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Ever since the first Guitar Hero game was released waaaaaayyyyyy back in 2005 debate has raged as to whether or not there is any benefit to playing rhythm games with regards to playing real musical instruments. There seem to be three main schools of thought on this as I see it, they are:

1) Those in the “YES” camp – These are the sort of individuals who are of the opinion that because they excel at Gran Turismo, Call Of Duty or, case in point, Guitar Hero, they would also be able to cope more than adequately in the corresponding real life scenario, be it power sliding a super car around a track, or shredding a serious solo from a six-string. Yes. These people are obviously deluded.

2) Those in the “NO” camp – Exactly the opposite to those in the yes camp, and usually made up of muscisians and people who have put a lot of time, effort, and practise into learning their chosen instrument(s). They leave you under no illusion that a knowing how to strum a silly little plastic peripheral does not come anywhere close to comparing with the rock god status that is obtained with being able to have a guitar screaming in a scintillating solo. Or, even for that matter being able to nail the riff from “Smoke On The Water” in about 5 minutes from scratch without any prior musical training.

3) The moderate camp – Those who think that rhythm games have their place, are a great way of getting a few friends together and enjoying ‘playing along’ to your favourite songs in a social setting. The possible musical gains being a better sense of rhythm, (they are called ‘rhythm games after all) and in the later games where singing has been included, a better sense of whether or not you can actually carry a tune as well as you think from your sessions of singing in the shower.

Whilst I would class myself in the final group, aside from the vocal aspect, and maybe helping a beginner getting the hang of drumming, I would say that these games don’t really do much to help you musically. At least I thought that until I saw the video below. The girl in the video below wondered what would happen if she took her impressive flute playing ability and implemented it to try and play along with the lyrics to Rock Band songs.

Ok, so you do need to be a pretty serious musician to pull this off to that sort of level, but I guess it is still another argument for those in the yes camp.