New Guitar Game with Real Six String Controller | Hacker News Reader

New Guitar Game with Real Six String Controller

engadget.com

18 pointsmoollaza26 comments

I've thought for a while that the concept of teaching instruments through games is a great idea, and hope this lives up to my expectations. If this piques your interest, you might want to look at the independent PC title Synthesia (http://www.synthesiagame.com/) which is based around a similar idea for piano; despite not particularly polished it has the core concepts down and is improving all the time. I hope that one day someone sees the potential in his and throws money at the developer to give it the time and resources it deserves to turn it into a large-scale commercial project.

I have great hopes for these sorts of products, and think teaching instruments via games is simply the low-hanging fruit of a bigger idea. I think using technology to improve learning is a woefully unexplored area, and that learning is a sector that is ripe for some serious disruption. I don't think textbooks or lectures are an good or efficient way to learn, but we're still using those same methods that have existed since time immemorial without strong emperical evidence simply because it's the status quo. Meanwhile, technology and our knowledge of neuroscience and psychology have improved beyond all recognition, yet they are massively underutilised in terms of helping people learn. I can't help but feel that one day all these dots are going to be connected and it's going to dramatically change how we learn and educate for the better.

I really want to pick up a midi keyboard for this game. I dabble at piano and can read music but this seems like the fun factor would encourage me to practice.

This reminded me of the same game concept that was supposedly under development a few years ago when Guitar Hero and Rockband came out. The game was to be called Guitar Rising and was going to allow for the ability to use any electric guitar. Now the game is beginning to seem like vapourware but you should check out the demo video.

http://www.guitarrising.com/

If you want a game that realistic why not actually play a six string guitar?

Because if you're a beginning guitarist you don't get any feedback. The game could be more useful for learning guitar than anything else.

What kind of feedback do you need? It just seems to me that console games producers are under the impression that console games are the answer to everything when in fact its much more impressive when someone can actually do something like play a real guitar or cook a real meal then if they do it on an XBox or a DS especially when they charge so much for things like guitar hero. It would be better if they provided an interface for you to plug an electric guitar into your console and learn to play using the software, then when you've learn you can 1. play a real guitar and 2. have a real guitar without the non standard socket they will inevitablely put on it.

Initially it would be "you didn't hit that string cleanly, try again" which would move to "you played that progression well, nice job!" Then it could move to "You nailed 80% of those chords and your timing was AVERAGE." I'm assuming that the game guitar is very close to an actual guitar. I agree that it would be ideal if you could use a normal guitar and get the same feedback.

Indeed (though technically you do of course get aural feedback, though if you're a beginning musician you might not be able to interpret it.)

I'm not sure what the interface will look like, but imagine the possibilities of displaying tablature along with musical notation along with what notes you're actually hitting, perhaps even with a photo of the desired hand position for a chord, all simultaneously (or easily accessible).

Then, add training modes, (like guitar hero but with a full metronome range), technique exercises for scales/arpeggios, etc... and you have a powerful training system.

Objective feedback -> faster learning.

A system like this provides visual flashes and feedback, virtual fans, fireworks, and all the extra bonuses that you don't get when you're just playing the guitar by yourself. It also guides new guitar players through the process of learning specific songs of increasing difficulty, all of which can easily be accessed from one location, rather than forcing them to look up tabs themselves.

In short, it makes the learning process easier from the start, and less boring for younger ones who might not have the patience and stick-to-it needed to master a normal guitar.

Because this way I don't have to throw out 11 years of work and practice on the actual guitar in order to play one of those Rock Band games.

You don't actually have to play the entire song note for note to play the song. This would give the player a sense of playing the song and I would bet more people stick with learning the guitar from playing the game then playing the actual guitar.

Practicing in the form of a game makes practice more fun, and, therefore, makes it more likely that you will practice. Those of us would-be casual musicians may need an additional motivation to practice other than a pure love of the instrument.

That reminds me of Disney's Star Guitarist (http://gizmodo.com/5128332/disney-star-guitarist-guitar-hero...), a game using a real guitar, not sure if it ever came out though..

Anyone think this will be a real game-changer? At least now my friends can't complain that the game is easy because there's no actual strings/chords to play.

Those old casio MIDI guitars could very easily be added into a game.

I think there's an age cut-off where people go from thinking this is cool to being embarrassed to own one.

http://globalnerdy.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/...

No, but there's a middle phase where you're self-conscious about having fun for the sake of fun.

Being able to just have fun actually playing an instrument has truly been a blast for me the past 20 years.

I bet it is - more than just fun, I imagine, but enriching. Not everyone chooses to enrich themselves in that way. I have chosen others. But it's still fun to play Guitar Hero or Rock Band with a bunch of friends, despite having no musical talent or practice.

If tunes get stuck in your head, you have musical talent. If you can play a rhythm game like Guitar Hero, you can probably play music too. It used to be that most every household had someone very good at music. In the same way that there was a lot more awesome home cooking.

I don't disagree, but I also don't see why that should make me self-conscious for having fun playing those games.

I don't have to make you anything. I have a right to my opinion and to express it politely. Please quote any impoliteness on my part.

I'd also suggest this gedankenexperiment: imagine buying a game controller, owning it for three years, and getting good at the game. Then imagine buying a guitar, owning it for three years, and getting good at it.

How does this suggestion make you feel? Do those feelings come from my words, or from somewhere in yourself?

Please don't blame me. I'm not making you be anything.

We have a strange semantics mis-understanding. I don't feel self-conscious playing those games. Nor do I think I or anyone else should. Your comment makes it sound like we should. I tried to explain why I think that is mistaken.

Your comment about impoliteness is baffling, since I never said anything about your tone.

You're seriously putting words in my mouth. Why do you think I want to coerce emotions in others? Wouldn't an entirely pragmatic interpretation fit just as well?

To paraphrase William Gibson: "My songs are of time and distance. The emotion is in you."

More directly: am I trying to coerce you into feelings, or talking abstractly about people's feelings now and in the future?

Sigh. Let me put it this way: It's the only reasonable interpretation I can come up with of your original comment.

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