As I told my wife when we were standing in line at Best Buy a few days before Christmas-- "Ssh--I hope no one sees us buying this--I'll be REALLY embarrassed."

What was it?  The DVD collection of Season One of the Dukes of Hazzard?  A CD of "Michael Jackson's Greatest Hits"?  A backup copy of Windows Vista? 

All of those would make me blush, but the gift I didn't want to admit buying for my kids was "Guitar Hero." 

Now I have to admit, until I went in the store, I thought Guitar Hero was someone like George Benson or Phil Keaggy or Matt Reviere.  But my daughters have been clamoring for it for some time, and they have patiently extolled its virtues to me these last several wekes.   So a few days before Christmas, I caved. 

But my angst is this--Guitar Hero has nothing to do with music.  

Now I'm probably coming across as a snob, but as I told my wife, "If they would spend as much time practicing a real guitar as they do spending time playing this game, they could be REAL guitar heroes."  

To which Karen just rolled her eyes.

The premise of the game--for the uninitiated among you--is to strum the guitar (which has no strings) or beat the drums at the same time a little bar-icon passes by on the screen.  Grudgingly, I can see how the game might increase rhythmic coordination.  But you're not making any music with it.  

Music, at it's foundational level--comes from the heart.  It can't be boiled down to a mechanical repetitious movement.  It's something that is alive, something that flows, that takes on different characteristics & moods & tempos & crescendos as you play it.  It calls forth your deepest joys and tears as you perform it.  It's not a game where you try to hit the bullseye three out of four times so you can win.

When I play music, I don't want it to be the same over and over.  I experiment, I add or subtract, I shape the music as it shapes me, and I react to that.  Whether I'm jammin' with friends or in a quiet room by myself with my guitar or a piano, music is soul, baby. 

I don't think Guitar Hero has a soul.  And after buying it, I wonder if I've lost a bit of mine.  .