The Beatles Rock Band Video Game
Written by Harold Kenneth Quesenberry   
Friday, 04 December 2009 09:06
If you are like I am then you probably do not spend much time playing video games. I actually kind of hate video games to be honest. In my opinon they are a complete waste of time. So why am I writing about a video game? Because The Beatles Rock Band (and to a lesser extent the other Rock Band games) is something well beyond just a game, it is a real interactive musical learning tool.
by HaroldKennethQuesenberry


If you are like I am then you probably don't play video games. In fact, I hate video games. I think of them as a total waste of time. So then why am I spending my time writing about a video game? Because in my view Rock Band is more than just a video game, it is a great interactive musical experience.

I am not really talking about the guitar and bass guitar bit. In fact, in my opinion the guitar part of the game is lame because it has nothing to do with playing a real guitar and very little to do with the music. It has zilch to do with guitar playing because playing real guitar is about 100 times harder than simply pressing a few color coded buttons and it has very little to do with the music because I've noticed that the colors rarely change in time with any musical changes in the songs.

The drumming and the singing parts of the game are what I find really interesting and important. These parts of the game have a direct relationship to really doing these things "in real life" and the relationship to the music is also far more direct.

If you sing a song in key and in time then you will do well. No you don't have to sing the lyrics (you can simply hum the melody if you want to) but so what? What is essential is hitting the right notes at the right time. I think The Beatles Rock Band Video Game is actually a really great way to improve your ability to sing. More so than the other rock band games because it also includes harmonies.

When you do the drumming on the expert level you you have to hit every drum hit that's in the real song! No, it's not just like playing a real drum set, but it's close enough to be very effective practice.

I highly recommend The Beatles Rock Band Game a great present for any Beatles fan along with (obviously) The Beatles in Stereo and The Beatles in Mono.

About the Author:

Harold Kenneth Quesenberry recommends reading the Music By Day Music Blog everyday if you're a Beatles fan as it's got a lot of Beatles related posts.