Guitar Hero, helping the cause, or hurting?

Anybody who hasn’t played, seen, or heard of Guitar Hero must be living in Siberia (or still using dial up with a 28.8 modem) It is everywhere. Any kid over the age of 6 has played it. It is the biggest thing to hit the video game world in quite some time. On the surface, it was inspiring. Put a guitar like thing in the kids hands and have them play along and soon they will want a real guitar. Or will they.

It is becoming very obvious that those who play Guitar Hero do so for hours on end. They get good at it, they have their friends over to play, but do they every graduate to a real guitar. Is this just more of the same. It’s still video games, the controller is just different. Granted, I’d rather have my kid playing Guitar Hero than roaming the streets getting into trouble. I love video games and I love guitars. I grew up when there weren’t a ton of video games so I put a lot of time into the guitar.

Will kids put time into a real instrument when they can master a video game much quicker. What’s the incentive to take lessons and play even though your fingers hurt. Will this game and others like it help churn out the next generation of real guitar hero’s or will it diminish the prospects of young musicians?

Scott
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