[Harp-L] Re: guitar hero

[Garry <harp@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Robert Bonfiglio wrote:
> Recently I was performing a concert with guitarist that had studied 
> with Segova when the guitarist was a kid.  In order to fund his 
> concert series, we did a school outreach concert where he asked the 
> kids "How many of you play Guitar Hero?" and a hundred raised their 
> hands and "How many actually play the guitar?" and two raised their 
> hands.  I don't want to have the playing of the harmonica go down the 
> Guitar Hero road. 

your points are well taken, but i have a comment about this one.  every 
year, i take
20 or so high school kids from nj to south carolina to build a house for 
Habitat for
Humanity.  two years ago, i spent a whole day on the road listening to 
the guys in
my van go on and on and on about how great they were at Guitar Hero, 
what solos
they mastered, etc.  i finally asked them, "so, how many of you guys 
actually play guitar?" 
the answer was none.

i rolled my eyes and muttered about what the world was coming to and all 
of that stuff.

however, on this year's trip, i noticed an interesting thing.  every one 
of those guys
who'd been in my van that day had been taking lessons, and all were 
playing guitar. 
we always bring one along, and any time there was downtime you'd find a 
group of
them sitting on the floor, passing the guitar around.  several were 
pretty good.

i'm still dubious about the whole GT thing, but maybe there's an 
upside.  if it can
get enough of 'em interested that a few take that next step, i'd count 
that as a win.

--
We make a living from what we get, 
but we make a life from what we give.
- Kathy Moser