What if... you could learn real guitar through games?

That's not a USB-controlled guitar, just USB-powered with an audio device that pipes the unamped signal to software that, most likely, models an amp to produce sound. What you want to do would best be done with a MIDI guitar (http://jpsongs.com/troubadortech/usmgtr.htm).

Obo: I don't understand your objection. A game would merely need to take the unamped signal, detect the note played (sound analysis) and then feed that note/chord data to the game to determine if it was the right note played at the right moment.

The guitar doesn't need to be controlled by USB (whatever that would mean).

I checked your link, but the site's confusing. What's that MIDI guitar do, exactly, in layman's terms?

Wow Joystiq, I am in fact working on such a project right now. Way to read my mind :P

Mine doesn't involve specialized guitars, it is as #2 says - does note detection on the signal and feeds it to the game.

Why don't you just play the guitar???

Also, @ #2: I don't know about this guitar in particular, but in general, MIDI instruments don't actually convert your playing into sound, but into data. So, esentially, it doesn't know how you're playing (ie. you probably couldn't do bends or whatever they're called) but which note you're playing. The upshot of this is you can save your performance on your computer and only later make a final decision on which settings to use eg distortion etc. You could even get a completely different (virtual) instrument to play it.

I think a MIDI guitar would just be a lot cheaper to make and also more customizable within the software. And that way you could "cheat" by plugging in a MIDI keyboard instead, assuming you were already better on the keys than on the strings.

The Line6 Guitarport USB interface has an online tutorial mode with backing tracks from a whole host of artists and has been around for about 5 years.

m@

@Rolf: "Why don't you just play the guitar???"

Well, in this type of game, you WOULD be playing guitar. The reason the game is involved, is the fact that videogames can be a POWERFUL learning tool. Most "edutainment" games suck, unfortunately, but this type of game can closely model an already very successful gameplay system. It would greatly speed up the learning process, and the practicing wouldn't feel so much like work. It would make the effort invisible, and the benefits would be quite real.

But yeah, Joystiq, you're way off on this one. Not only can't this guitar do what you're wondering it could do, but midi guitar attachments (which would allow for GH gameplay) have been around for over a decade. So this story is a little late :). You're improving though!

You don't need a game to learn the guitar. You just need perseverance and commitment.

Games like guitar hero are dumbed down on purpose: making the controller a real guitar would mean bleeding fingers and lots of frustration.

CW: You underestimate the potential game vastly. When you learn guitar solo, you can't easily start out on a lower difficulty mode and play only the easier parts of the song while still hearing all the hard notes being done automatically. You don't have a high score or a visual record of how well you are doing, you just have to have a feel for whether you are getting better or not. And as for bleeding fingers and frustration, I think you underestimate the gaming public.

I would personally love a game that used a real guitar as a controller and taught guitar from a basic level on up. I got a real guitar and have been trying to learn. This usually involves sitting in front of the TV, learning DVD in the player, remote at the ready, playing the same segment over and over and trying to do what I'm seeing on screen. This is a bit difficult because when I screw up, I have to figure out what I'm doing wrong. With a game, it could TELL me that one of my fingers is touching another string, or that I'm strumming wrong, or whatever. It could allow me to try 10 times in a row or more in an attempt to really get a feel for what I am doing, and it could do it in a way to make it interesting.

I see no reason to keep guitar playing a special club and insist everyone learn in the hardest way possible and I think a game which used a standard guitar could be a lot of fun.

Guitar Hero is successful because it offers gratification that would otherwise take a great deal of effort. A gimmicky program that treats a normal guitar like a controller is not going to help you learn guitar. It takes years to build technique and learn musical theory. Turning scale runs and dexterity exercises into a game is not going make them fun either; the natural desire to learn the instrument and progress musically must be present.

The guitars at http://www.fretlight.com/ are probably the closest we'll come to an instant gratification "game" while playing and learning REAL guitar. As cogburn pointed out, GH is successful because of the instant gratification it offers, and because it doesn't require learning technique or reading tabs. Can't say it any better than cogburn did.

"A gimmicky program that treats a normal guitar like a controller..."

That's not the point being made here. This program would be a serious tool for people who already want to learn guitar, of whom there are very many, but for whom the learning experience is frustrating and overcomplex. This would be for people who found referring to books, DVDs, websites, and trying to guess where you're going wrong a hindrance to actually learning. That implies treating the guitar like a real guitar, not as a controller, and simply providing a structured learning experience.

All edutainment is based on giving immediate, educated feedback to an individual who otherwise may never even figure out what they were doing wrong - picking up on mistakes, and rewarding success.

If somebody could do this right, I would buy it.

@11: That program looks close to what I am imagining... except for the massive barrier to entry in the shape of expensive, specialised guitars...

