Title: Rock Band (kind of) teaches you to play real drums
It’s common knowledge that playing Rock Band or Guitar Hero’s guitar does nothing to prepare you for playing a real guitar. Aside from teaching you a little rhythm, maybe, it’s pretty much useless as a real musical instrument.The drums, on the other hand, are another matter. When the game was originally released I posited that it would work well as a training device for an actual drum kit, teaching you the basics of hand-hand-foot-eye-ear coordination, how to switch among different drums and cymbals, and of course the all-encompassing requirement of keeping the beat.
Finally, someone has put this theory to the test: Kevin Pereira, host of G4’s “Attack of the Show,” got a chance to meet with Coheed & Cambria, whose song “Welcome Home” appears on the Rock Band set list and which he regularly aces on Expert. At the end of the interview (in which it is revealed that the lead singer only scored 84% on Rock Band’s vocals while singing his own song on the Expert setting), C&C puts Pereira to the test, sitting him down behind the group’s actual drum kit to play the song for real.
Despite having literally no actual drumming experience, Pereira did well. Alas, there’s no scorekeeping in the real world, so it’s hard to tell if Pereira is quite up to playing in an arena, but the video doesn’t lie. Check out this short clip at the below link to see for yourself how well he did. For my money, he looks like the real deal! Throw in a drum stick toss and some twirling and he’s ready to go on tour.
So there you go. Next time your parents tell you video games aren’t good for anything, you can add “Prepares you for a career as a rock band drummer” to the list of plusses.
