It’s 2 in the afternoon in the year 2005, and I’m walking through the mall in Little Rock, Arkansas like every other local 14 year old kid does in the summer. I always have been a gamer, I’ve beaten just about every Zelda game out there, played more Dance Dance Revolution than I care to admit, and still get giddy anytime a new Final Fantasy game gets announced. The game store is where me and my friends hung out all the time while playing the newest demos, finding deals on used games, and swapping stories from games we’ve played that we see on the rack.
As we’re making the rounds to the game store this day we hear something we don’t usually hear from the game store: the huge, heavy, iconic Iron Man riff from Black Sabbath. Curious, we walk up to the employee demoing the game, hypnotized by the notes scrolling down the screen in time to when the riff needed to be played. The employee plays the whole song with more fervor, and with each note we become more and more entranced by the song and the screen. When he finishes the final solo in a blaze of glory, he rubs the sweat off his brow and puts the plastic guitar down. “Whoa.” We all say in unison. “You guys wanna try?” He asked. “Hell yeah!” I immediately retorted and pick up the guitar.
As we’re making the rounds to the game store this day we hear something we don’t usually hear from the game store: the huge, heavy, iconic Iron Man riff from Black Sabbath. Curious, we walk up to the employee demoing the game, hypnotized by the notes scrolling down the screen in time to when the riff needed to be played. The employee plays the whole song with more fervor, and with each note we become more and more entranced by the song and the screen. When he finishes the final solo in a blaze of glory, he rubs the sweat off his brow and puts the plastic guitar down. “Whoa.” We all say in unison. “You guys wanna try?” He asked. “Hell yeah!” I immediately retorted and pick up the guitar.
The guitar feels strangely right, it’s extremely light and comfortable after adjusting the strap. After hearing the employee explain the game I’m good to go. All I have to do is hit the downward scrolling note and hit the button on the neck and strum the strum bar at the body of the guitar at the same time when the note reaches the designated area at the bottom. “Alright, I’ve got this” I say to myself as I choose the “Easy” difficulty and a song, going for “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple. I start the song and get ready for the impending notes.
The notes scroll down, and as I’m expecting to hear the riff I hear this horrible, shrill sound instead. “You’re missing the notes man! You’ve gotta time it right” The employee sounds off. After getting a few notes right and getting the feel for it, I go ahead and restart the song. The notes come scrolling, and right as the notes get to the bottom, the riff hits me in the face. “Duh duh duh, duh duh duh-duh, duh duh duh, duh duh.” That huge, iconic riff enters me, I feel it. Chugging this riff shouldn’t feel as good as it does, but having this sense of power over the music feels so right. The song continues, and the employee chimes in “hey, not too bad for your first go!” I keep getting lost in the song, like I didn’t know people could have this synergy with music. Could this be what all those guitarists feel whenever they play? Just as I finish up a sloppy solo and finish off the riff to end the song, I have to hand off the guitar to my friends to try. “When does this game come out?” I ask the employee. “November 18” he replies. Immediately I jaunt to the counter and slap every bit of change in my pocket onto it. “Put this to the preorder” I tell him. “By the way, what’s this game called?” “Guitar Hero” he responds.
The date arrives, and game is finally in my home. I unpack it as fast as I can, and immediately plug it in to the PS2. In what had to be the same feeling as turning a Marshall stack to 10, I turn the volume up all the way on the TV and immediately start hammering the notes to Iron Man. The feeling was still there again, the heavy chords chugging into the very core of my being. Only this time there were more, and by artists I’ve never heard before. The Ramones, Rage against the Machine, Motorhead, Megadeth, and more were all there and waiting for me to play their songs in the best way I’ve ever experienced.
The notes scroll down, and as I’m expecting to hear the riff I hear this horrible, shrill sound instead. “You’re missing the notes man! You’ve gotta time it right” The employee sounds off. After getting a few notes right and getting the feel for it, I go ahead and restart the song. The notes come scrolling, and right as the notes get to the bottom, the riff hits me in the face. “Duh duh duh, duh duh duh-duh, duh duh duh, duh duh.” That huge, iconic riff enters me, I feel it. Chugging this riff shouldn’t feel as good as it does, but having this sense of power over the music feels so right. The song continues, and the employee chimes in “hey, not too bad for your first go!” I keep getting lost in the song, like I didn’t know people could have this synergy with music. Could this be what all those guitarists feel whenever they play? Just as I finish up a sloppy solo and finish off the riff to end the song, I have to hand off the guitar to my friends to try. “When does this game come out?” I ask the employee. “November 18” he replies. Immediately I jaunt to the counter and slap every bit of change in my pocket onto it. “Put this to the preorder” I tell him. “By the way, what’s this game called?” “Guitar Hero” he responds.
