The Rock Band computer game on Wii, Xbox and Playstation has been massively popular. It has inspired many people to take up learning a real musical instrument. But what exactly are the differences between playing Rock Band drums and playing a real drum kit?
A drums controller for Rock Band looks pretty similar to an electronic drum kit. It’s not laid out in exactly the same way as a real drum kit (presumably to save space), but the principle of having rubber pads you hit with sticks to trigger a sound is the same concept.
The Rock Band drums controller:
A regular electronic drum kit:
Playing the game vs playing the drums – a comparison
The principle of the Rock Band game involves hitting the coloured pads at the correct time when instructed to do so on the screen. This triggers the drums in the game to play correctly.
Explaining what happens when you strike a regular drum would be stating the obvious. Rather than having a colour-coded guide telling you which pad needs to be hit, the decision over what to hit and when is totally up to you. On the real drum kit the drum grooves you play are literally ‘in your hands’ – not in the hands of the computer.
The Rock Band game is good for developing the coordination skills necessary for drumming. The element of hand-eye coordination is a comparable process to reading musical notation. In very general terms, playing Rock Band drums is the virtually the same as playing real drums. It develops timing skills (see previous article on timing) as well as helping non-musicians understand the principles of music.
If you’ve enjoyed playing drums on Rock Band, you should give real drumming a go and create for yourself the grooves and beats you enjoy playing along to on Rock Band!
