “cool”, and that many of the songs are quite playable to novice and intermediate guitarists. Even people who have had owned guitars for years, have found that playing Guitar Hero, has sparked renewed interest in playing guitar and learning new songs and skills.
Guitar Hero World Tour features a complete band experience: there is a guitarist, a bass player, a drummer and a vocalist in the virtual band. This introduces youngsters to the concept of the guitar as part of an ensemble, rather than a solo instrument. It also gets kids to try jamming on a real guitar with friends, rather than restricting themselves to learning and playing songs alone.