The date arrives, and game is finally in my home. I unpack it as fast as I can, and immediately plug it in to the PS2. In what had to be the same feeling as turning a Marshall stack to 10, I turn the volume up all the way on the TV and immediately start hammering the notes to Iron Man. The feeling was still there again, the heavy chords chugging into the very core of my being. Only this time there were more, and by artists I’ve never heard before. The Ramones, Rage against the Machine, Motorhead, Megadeth, and more were all there and waiting for me to play their songs in the best way I’ve ever experienced.
As the days went on, I got better. What used to be difficult in keeping track of three buttons to press became 4, and then 5 on the higher difficulties. Nevertheless, I persevered. When I finally reached the final tier of songs on the highest difficulties, the sound was more extreme than what I was used to. The onslaught of notes from the solo on Cowboys from Hell twisted my fingers in a brutal way I never thought possible. Godzilla had more lead parts than I ever remember in a song, and when the final song was in front of me, I was about to throw in the towel. The Hardest song of the game lay before me with Ozzy’s Bark at the Moon. I reluctantly pressed play and the song started.
Now, I could give the full details of just what beating this song entailed, but after a week straight building up the dexterity to attempt it and still failing time and time again, let’s just say plastic guitars were thrown and dents in walls were made. After getting red in the face with frustration and giving it a go one final time, I come up to the final solo that always killed me in the end. “Not today” I probably said. Sure enough, just as the meter gauging how well I was doing was just about to put me into the failing zone yet again, I hear an unfamiliar sound: fans cheering. I had beaten the song and the game. For beating the game, I was treated with a caption at the end on the screen. “Congrats! You should probably just go buy a real guitar at this point!”
It’s hard to pinpoint certain huge life decisions in your life, but for me I can trace it back directly to that end game caption. The next Christmas I asked my parents to get me a cheap electric guitar to try and figure out how to play, and the rest was history. I always had liked music, but playing it gave me a love. I loved the raw power of strumming my first power chord for real, I loved trading CDs and bonding over new and old music (from metal especially) with friends from high school. I loved that there was something I could finally call my own that would lead to countless friendships down the road. I still played the sequels to the game and enjoyed them, but the games fell to the wayside as I started getting more and more into playing the real thing.
Where am I now? Well it’s been about 9 years since I first picked up that guitar, and since then I’ve had many instructors, a few bands, lots of crazy experiences, and a completely new creative outlet. I wish I could go back and tell myself how much practice you’ll put into the instrument, and how you’ll surprise yourself every step of the way. If there’s anyone out there who’s considering taking the plunge and buying an instrument, do it now and practice until your fingers bleed from enthusiasm. It’s worth it.
Now, I could give the full details of just what beating this song entailed, but after a week straight building up the dexterity to attempt it and still failing time and time again, let’s just say plastic guitars were thrown and dents in walls were made. After getting red in the face with frustration and giving it a go one final time, I come up to the final solo that always killed me in the end. “Not today” I probably said. Sure enough, just as the meter gauging how well I was doing was just about to put me into the failing zone yet again, I hear an unfamiliar sound: fans cheering. I had beaten the song and the game. For beating the game, I was treated with a caption at the end on the screen. “Congrats! You should probably just go buy a real guitar at this point!”
It’s hard to pinpoint certain huge life decisions in your life, but for me I can trace it back directly to that end game caption. The next Christmas I asked my parents to get me a cheap electric guitar to try and figure out how to play, and the rest was history. I always had liked music, but playing it gave me a love. I loved the raw power of strumming my first power chord for real, I loved trading CDs and bonding over new and old music (from metal especially) with friends from high school. I loved that there was something I could finally call my own that would lead to countless friendships down the road. I still played the sequels to the game and enjoyed them, but the games fell to the wayside as I started getting more and more into playing the real thing.
Where am I now? Well it’s been about 9 years since I first picked up that guitar, and since then I’ve had many instructors, a few bands, lots of crazy experiences, and a completely new creative outlet. I wish I could go back and tell myself how much practice you’ll put into the instrument, and how you’ll surprise yourself every step of the way. If there’s anyone out there who’s considering taking the plunge and buying an instrument, do it now and practice until your fingers bleed from enthusiasm. It’s worth it.
Here’s a joke song me and my band buddies wrote, but it shows my playing and where I’ve come now.