Fender: Survey Shows Music Games Drive Students To Play Real Instruments

[Mike]

Today Fender and Little Kids Rock, a non-profit music education organization, announced that an informal survey they conducted in November 2008 revealed that music games like "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero" actually do inspire students to play real instruments. The survey polled 812 music instructors and said that enrollment in music programs has increased in the past year.

Fender/Little Kids Rock (164mph.com)

[Viaene]

Those games also bring the great classics to the younger public. Notice all the comments on a youtube video: "hey I first heard this on Guitar Hero, great song!"

[Shawna]

my son has learned about so so so many of the songs I grew up with from Guitar Hero. He's always commenting on, "Mom, you know that song? That's on Guitar Hero!" "laughing:

In Carl's interview with Dave Stewart (Interview) , Stewart talks about something he's inventing where you can actually go in and write your own rendition of those songs:

Stewart: "So I've created this thing that's kind of interesting. It's a mobile game, but with songs embedded in it. It's a really amazing way to be able to listen and re-mix and save your re-mix. As soon as you start re-mixing, you start realizing the stuff that you haven't heard before. Like when you break down a song like, "Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing," Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, and you can actually hear the orchestra recorded in mono in one track, and you hear what they're playing. Pretty mind boggling. And then you listen to the bass line, you're like, Bloody Hell. And then you put it all back together again. It's going to be very easy to get on your cell phone, and it's discovery. So you get a song and you go, Yeah, I quite like this song. Then you start hearing all the bits. And you go, Oh my God, listen to the bass and drum. And then you can solo a certain section, and go, Well I think I'll go and save that bit. And then you hear the vocals and the lyrics. Re-mixing is really great fun, and DJs have had clubs going bonkers for years by chopping up songs and re-mixing them and creating mash-ups. And people like to join in and do it."

Very cool stuff.

[Batman]

That totally makes sense to me. I remember when Tony Hawk came out on N64, me and pretty much everyone I know learned how to skateboard within the next year.