Unmarketable skills: Guitar Hero (Rock Band)

Here is a typical scenario in my life:

Some dude: Hey, do you play any instruments?
Me: I am proficient in Guitar Hero.

I'm actually came into my own with my Rock Band game, but I still use the Guitar Hero name due to brand recognition.

I have a difficult time being proud of how good I am at Rock Band / Guitar Hero. I'm better than anyone that I know in real life, but certainly not as good as this guy:


Rock Band and Guitar Hero: World Tour are fun as hell. You get a group of friends together and your little pretend band gets to rock out to some of the best music to come out of the last few decades. People who don't get why its fun are probably incapable of fun on any level.

But people, like the guy in the video, and to a lesser extent, myself, are really good at it. Some people devout a lot of time to it. Some people drop out of school for it.

I think that is probably a little much. If I think about how much time I have put into these games and think about how I could have probably written a screenplay or two, learned a programing language, or taken up a real instrument, it makes it feel like a waste.

But then I remember... all of that time was free time. I happen to not have a wife and kids and I'm out of school so I have free time, and if I can spend that time rocking out to some sweet tunes, it certainly ends up being cheaper than other potential time wasters like taking up drugs or acquiring an alcohol problem. And why would I want to learn to play a handful of songs badly on one instruments, when I can play an ever increasing number of songs perfectly on three (four if you count bass, which nobody does).

Think I'm gonna go play Rush's Tom Sawyer.