I saw this letter in this month's Total Guitar, and I nearly barfed.
From Danny C and the Gingerbread Man, Belfast
We feel it our duty to stand up and be counted in reply to the letter in your last issue entitled 'Guitar Hero Chumps'. It is far too easy to ridicule those of us who have spent hours playing a small plastic guitar without considering the benifits it may have had on us as actual guitar players. Take my mate and I as an example. We both have been playing guitar for five years or so and have learned most of what we know from Total Guitar. We are both fairly average players and have found that the hours we have spent playing Guitar Hero have improved our actual guitar playing immensely. Finger strength and independance are unquestionably improved. Soloing technique can also be translated directly from Guitar Hero to a real guitar, with our understanding of phrasing, particularly, benifitting. As for people who have never played guitar before, Guitar Hero can definitly be of benefit. The simplest chords in guitar hero require using index and ring finger to hold two 'frets' at once. Are simple barre chords not the first thing we learn to play? And what about the wide variety of musical genres covered in the games? How many other ways can you think of to get 10 year olds to listen to Cream, SRV, Black Sabbath, and Rush? Anyway, the point is that we all know that GH ain't gonna make Slash suddenly burst out of us and take over, but it really can help your playing! We believe it so strongly that we will put our names to it, unlike your previous anonymous reader...
Are you shitting me. This is easily the most idiotic letter I have ever seen featured in a magazine, Total Guitar should be ashamed to show it.
Where to start....
"Finger strength and independance are unquestionably improved." Oh really? Strength? It is a button. You are not building any callouses on that. Independance? The controller is modelled around ONE STRING. ONE. JUST ONE. That is building as much independence as tapping your fingers on a desk, it is nothing compared to the four to six strings you find on most basses and guitars.
"Soloing technique can also be translated directly from Guitar Hero to a
real guitar, with our understanding of phrasing, particularly,
benifitting." Oh dear god. How in the world could GH improve phrasing? There are five buttons, all of them pulling double duty in being used for many, many notes. This cannot improve your phrasing at all, unless you are talking about the actual song itself. If it is, then why don't you just listen to a song? Do you have to run it through a $300 system while concentrating on massaging an elctronic dildo to listen to a song?
"The simplest chords in guitar hero require using index and ring finger
to hold two 'frets' at once. Are simple barre chords not the first
thing we learn to play?" ONE STRING. JUST ONE. It is impossible to form a chord on the controller!
"And what about the wide variety of musical genres covered in the games?
How many other ways can you think of to get 10 year olds to listen to
Cream, SRV, Black Sabbath, and Rush?" Really? You are preaching the ability of bringing the most popular and recognizable guitar-based songs of all time into one package so that people can "discover" them? If the GH player does not know the songs on the game, he really needs to get out of the house.
"We believe it so strongly that we will put our names to it, unlike your previous anonymous reader..." Oh really? Why don't you introduce me to your friend, the "Gingerbread Man".
This letter fails on so many levels. GH has NO application to guitar playing whatsoever, and the only point you had was bringing popular songs to the masses, but the songs were popular to begin with, so I don't really consider that a valid point. This letter is disgusting.
First off, I want to say that I enjoy Rap. I think that Tupac was a musical genious, and Public Enemy was a great innovator.
Second, I think that Rap is slowly degrading, and will be gone or heavily changed by year 2020.
Why? Here are my reasons.
#1: What is most desired in Rap culture? Quite simply, it is power. Rap music is loaded with lyrics concerning ammassing large amounts of money, the acquisition of "hoes", a presumed sense of superiority, and other symbols of power. Rap music is also one of the only genres (with the exception of shred metal) that demonstrates power through competition. Clubs are often filled with rappers performing "rap-offs"" in which the musician tries to deface his opponent with his "rhymes".
#2: How does one gain power in the Rap industry? The easiest way for a rapper to do this is to create a Rap song with widespread public appeal. To do this, all rappers need is a catchy backing beat with lyrics concerning symbols of power.
#3: What does this do to the Rap industry? It fills the industry with forgetful money makers that do not advance the industry as a whole, all the while holding the real talent down. The industry becomes clogged, forcing Rap enthusiasts to listen through mounds of the same stuff in search of the talent, and the mainstream audience will not listen to the talent because it diverges too much from the formula of catchy beat + lyrics concerning power.
#4: What will happen to the Rap industry? One of two things will happen. The industry will either slowly degrade due to the holding back talent, and will be struck down by a great innovator (such as what Nirvana did to hair metal), or the innovator will change how the genre functions as a whole (as Metallica did to heavy metal).
Either way, Rap as we know it will sadly be gone in the near future. Many UG'ers despise Rap due to it's lack of lyrical content, but they do not understand that the lyrics concern something that is incredibly important to Rap as a culture.
Hey everyone, I think it is time to take a break from the angst-filled rants to give you all a little break.
By break, I mean try to get you to buy my stuff.
I am putting four things up for trade, take a look.
#1: My Spector Performer 4 -This is my newest bass, and yet the one I never use. It is a discontinued bass, and besides the Rex Brown sig, it is the only bass that sports the rare "holoflash" finish. It has a nice metal tone, kinda as if the mids were scooped, and it is also one of the best slap basses I have ever played. I am selling it because (of course) I don't play metal, or like to slap. It does not come with a gig bag, but it will be heavily padded when shipped.
#2: My Utopia B-100 multifx pedal by Rocktron -This pedal is in mint condition, I have all of the origional packaging, papers, manuals, accesories, etc. that came with it. I am selling it because it is WAY too deep for me, I like the simpler pedals.
#3: My Russian Big Muff Pi -I got this pedal when I was just starting out on bass, and I have come to dislike it's tone. It is mint condition, if you are considering this you know what it is all about.