@cogburn and Dom:

You guys just lack game design imagination :). I don't think anyone expects people to bust out Freebird solos right out the box. And I also don't think anyone here thinks something like this will take on Guitar Hero's success. We just think it'd be a powerful learning tool. Like otakucode said... it'd be much better to play to something interactive, that could hold your hand through the process, than to try to copy a segment of a DVD over and over. In GH2, you could have a song, and practice just a segment of it, slowing it down as much as you need. Your mistakes become obvious, and so does the timing. To say something like this would be worthless on a real guitar is short sighted, and maybe even a bit elitist. Again, no one said it'd be demanding Freebird on stage one. All good game designers know how to ramp up difficulty, and how to create a readable, understandable interface. Sure it'd take some creativity to make it happen. Maybe you just don't have the imagination to see how it could be helpful, and not just a gimmick. The design DOES have to be solid, and it wouldn't be an easy task for sure. In fact, I don't think most game designers are up to the challenge. But I certainly think it's possible. Konami has created music games in the arcade using REAL drum sets, and REAL piano keyboards. They sold quite well in Japan, and as far as my ability goes, they taught real skills. Again, I feel it's short sighted and unimaginative to say this concept is worthless.

Back in the days of the NES there were keyboard (i.e. piano) teaching tools for the system. I also remember seeing some old PC based ones. Neither of these took off. If the guitar succeeds, I suspect it would be more due to people thinking guitar is cool than because it allows you to learn something useful.

Then again, back in the day, DDR hadn't been popularized yet. Would the piano tutors take off now?

This doesn't exist already? They came out with a Midi interface for guitar nearly a decade ago - there was a sensor under each string to detect the vibrations, it plugged into a controller that gave it all sorts of tones (piano, orchestral, etc.).

Anyway, this sort of thing could work well. Guitar isn't all that hard, and an objective & infinitely patient tutor in the form of a computer could go a long way towards teaching someone to play or improving your chops.

Back when I was maybe 10 (13 years ago), my dad bought me some piano teaching PC software to go with his synthesizer. Of course it was not nearly as flashy or fun as guitar hero, but I did spend maybe a month learning some piano in a relatively fun way. The only reason I gave up was because the difficulty jumped way up as soon as they got to chords, and I was really only playing it as a game and not as much to learn. Throw in the Guitar Hero mechanics of high scores and unlocking songs, and I think you'd have a winning combination for teaching any instrument you could make it work with, provided the player is actually interested in learning it.

I absolutely would use it to learn to play. I'm surprised the boneheads who make guitar hero didn't give you an option of stepping up to the real thing in some way.

Yes, there are MIDI Guitars, but those are usally a guitar style body, with buttons instead of strings on the fret board, and some type of strumming device on the body. Current software, we are talking about consumer level, has too much latency (delay) from when the note is hit till it is converted over to the corresponding MIDI note. It gets nearly impossible once you throw chrods at it. Not to mention the processor power needed to take in the audio signal, convert it, draw the software GUI, seperatly process the incoming audio with amp modeling and processing the game rules itself, and you got quite a load. I'm not saying it's not possible, technology has to get there.

Too bad I already rawk! I do kind of think GT offers instant gratification for folks who don't, but some of those actually become interested in really learning. So thats cool. But being a guitar player makes it impossible to enjoy guitar hero as its more like jacked-up simon says than jamming.

I'd definitely prefer to use my own guitar for the proposed game, and not some goofy guitar-shaped MIDI controller. I've been playing for 23 years and I'd still be interested in a fun game that would teach me new scales and help me learn classic solos note-for-note. It would be extra-sweet if the game did amp emulation, so that you'd get the tone of the guitar from the classic songs, too.

Musicnotes.com offers a very similar software. The Guitar Guru software allows you to download individual songs and play them back on a virtual fretboard. The songs can synch up to CDs or WMA files, or just use MIDI playback. The tempo on the songs can be adjusted, and you can also set loops to learn specific parts. Each guitar part is also presented separately, so if you want to learn the lead you can play back that part and if you want to learn the second acoustic guitar backup you can do that as well.

The one thing it doesn't have is the ability to send feedback from your guitar to the system to display how accurate you are. It's more a teaching tool than a game - but there are hundreds of popular songs available for the system and it is a very effective way to learn to play songs. Especially since each song also includes the guitar tab (notation) for the piece, which can be printed out at time of purchase.

Here's the URL for Guitar Guru:
http://www.musicnotes.com/guitarguru/

All I know is that I've been playing guitar and bass for almost 15 years and I'm absolutely terrible at Guitar Hero. It shares virtually nothing in common with real oplaying, and is really unintuitive unless you try to kill your instincts and unlearn everything about a real guitar.

This would be so easy to do!


You wonldnt need a fancy shmancy guitar - I have a nice tuner for mine that senses the vibrations to detect the notes.

