Seriously folks what’s technology got against guitars?
Years ago it was the growing popularity of disco, techno, electronic - dance musics in other words that seemed to be making guitar playing about as hip as sitting on the porch on a Friday night and whittling.
But everything in life operates on a curve… everything swings to and fro like the pendulum of an old grandfather clock. Guitars - and more importantly, guitars played in all kinds of styles became hip again in the last 10 years. From folk to shred… even rappers have guitars sometimes. That’s what makes shitty bands like Nickelback able to have a job.
A few years back a friend of mine who is a terrific drummer (only he barely ever plays so he suffers from being rusty pretty bad) got into this game called “Guitar Hero.” He was really good at it. He spent hours playing it. Because I can actually play a real guitar pretty well, it was assumed by him that I’d kick ass at it.
So finally one day I’m at a house party with all these “kids.” I call them kids because even though I’m only 25, I’ve got a 5 year old son and a full time job. There is a disconnect. I have a lot of responsibilities, and most of the time I’d probably get along with their parents just as good if not better than them. In other-words, I’m an old fart.
So in the midst of all the drinking, laughing, getting stoned etc. that is going on, I’m handed a video game controller that looks like a little guitar with buttons instead of strings. Now it couldn’t even be a ton of little buttons in six rows (like strings) spaced out like frets… I might be able to play something like that. No, just 5 big plastic multicolored buttons and a weird paddle thing that you’re supposed to strum.
He picked out songs that I like by Cream, Hendrix, SRV and know how to play… On easy mode I totally sucked. It was too slow and out of time. On Expert, I couldn’t hang with my fretting hand. “Where’s the fucking strings? How do you bend?” I couldn’t even play a Ramones song, which by the way I love The Ramones, but it’s all just strumming chords for the most part. It was hard on that game. Hard because it’s so different.
People, let me tell you… I fucking hated that game. I felt like an ass-hole. It’s aggravating to know you can play these songs in real life - something that used to make people like you at parties and was always a sure fire way to pick up the ladies. (Well, I’m married, but it’s nice to know if you still got it…) I bet you anything, no chicks will dig you because you’re good at a video game.
Now there is this Guitar Hero III craze. They’ve even got tournaments going on for Christ’s sake! The zone has been calling me, trying to get me to play a gig at a GH3 event in Farmington. Then there is this game, Rock Band that also lets you drum and play bass and even sing.
The last straw was last night - I’m watching TV and there is a commercial with people sitting around, singing Sublime to a kid “strumming” over the screen of a little hand held device.
It’s all fine if this stuff is going to turn people on to real bands and playing real music again. It’s great if you get into these games as a young kid and then decide you want to play the real thing. But I’m scarred that this isn’t going to be the case.
I hate to come down on anything that gives people a laugh or a good time in today’s world. There’s so much to be worried or depressed about that a little escape into your dreams of rock stardom is pretty cool. I just feel like it makes a joke out of the whole thing. You can totally screw up but if you use your “star power” by doing some stupid stage tricks and moves people will eat it up. (Well, that’s probably pretty accurate now that I think about it.)
All I know is this: I begged and pleaded for a guitar. My parents spent the most money they’d ever spent on me for a holiday to buy me my first guitar. A $200 acoustic on top of other presents. I played the shit out that thing. In 8 months I was begging and pleading for an electric. I took whatever money I had at the time and my Dad, seeing that I had applied myself to something and actually learned how to play a bit, took me to the HOG for my birthday in August and helped me buy a Mexican strat and a little practice amp for probably $400. From there it just got more and more expensive, but I kept getting better to help justifying it - to a point anyway.
I used to lock myself in my basement room and play guitar for 12 hours a day. On school days, I’d play before school, and then as soon as I got home I’d play till dinner. Then if I ate, I’d go back to playing till I fell asleep with the guitar. I’d play in front of the TV… I’d play on the toilet. I’d just play and read guitar magazines and play and play and play. Once I got to play with other people and have the sound of a band it was like magic. “Dude, we just sounded like that song!”
I never took any lessons. I taught myself - and that shit was a lot of work. The hardest part was knowing that you suck and it’s going to take you a lot of time to learn things and be able to play songs. I tried to teach a few people once and it was a pain in my ass because they didn’t want to learn anything. They didn’t want the theory or the why… just “teach me this song.” For people like that, guitar hero is probably amazing.
My point is for all the time people like my buddy spend playing the video game, they could buy a cheap guitar and learn how to play the real thing. But it’s too much work for most people. It hurts their fingers or something.
Part of me wants to take that gig at the Guitar Hero 3 thing in Farmington, so I can go out there and fucking smoke everything I touch for 2 or 3 hours. Play every part of me off… play till I’m bleeding (hey it’s happened) and the sweat is burning in my eyes… my arms and legs are like jello… till I have nothing left and my strings are all broken.
Then I’d turn to the microphone and say, “See what you could do if you put down the fucking video games and picked up a real guitar?!”
It would be cool in a cheesy, Steven Seagal kind of way. Hopefully I’m totally wrong and in a few years the next amazing guitar player will emerge from the unknown and say, “I picked up the guitar after playing video games like guitar hero and rock band. It made me want the real thing.”
It could happen… and monkeys might fly out my butt.
I agree with your analysis of the Guitar Hero series; I picked up my ‘92 Japanese “Wayne’s World” Strat for the first time in years over the summer. I’m still playing, albeit not a lot, making time for it despite a full-time job and an 8 credit course load.
