What’s worse? a dumb-ass trying to play a guitar while trying to be a ‘rock star’ or a dumb-ass pushing buttons on a plastic guitar thinking he’s already a rock star.

Welcome to the virtual world of musicianship where you hit buttons to ‘play’ your guitars and reach super stardom in the rock music industry.

So what, if you’ve got a Fender Strat or a les Paul shaped plastic guitar, it does not come anywhere near the real thing. With the rate at which technology is shaping up, children these days are impatient with almost everything and expect instant satisfaction. Well if that’s the case, then the world will soon run out of Paiges and Tony Iommis.

Former Rolling Stones bassist, Bill Wyman recently voiced his opinions at a BBC charity function, stating that, games like Rock Band stop young people from practicing real musical instruments and also adding that it encouraged kids not to learn. It makes less and less people dedicated to really get down and learn an instrument.

Another musician to lash out was Pink Floyd’s drummer Nick Mason saying that although the games were interesting new developments, it irritated him having to watch his kids do it . Saying that, if they spent as much time practicing the guitar as learning how to press the buttons they’d be damn good by now.

And as a normal debate, Alex Rigopulos, co-founder of Harmonix Music Systems, the brains behind Rock Band said: “Most people try to learn an instrument at some point in their lives, and almost all of them quit after a few months or a year or two. This, I think, is because the earliest years of learning an instrument are the least gratifying. When people play Rock Band, however, they very quickly get a glimpse of the rewards that lie on the other side of the wall. We’re constantly hearing from fans who were inspired by Rock Band to start studying a real instrument.”

But the way I look at it, you don’t need a video game to show what the perks of  playing a real instrument are.  The people who are inspired to pick the instrument after guitar hero may not be able to pull through and will give up playing the instrument to play guitar hero once again.

Obviously, there will have to be a strong panel to judge this one.

Both Nick and Bill’s comments have come out just before the widely publicized launch of The Beatles Rock Band game.

The bottom line is if people need to play any musical instrument to perfection, there isn’t an easy way out. Like the old adage, ‘no pain, no gain’. So play until you’re your fingers bleed. No Guitar hero or Rock band video game will provide you with that kind of satisfaction and emotion you go through like the real thing.

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