Make an attachment like that for your wiimote (nintendo are blatently the ones to do this) and bam - your wii knows which note your playing and when. Making the game after that is elementary. Unlockable songs, a cute little avatar that is your teaching mascot, wahwah minigames - the thing writes itself! and if theres anyone who can make learning fun, its the touch generations team.

I think this has a great chance of happening - Joystiq, use your contacts to tell some nintendo rep to make it so.

I'm sold...where do I pay? I was going to attempt to learn to play the guitar this year anyhow...this would make it more fun, and I'd probably learn much faster.

I seem to remember a piano teacher for NES....hmmmmm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Piano

"You guys just lack game design imagination. I don't think anyone expects people to bust out Freebird solos right out the box."

I taught introductory guitar lessons for 3 years to help pay for my undergraduate education and I can tell you that that statement is false. A great deal of people who pick up the instrument quit because they aren't playing at the level they want after just a few months. People get bored and frustrated plodding through songs they don't really like but are learning just because they are simple. Getting points for how well you pound out that pop punk tune is not going to help build desire to progress further; the will to pick up the instrument and play must be there beyond the novelty and enjoyment of the teaching method. My students who progressed were playing the instrument because they thought that learning music is inherently fun and rewarding. If it's not, then you are trying to learn for the wrong the reasons.

Also, from a strictly pedagogical sense, the system would be flawed. A program won't be able to teach improvisation, ear training, or musical theory. These are important aspects of musicianship that can't be taught by simply tethering yourself to a computer a matching notes.

"the will to pick up the instrument and play must be there beyond the novelty and enjoyment of the teaching method"

I absolutely agree. The whole idea is to take someone who really wants to learn guitar, and give them a clear path to follow. Much like they would have had if they visited a human teacher. You can't create that desire, but without guidance it can be lost.

"A program won't be able to teach improvisation, ear training, or musical theory"

Anything that can be taught by a human *could* be taught by a computer. Fact. Of course, it is up to the designers to make sure it is taught *well*, but the implication that these things *cannot* be taught by a computer system is just plain wrong.

"Anything that can be taught by a human *could* be taught by a computer. Fact. Of course, it is up to the designers to make sure it is taught *well*, but the implication that these things *cannot* be taught by a computer system is just plain wrong."

You're saying that a existing technology understands why a Chopin piece is aurally pleasing to a human ear? I wasn't aware that current technology has such an intimate understanding of what is it to be human that it can now instill genius upon students as well as information. Until you show me a machine that plays jazz guitar like Kurt Rosenwinkel, what you claim currently resides within the realm of speculative fiction.

It's not quite what you're talking about, but there was a game from the 90's called Guitaropolis that used a game-like environment to run through exercises. The interactive games had more to do with tone recognition and reading music than they did with actually playing the guitar, but there were plenty of exercises to teach you how to play the guitar within the game.

I always thought it would have been great if the game had used the microphone to pick up what notes you were playing.

no game is going to teach a beginner to play the guitar.
1) it takes weeks to even press the strings right, much less play a song like "twinkle twinkle little star".
2) the game has to end up being like "Reader Rabbit" to teach guitar, and no gamer is going to waste their time playing a game like that. If you were to play Guitar Hero the real way, you'd basically have to be a seasoned pro--not a beginner.
3) I can't see any music game have a repertoire of songs that will satisfy every player. The first year of playing guitar, all I played were oldies (50's 60's & neil diamond). Other people play classical, and others just memorize Nirvana riffs.

Learning to your own music, at your own time & place, is still the best way to learn. Imagine going to your Aunt's house and have them hand you a guitar and put you on the spot (which happened to me so many times during my first 2 years of playing). Then all you got is: "Umm...well...duh...I need my xbox to play it".

Get a guitar. Get MIDI pickups and something to convert the signals into MIDI. Get Doremimania, a Keyboardmania clone for PC, which uses can use converted MIDI's as steps and songs. Plug-in your guitar, pick out your song, and follow the Bemani GUI to guitar heroism.

Ok, it works a lot better if you use a keyboard, but the concept's the same.

Since Keyboardmania uses the actual notes (and uses slight abstraction for lower difficulties), the game can actually be used to learn songs. Not too many people do this mind you, because not too many people play Keyboardmania...

In fact, I propose that we all petition Konami for Keytarmania. Come on, it'll be the best of both worlds!

Starting to read the comments above me...

Hiite Utaeru DS Guitar M-06 was recently released in, where else?, Japan. It, besides doubling as a guitar simulator (chords are chosen with the d-pad, pick with the touch screen), has several exercises for training your ear. It's quite lenient on grading you, but it does do it.

What if you could learn to fly a plane into the world trade center through a flight simulator?

Learning guitar is hard, and its a job. This would be a "game", but really its just a tutoring program, which would be great for anyone who wants to learn guitar.

How fortunate...I just started learning to play guitar. I may have to check this out when it arrives in the US. Cool.