Does Rock Band Spark Interest in Music?

Altair — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:52:18 GMT

One of the main goals in Rock Band, aside from providing a fun game for everyone to enjoy, is to spark interest in music for this generation. Much of the youth of today seem to be more interested in fast-paced video games than the often challenging and slow process of learning music. Rock Band puts the two together (and often encourages players in-game to go out and buy a real instrument). It provides a broad scope of music from the past 50 years, and introduces youth to a wide variety of artists they would not normally be exposed to.

They recently did a promotion where they offered 20 free songs for download to anyone who has Rock Band 2. These bonus songs feature music by upcoming bands, who now have a brand new venue for promoting their music. "The Feeling" by Kutless is among the free bonus tracks now available on Rock Band 2. Kutless is one of my favorite groups but doesn't get nearly as much recognition in mainstream music as it deserves. Now we all get to enjoy the music, and most importantly the challenging and fun gameplay it brings.

While the popular guitar isn't close enough to a real guitar to teach kids to play, the drums and vocals are. You could probably take your drum skills from Rock Band onto a real drum set and do just fine with it. I found vocals on Rock Band to actually strengthened my voice because it stretched my range a lot to keep up with the songs.

Do you think Rock Band successfully makes people want to play real music, or does it provide an easier, more entertaining alternative to real musical development? Does it inspire kids to pick up real instruments, or leave their instruments behind for a video game?

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Does Rock Band Spark Interest in Music?