Will there ever be an Orchestra Hero (aka Guitar Hero/Rock Band)? Would that be cool? Lame? Food for thought from the Michael Gordon of The New York Times:
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”? What if I could stand in front of the entire orchestra and conduct Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, or sit in the brass section for a rendition of Janá?ek’s “Sinfonietta”? The possibilities are astounding.
Read the complete post here.
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I think it would be interesting, as there would be a ton of cool parts to play in the orchestra and stuff, but I would much rather practice my REAL bass. I see videos on youtube of kids playing some guitar solo on guitar hero on expert level getting a perfect score or whatever, and its kinda sad, that they could be putting in all that time and effort into an actual instrument rather than a video game. That said, a conductor hero would be pretty cool if they could draw sounds from the orchestra in the video game based on how you conduct the piece. I’m sure the technology is out there like on Nintendo Wii’s and stuff.