I wouldn’t completely rule out electronic genres, though. Problem is that the post 9/11 kulturkampf put the final nail in the coffin of American rave culture, and the focus has moved away from the dancefloor back to the stage, making people spectators rather than participants once more. Electronic genres have been traditionally weak in regards to live performance; it’s damn boring to watch someone sit in front of a laptop scratching their ass. Still, I miss raving, for the previously mentioned reason, and because I prefer candy ravers on E to skinheads on crystal meth.
I suspect that a potential solution to the issue in regards to live performance with electronic instruments may involve improving the interface. The guitar has existed in its contemporary form since the 1700s, but the interface has taken a long time to evolve. The MIDI keyboard interface, inherited from the piano, is awkward in my opinion, and emerged because the technology at that particular time could not support controllers that needed to transmit more information. What it will take is someone with a keen sense of human interface design to engineer alternatives. Don Buchla has already attempted this; his alternative controllers never caught on. Still, there’s the thought that if the Nintendo Wii’s controller could change the face of home game systems, then certainly this could apply to musical instruments as well. I for one would like to see an instrument that sounds like a 303 when you play it, but you could manipulate it live like a bass guitar.
Attention humanoids: You can get a Squier Fat Strat and practice amp in a box for around $200. It’s way cooler than Guitar Hero.
Yeah, I hear you on the 8 credits and a full time job thing. I just started classes at RIT - and I’m an idiot so its a pretty big deal for me that I’m even allowed to go there.
I don’t for one minute completely discount electronic music. I have a cousin who creates some really cool stuff in that genre. My bass player is also huge on analog synths and making randomly generated noise tones and such… it’s interesting it’s a head trip and it is often pretty musical when done right.
I’m just old school to the bone. I’m a vintage nerd. As much as I think it’s bullshit, I can’t play an electric guitar that isn’t a Fender or a Gibson… well maybe a Gretsch, but you know what I’m saying. I know there are a handful of solid state amps I really enjoy, but everything else has to be tube or I walk right by. Really, who cares? … Apparently my childish ego.
Anyway, If they ever made an instrument that could mimic other instruments without sounding lame I’d be interested - but I’d still keep my real wooden gear around. Jerry Garcia fiddled around with one of those strats loaded with a roland pickup and people called it innovative. Like the dead or not, Jerry could play stringed instruments like a motherfucker, so it seems like it makes him an even better musician for being willing to try new technology.
Still, Line 6 and all these other companies make all this modeling stuff and it’s nice for recording demos and such, but no combo of a Line 6 variax guitar and Line 6 amp is going to hang with a vintage Marshall and a Les Paul.
It’s cool if you’re using technology to sound like something different or new, or allowing yourself the flexibility to change tones and timbers completely in a live setting but it’s just so lame when you start trying to mimic the sound of something totally obtainable. Like using it to go after the sound of a Telecaster through a Fender tube amp.
Lately I’ve been gigging with my trusty old Japanese 72′ Thinline Tele Reissue (bought it back in the 90’s) and a Fender Blues Junior Tweed amp… that is a smokin’ combo for the sound I’m going for right now. I also think for anyone playing even semi-professionally it’s totally reasonable - certainly not top of the line megga dollar gear.
Anyway parents, buy your kids the real guitar this year for x-mas… it will change their lives.
You both raise interesting points that go to another fascination of mine: the limits of a medium. Generally, my thoughts on this tend to gravitate around the “PC-TV” invention. It’s related, so stick with me.
When I worked for Gateway computers, they were always trying to push “Media PCs.” Those are PCs that can be used as televisions. In fact, they’re meant to replace your television and give you the interactiveness of PC Internet access with the comfort of television viewing. You get a wireless keyboard and something rather like a wireless pointing device that serves as both a remote control and a mouse.
It’s total shit, and no one really likes it except for particularly insecure, virgin 40-something computer nerds with a peculiar boner for multimedia. The reason why the mainstream viewer doesn’t like it is simple:
There’s an inherent limitation to the medium of both PC and television that makes them incompatible. Yes, you could watch stuff on your computer, but your computer and it’s companion furniture is meant for typing, not lounging. Yes, you could play around on the Internet in front of the television, but trying to type on a wireless keyboard from your Papasan chair is enough to create a keyboard-sized hole in your bay window.
And besides, people just don’t want to invest all that effort into watching television. There is a limit inherent in the technology.
So, OK. Back to music: what Mikey describes in terms of a new UI is precisely the problem of the PC-TV. There is an inherent limitation to a guitar that makes it only a guitar. It cannot be a saxophone, no matter how much cool MIDI stuff you plug into it. It cannot transcend the basic purpose for which it was built. Keyboards suffer from the same limitation.
Witness the “Drumatar.” Don’t get me wrong, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones are crazy-talented motherfuckers, but that instrument has not sparked any innovation in playing and is really a series of drum pads on a guitar-shaped panel. Is the “Drum CAT” any less innovative?
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with either keyboard instruments or guitars. Hell, play those motherfuckers louder and more often, I say. What I am saying is that, John, you’re right to just stick with what works for guitar, because trying to make a tiger a leopard is a waste of energy and an insult to both.
What a new UI for a new instrument looks like, I haven’t a clue. I suspect it would probably be something wearable, thereby eliminating most of the compulsions surrounding current musical technology. Perhaps something where gestures suggest musical tones and intonation. Similar technologies have been proposed to replace the keyboard and mouse setup for PCs in a virtual space, and there are tools that allow you to use “mouse gestures” to control a PC without clicking buttons. That might be the logical next step for musical creation as well.
But if it’s that damned wearable MIDI drum machine I saw on That’s Incredible a few decades ago, I’ll eat my hat.