Is Guitar Hero the death of the garage band?
I was listening to Minor Threat yesterday driving home from work and thought that it seems to me that few kids even try to play music anymore. How many good bands started in a suburban garage? Kids got the musical urge, got their mom and dad to buy them a cheap electric guitar, bass or drum set, and then set about learning how to make music with three chords and a cloud of dust. How many metal muscians got their start this way? Or, gutter punks traded their skateboards for a cheap Strat knockoff and a tiny amp. This is how you make punk bands. My concern is that the simulation of music in video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band are now so good that it satisfies that need to create and kids will no longer learn to play. Just like it is easier to play Tony Hawk Pro Skater then actually learning how to skate, it is much less frustrating to play guitar hero than to actually have to play a guitar. This just seems to be yet another example of a third order simulacrum as defined by Baudrillard; for a large number of kids, there is no music, only the simulation of it on Guitar Hero.
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