14 DAY TRIAL // The music game genre is really following a high ascending trend these days. It has already surpassed the sports one, and, if you take into account the massive sales predicted for this holiday season, the sky's the limit for titles like Guitar Hero or Rock Band.
But, although these games have brought some high quality music to the living rooms of gamers, even promoting several underground bands, they have been criticized by real musicians who said that titles like these made children favor the plastic instruments and TV screen over the real-life guitars or drums and the stages of clubs. Such bands, like Nickelback, which recently went off against music games, say that kids should take up real music if they want to prove their skills.
Now, according to a recent survey done in the United Kingdom among young musicians, quite a few of them declared that music games, such as Guitar Hero or Rock Band, had motivated them into taking up lessons and learning to play real instruments. Although the percentage was a bit low – 19% of young musicians – the numbers did amount to a considerable 2.5 million singers, all thanks to the rocking out they had done in front of the TV.
The researchers have even found out that more than half of the 12 million children living in the UK play music games in their homes, stressing the fact that there is a connection between them and the fact that kids are taking up music lessons. One of the primary benefits of these games is that they teach young people not to have stage fright or fear of failure, and, according to the researchers, they help establish "transferable musical skills, and even the development of performance confidence."
"This research for the first time shows conclusively that young people are being inspired to make their own music by games that first piqued their interest," said Andrew Missingham, a music industry expert who carried out the study. He then went on to say that, although the results were interesting, children should continue learning to play these instruments, motivated by the fact that they might appear in their favorite game eventually.
Let's just hope that these games will help more and more talented musicians and that a lot of new, decent bands will appear in the following years.