Think your ability to five-star "Green Grass and High Tides" means you can actually handle a real guitar? We're not talking about a five-buttoned plastic peripheral, mind you, we're talking about the real thing, steel and strings. We understand that some of you might be scared off by the transition from digital to analog, and the idea that big boy guitars are played without colorful tracks and Star Power. Luckily, the Music Wizard Group has developed a system for Guitar Hero-spoiled technophiles like us to learn how to shred on a real axe.
While we're not sure how well the system will handle, the teaching methods in Guitar Wizard are pretty clever. Each string is designated a specific shape, and each fret on that string is designed a specific color. On a side-scrolling track, colorful shapes move across the screen in a manner that the Rock Band crowd would be very comfortable with. While we're fairly certain that Hendrix didn't learn to play by watching Lucky Charms float across a computer screen, we're excited to get our rock-thirsty hands on the Guitar Wizard bundle (which includes software, a MIDI pickup and a real Washburn guitar) when it drops this fall.
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(Page 1) Reader Comments
Yea, everyone's gotten tired of those by now for you reel guitar players/guitar hero haters.
/end rant
This seems like a big step from 5 colored fret buttons to 6 buttons/fret and lots of frets. I play the violin, but trying to play the guitar seems more confusing for me with the chords and whatnot. I'm not very good at the violin, but most of the stuff I play doesn't go on two strings at once (double-stops)
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There are a few good modern guitarists out there right now I'd still give some credit to: Josh Homme, Tom Morello, Jerry Cantrell and Mike McCready. Hell, even Kim Thayil, though I haven't heard much out of him recently. :/
Actually, there are a lot of good modern guitarists. You are just looking in the wrong places. My favorites are modern. Check out Dave Knudson (from Botch and Minus the Bear) and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (from The Mars Volta & At The Drive-In).
Dude just listen to some of today's metal, like Between the burried amd me or through the eyes of the dead. If you can play any of that stuff, then your a master. Plus that was the dumbest statement ever.
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Kinda what happened to me. I stuck with tablature for my 3 years of guitar playing, and i have no idea what are the names of each note. I'm good at playing, but i'm still far behind. I take classes next week (thank god)
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Have fun.
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It does seem a little kiddish, but if it works it works. Now I wonder if it'll work with an acoustic guitar.
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I play guitar a bit in real life but I am foremost a percussionist. I'm not going to bash people who play guitar hero/rock band and tell them to pick up a real guitar; that's pretty pretentious. But I will say that guitar hero itself (I haven't played much of Rock Band) is a pretty crappy game as far as development goes. The crowd has a small amount of animations which on most occasions they are completely synchronized instead of offset like real people. The venues do absolutely nothing than provide different eye candy to the people who are watching you play and the game hasn't changed much since it's first installment. If I were a fan of Guitar Hero from the start I'd probably feel a little disappointed by now. When I played Guitar Hero 3 I felt like it could be the first iteration of a game series. Not that I hate the game, but I don't understand why so many people are accepting the game and praising it when it could be so much better in its third installment. The game just feels like it wasn't polished enough.
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GH3 was the worst of the 3 as far as I'm concerned but it had the core gameplay from 1 and 2, which were pulled off really well. Being able to entertain a wide audience from casual gamers to guitar players(which I am one of)with an intuitively designed controller/gameplay mechanic is a sign of GOOD game development.
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Example, I've been messing with making my own beats for years. Last year I started taking piano lessons. Suddenly, things started clicking for me. Even though I had all the piano chord hang-ups and what not, the instruction helped alot. Everybody learns differently I guess.
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Eventually, you'll be using your ears to learn songs. Colours and diagrams won't mean anything by then. In the world of music, your ears become your eyes. You learn to "see" songs with your ears.
For this software, though, I'm sure the colors and activities are more to get used to the different sound combinations on the fretboard--which isn't a bad idea, as long as it's affordable enough (around $40).
Anyway, yeah this is a good idea, but I don't think a lot of people would really want to invest the time it would take to be good at playing guitar, it's not something you just pick and play unless you're some sort of prodigy.
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