#4: My Traveller MKII travel bass -My travel bass, which I am looking for a small difference. I will only take a steinberger synapse bass for this baby. It doesn't atter to me what year the synapse is, but I will NOT accept one of steinberger's child brands (spirit or hohner)
Here is a pic of 1-3, I do not have a pic of the traveller but I can get one if arsed.
WHAT I WILL ACCEPT -I will not accept paypal, cashiers check/money order only if want to use money -an SG/explorer/V shaped bass (epiphone and dean are good) -a Squier Vintage modified Stratocaster -a Squier OBEY series stratocaster -a Gibson or Epiphone Les Paul -a BC Rich bass (no warlocks, warbeasts, beast, or zombies) -an Ibanez -a guitar with a lot of space between the bridge and the strap button -a steinberger (traveller mkii only)
If you look on the news, or ask anyone at all about their political opinion, they will tell you one thing. Pull the fuck out of Iraq. These bandwagon jumpers are following self-destructive ideals preached by hippie pascifists.
Why do you think this Kranos?
It is very simple. Look at Iraq. Look at the big country next to it. What is it called? That's right kids, it's called Iran! You see, if America pulls out of Iraq, Iran will snatch it right up, and with it, most of our oil supply. You know what that means?
America is screwed!
Without oil, America will not be able to use airplanes, cars, hell, ANYTHING that requires oil. With such a huge issue to deal with, America will lose prominence as a world power, and eventually fade into history as a footnote.
So, here are your choices.
A: Stay in Iraq and survive. B: Find a large scale replacement for Oil. c: Pull out of Iraq and kill America.
When you guys first see my profile, you see that profile pic of mine. After seeing the picture, you all probably "Holy crap, that hunk of man candy must be pulling ass by the truckload!"
Sad to say, this is untrue. I have actually only asked out two girls in my life, and both rejected me. For comedic value, I will describe the two situations in detail.
Girl 1: This was the first girl I have asked out (redundant phrases are cool), and easily one of the worst things I have done in my life. I was in my freshman year in highschool, and it was two weeks from prom. I wanted to ask a girl out considering I had gone dateless for homecoming, and she seemed like the best bet. She seemed to be the quiet, nerdy type, and I thought I had a chance with her.
The punchline? I asked her out friday, she said "maybe". On monday I had six guys tell me she did not want to go out with me, because she apparently did not have the nerve to tell me herself. Not only was this bad enough, but she proceeded to badmouth me behind my back to the very small amount of friends she had. To this day the arrogance she exudes sickens me.
Final outcome: FAILURE
Girl 2: Since the letdown from girl 1 had shaken me up fairly bad, I put off dating until homecoming of my junior year. I decided to ask a friend out for the dance, assuming I would have better chances. She said yes, and we wnt to the dance.
The punchline? when the night was half over, in the middle of a slowdance, she pulled me outside and said she "just wanted to be friends". To all of those that don't understands this, it means I am not advancing any further with her. Basically a locked door.
Final outcome: FAILURE
So as you can see, I fail at relationships. Surprising?
I really do. I know it is a rather controversial subjuct currently on teh interwebz, but I am going to tackle it for my first blog.
For all five of you who live under a rock and do not know what Guitar Hero is, it is a video game released for most systems (even computer) where you play popular songs on a large guitar-shaped peripheral. The gameplay mainly comprises of clicking one of five buttons representing frets, and pushing a little toggle up and down to represent strumming.
Why do I not like this?
#1 You could spend the time better learning to play a real guitar. Learning a real guitar actually provides a usable skill, learning music theory while playing guitar could add positive reinforcement in your education.
However, with Guitar Hero, you don't actually learn anything. The buttons do not represent the frets AT ALL, so you do not learn how to play the song. If you learned the name of bands or songs from Guitar Hero, congragulations for living under a rock.
#2 You gain more social contact with a real guitar. The best way to better your skills as a guitarist (and a musician in general) is to join a band, so many people will gladly give you oppurtunities to join/form bands. Bands are much more free form than other social groupings, since they focus on creativity in music (unless you are in a cover band, but even then songs are open to interpretation, resulting in a multitude of ways to play them). A band combines a group of people, and allows them to create something, perform in front of others, and, if you are good, even make some money.
Guitar Hero does not provide anywhere near the amount of social interaction a band does. All there is is multiplayer, where two people play guitar hero. This does not allow the amount of creativity that a band does because you are playing exactly what the game tells you to. You cannot perform in public venues in Guitar Hero. Not only that, but the only way to become good at Guitar Hero is straight practise, eliminating the social interaction of a band altogether.
The main argument against all of this is that the game allows you to do something that you normally could not or would have extreme difficulty doing. Some examples of games like this: GTA- you cannot run around in real life and kill people or steal cars. Well, you can, but it is not advisable. Racing games- It is extremely difficult and/or financially impossible for you to race cars. Fighting games- Kinda obvious.
Etc.
Well the problem with this argument is that you CAN get the ability to play guitar quite easily, for relativily the same price. Guitar Hero III can be purchased for roughly 100 USD. You can purchase a starter kit from anywhere between 150-500 USD depending on what model you want. If you spent exactly the same amount of time practicing guitar as you played Guitar Hero, I bet you could become a great guitarist. Not only that, but the music theory and social interaction secretly bundled with the guitar makes it all the more worth it.
The end all, be all argument against everything I said is "I don't care, I like the game and I want to play it, and there is nothing you can do about it. *rudely sticks out tongue*"
You know what? Fine.
That doesn't mean I have to like/respect you, however.
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kranoscorp's blogs, last updated : August 13, 2008
