by Stephen Cuomo

Created on: January 28, 2009

One of the more popular video games these days, "Guitar Hero" has a negative effect on learning guitar, if it has any effect at all. The game sets the standards of the player too high, resulting in frustration when they pick up the real thing, and a subsequent dropping of it. Guitar Hero, as a whole is neither a rhythm exercise nor a finger work out.

The game utilizes a guitar shaped controller, with 5 buttons, a "strum bar" and a whammy bar. It also has the usual buttons for the game system built onto it. The game involves a guitar neck coming in your direction with many notes on it, laid out in a rhythmic fashion to let you know when to hit what button. The real guitar has 22 frets, on 6 strings; resulting in 132 "buttons". The guitar also requires the use of your own memory depending on where you are performing. There is no magic guitar neck to tell you what to do in the real world.

If you are wondering how exactly the game influences young people to learn the guitar, you should check out the episode of South Park, entitled "Guitar Queer'o". It demonstrates in a funny way, why exactly and how a real instrument and video game do not compare. As you might have guessed Guitar Hero is also devoid of any creativity whatsoever.

I play guitar, and own Guitar Hero. I have found that playing it has a detrimental effect on my hand, as do some of the people I have played it with. My hand becomes sore and feels as if some muscles have been pulled in it, it also sometimes falls asleep, leading me to believe that this may cause carpal tunnel syndrome, which compresses the median nerve in the wrist and leads to muscle weakness and a feeling of numbing in the wrist. Holding the strum bar is also a whole different hand position than holding a guitar pick. There is almost no comparison to be drawn between Guitar Hero and a real guitar other than the strap which holds both of them on your body.

If you are a prospective guitar player, I would suggest that you go to a music store and pick up a beginning rock book, especially if you originally thought Guitar Hero would help you out. It will have the building blocks to learn the songs that you want to play. Remember that everything takes time to get good at and that playing a real guitar is much more satisfying than a piece of plastic with some buttons on it. There are many informative websites out there with a community for learning, such as Ultimate-Guitar.

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