Investing in my time

I bought Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock two weeks ago and I have been showcasing my fret techniques since. I am by no means a fretxpert, but I do think occasionally that the amount of time that I have invested in Guitar Hero over the years; I could have learnt how to play a real instrument.

During school I learnt to play the clarinet. At first glance, it was an obscure choice for a 10 year old boy to pick, particularly since he never heard of one before. It did pay off in the long run; I was the only male woodwind student in my home town. It was me and the chicks for six years.

In fact I landed my first high school girlfriend after a music camp. Somehow I managed to convince a gorgeous year 10 flute player (I was in year 9 at the time... giggady) to put up with my awkwardness for a month. For the time I was batting well above my average, which was the general consensus at school, so it was never going to work out; a good result for Team Nerd.

Music and chicks do go hand in hand; ask anybody who is in a band. However nobody is going to date the dude that can play expert level in Guitar Hero. I know that Dragon Force song from Guitar Hero 2 was hard, but nobody cares.

The two gaming “instruments” that are even remotely close to real instruments are drums and vocals. For example, when playing the drums the neighbours will still tell you to shut up when you get into the grove and the vocalist will think that they are the most import person on Earth; just like real life! For there to be any real life benefit however, all difficulty must be set to “hard” or above.

The guitars, although not being anything close to the real thing, do have real life similarities. The bass, for example, is still so boring it is amazing that anyone picks it and people who choose the guitar think they are awesome no matter how shit they play. No restriction on difficulty level for either.

Even though I have practised more songs with fake instruments than I ever did playing clarinet, Guitar Hero will still be a staple part of my gaming life. Sometimes it is more important to have fun than to focus on what is more beneficial for real life. Real life will be there when you get back.

Generations of music

Nothing can polarise generations the way music can. I can remember family trips to Sydney where every person in the car wanted to hear something different. Dad wanted Jimmy Buffet; my sister wanted Hanson; mum wanted Elton John, and I was dead set keen on Billy Joel at the time. A truce was called; we would listen to one album each in turn. It was a great idea when it was your turn, but after that, sitting through the next three albums sucked.

When you are young, the old music sucked, and everything new is awesome. The top 100 rocked my world early in high school, but now I could not tell you who is at number one, or even care. It is not that I do not enjoy new music, I have just recently bought a new album, but it is because it all sounds the same in the charts. I distinctively remember the moment when I sounded like my father. It was my second year at uni, I was living away from home and I could not find a bloody thing that I wanted to listen to. It was a sad day indeed; my father had been right, it did sound all the same.

I was afraid that I would be listening to the same music for the rest of my life. My parents love music from their youth. It brings back memories of a more care free time for them, when they had more movement and less tablets. Every now and then they did find something new that they liked, for example Michael Bubble and Savage Garden, but thank God they thought that listening to an Andre Rieu was like being stuck in a smirking elevator for 50 mins.

What I needed was something new, and not the same R&B beats back over with a different singer who is way too talented to hold onto notes (insert sarcasm), but something arty farty new. So I turned over to Triple J, but even the melancholy and all the electro songs they are playing now got to me. I understand, I am getting old, and I have heard it all before.

To fix my need for new music, I am going old, and I am going diverse. Some Tool here, David Bowie there, and then straight back into some Led Zeppelin, The Who. I have rediscovered stuff that can make me think, songs that still can make me dance, and songs that I will never forget the words (Peter Comb, I am looking at you).

So just wait for that fateful day, when you realise that Lady Gag-a is a new Madonna, Fallout Boy is just The Police with a longer fringe, and the new ACDC sound is still the same as the old ACDC sound – just with more wrinkles. All I ask is that you do not look at me weird when I can remember all of the lyrics for any Hanson song. It is a long drive to Sydney after all.