Mad Mad Men…. putting the Con in Contra

For our Mad Men tribute I came across a real head scratcher.  It is hard to believe that the New York Times prints such dreck sometimes, but that they did when an article was posted with the hypothetical argument to turn the video game Guitar Hero into Orchestra Hero.  This is an ASS in clASSical instant classic…..

Composer Michael Gordon writes the Score blog on the NYT web-site and came up with a doozy of a post that starts this way:

What is the hottest thing in music right now? A pair of video games ─ Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Anyone can play. The games allow you to become a member of the band. Each game offers a range of pop music hits on game controllers that look and feel like guitars and drums. What makes these video games so much more impressive than “air guitar” is that through the use of something called the instrument game controller the player actually experiences the visceral feeling of performing music. You can even improve if you practice.

So, why not Orchestra Hero? What if I could “play” the horn solo in “Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks” on a “controller horn” or the bassoon solo at the opening of “The Rite of Spring” on a “controller bassoon”? What if I could bang out the timpani part in the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony or the clarinet solo at the beginning of “Rhapsody in Blue”?

Hey what if we actually stop this BS and actually took the role of building audiences for classical music seriously?  Oh wait, that may work, but it’s not cool or sexy!  OK so here is a list of reasons why this idea is ridiculous:

• Rockband/Guitar Hero is a Video Game i.e visual!  So your going to tell me that for over 80 minutes in your Mahler suggestion your going to press your buttons whilst looking at a pretty static image, and if you are doing the Percussion part how do you score any points in the rests?
• So in the John Cage (match) edition do you lose points if you press any buttons in the first 4 minutes and 33 seconds?
• OK do you think you actually interpret the “songs”?  No you follow the tempo on the screen and press the buttons according to the creators interpretation.  I wonder if he has ever played the game?
• They market more to fans of actual bands and musicians, so it is personality driven, so which Contra Bassoon player are you putting on the cover so people just rush out to buy it? People want to be like the people on the screen, not learn about music.
• No company in their right mind would produce something that will sell so few copies, these games are for a mass market.
• It’s a game, not just a romp through a song, there are points, head to head match ups, so yeah it’s time for the Mahler 9 death match, which will only take about 90 minutes!
• The only people who might be interested are those who are aspiring to be musicians, so shouldn’t they be spending hours with their real instruments?
• There is a Bugs Bunny game on Nintendo DS called Looney Tunes Cartoon Conductor, and it’s on SALE!

I am all for innovation, and I like to have fun, but innovative products should not replace innovative thinking.  What a contradiction that so many consider Pop and Rock so simple that some would want to emulate a game that makes those art forms even simpler to somehow lift up Classical music!  Perhaps his post was written in jest, but if that was the case put it in the Onion not in the New York Times!  Wait I forgot for it to be in the Onion it has to be funny but in a plausible way.