Get your chill on!

I have a simple rule for my music; if it gives me chills, its a keeper. Doesn't matter the type of music, the band, the writer...the only thing that matters is that I get the chills when listening to the song. Songs come and go, but the chills remain. I live for the chills.

Got some good chills watching this! Thank you Guitar Hero III for introducing me to Muse "Knights of Cydonia". That lead guitarist and vocalist knows how to put on a show. Incredible. I've never seen a crowd undulate like that, it was a thing of beauty to behold, and awe inspiring to watch, wonderful to hear, and fabulous to feel those chills. The use of colors, monitors, stage setup also added something extra to the brilliant performance. The best part of being a rock star would be the ability to unify, mesmerize, entertain and bring joy to the mob the way Muse does in this performance. Awesome.



Muse "Knights of Cydonia"...

Well, easy days at work lately, so I've had opportunity to waste some of my own time (instead of having the boss waste my time for me). A friend and I have been wasting hours on Guitar Hero III, which we beat today. Of course, I'm not the first, I only beat it on medium, and its only a video game. Entertaining, none the less. We spent a good 45 minutes trying to beat Metallica's "One", and it was very satisfying to finally squeek through a passable performance. (To my amatuer credit, this was the only song we had to practice in order to beat.)

I was thinking about the usefullness (or wastefullness) of the game, and some things came to mind. (1) You can't but appreciate more deeply the skill of the real musicians. (2) The game forces you to notice the transitions in each song. (3) Great advertising for the bands.

(1) You appreciate the musicians skill more; "What the dump!," was going through my mind during the complicated solo's. If I have problems playing the computer game on medium, I'd hate to think of the difficulty really playing the solo. I'm a very amatuer guitar player, more of a recreationalist than an amatuer, which gives me limited insight into playing the actual songs on guitar and all I can say is, "what the dump!" Even the bands that seem like nothing but hoodlums and punks are incredible musicians.

(2) During the forced "practice sessions" for Metallica's "One" I was impressed by the opportunities to practice each section of the song, each section properly labelled in musical terms. Also, pretending to play along with the song on the game helped me really focus on what I was listening too, as I differentiated the lead and rythym guitar parts. After finally passing the stupid song, I watched a live video of Metallica playing the song, and I was surprised at how many details of the song I picked up that I hadn't noticed prior to playing the video game.

(This reminds me of a book I read, availabe for free download at Project Gutenberg, titled How to Live on 24 Hours a Day. The author suggests, in his section on appreciating music more deeply, studying the musical instruments involved with your favorite music. In this way you gain an appreciation for the subtler beauties of the music, not just the aggregate sound produced. You gain an appreciation for how the music is produced. Some of this is accomplished with Guitar Hero.)

(3) Great advertising for bands. I think we are going to see a resurgence of some of the "classic" bands and songs involved in the game, because younger people will be appreciating these songs more as they play along in the game. Its a brilliant idea, as people listen to music anyway, and now they have an activity to do while enjoying, and enhancing, their favorite songs. The older bands are getting a second chance at popularity, and the newer bands are getting a huge boost in fan recognition. Its a win/win for everybody involved. One great thing for the bands is that their music can be appreciated for the sound, not the "look" of the band. This gives them a much broader prospect for fans, as people who may not like the "image" of the band play along with the game and can appreciate the music for the sound alone.

Anyway, thats my 2 & 1/2 cents on the issue of the "value to society of Guitar Hero". Go out and finds those chills, friends, they're out there!

* I made a "playlist" on youtube so you can watch the entire Muse Wemberly Stadium performance. A must see. Someone recommended them to me some years ago, but I blew it off. Boy was I stupid. The guitarist takes everything I love about Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and smashes them together. Then take the power and sound effects of Audioslave, and the singing of Radiohead...and you have Muse. A three man power band, an improved version of Rush. The live performance is incredible. I didn't even know they had concerts like that!

** I stumbled upon blog of Nirvana Bassist Krist Novoselic in the Seattle Weekly. In this article he comments how he tried playing Nirvana's Bloom on Rock Band, and sucked at it, being bested by a young boy. He goes on to make similar points about the benefit to bands by the new guitar video games. Its a great marketing tool for the music industry, if they choose to use it.