The Ephemeral Notebook

Well, it looks like it’s going to happen.  I’ve been predicting for the past 3 or 4 years now that someone is going to make a midi controller of a real instrument a game – not pressing 5 buttons that magically represents the whole spectrum of musical expression.  In addition to learning songs (much like piano teaching systems have done forever), many of the higher forms of institutional music knowledge can be codified and graded (achievement: shifted modes for 4 bars of a song and then back).

The reason this has always been an infuriating prediction of mine is that real guitars honestly don’t cost that much.  The possible exception is the drums (a starter set might run you 199$ as opposed to the 60 or so for the rock band drums) – though there are some interesting middle grounds.  The drums are honestly the most transferable skill in the whole rock band ensemble anyway, so giving that a midi output is cake (as the internet will certainly show).

The main reason why this probably hasn’t happened on the guitar is twofold:

• The old-world business mentality is one that cannot understand how free might be worth something – how user generated content might have value – and prefers the iron grip of absolute control.  Let people get too skilled at making actual music and sharing their actual songs online and you might have some sort of indie revolution on your hands – not to mention all the copyright infringement from cover songs.  (Oh wait I forgot there’s already a youtube.com)
• The guitar-as-game franchises are now owned by publisher-giants, ensuring that progress will always be incremental at best from now on.  However, there’s always the possibility of someone outside the franchises offering something different, but most of them are additional publisher-giant meetoos (example A and B).

However from out of leftfield… I think this could be the dawn of the new era:

Scratch: The Ultimate DJ

For a genre where expression is everything, remixing is the norm, and you need at most two servomotors or otherwise encodable direct-drive system, and a couple of faders.  However the reason it might fail is that it doesn’t impose an automatic social structure – but I doubt that’ll be the case.  If they do it right, turntablist battle parties with your friend freestyling on the side will be far more fun and entertaining, while still also allowing people to practice solo.

Best quote from the article:

“Without Quincy, Dan and I are just a couple white dudes trying to make a hip hop game. He keeps us relevant and on point, and makes sure that nothing gets missed.”