How real is fake plastic rock?

You’ve all played Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Them Crooked Vultures and Queens of the Stone Age on “Rock Band.” Who thinks they’re ready to replace Dave Grohl on tour?

You may not be to the skill level of the busiest and coolest guy in rock, but playing songs by any of these bands in “Rock Band 3” with the new pro modes may get you closer than you’d think. Guitarist Steven Van Zandt wrote in Time magazine that the creators of “Rock Band” “may have saved classic rock for generations to come,” and he even feels the game can produce actual drummers. Kevin Pereira of “Attack of the Show” even subbed in for the drummer of Coheed and Cambria on their tune “Welcome Home.”

But the criticisms still abide, and no “real” musical results have been proven by way of “Rock Band.” 

Still, though, Harmonix has done everything in its power to make its game an educational tool, and while it can’t substitute for a private lesson with a musician, it provides numerous steps on the way to becoming a player. 

Keyboard
The “Rock Band” keyboard is a two-octave, 25-key peripheral with MIDI capability, and it happens to be one of the cheapest of its kind on the market today. The keys are velocity sensitive and have well-rounded ergonomics.

Playing on expert in pro mode allows players to perform the exact version of the song transposed for the right hand, and many have reported the ability to stand up from the game, walk to a piano and play the same pattern from muscle memory without missing a beat or a pitch. 

“Rock Band 3” also offers a training mode that ranges from beginner chords to advanced rhythms, but the intuitiveness of the pro keys interface is still up for grabs. The scrolling black and white keys can be tough to read, and the keyboard is arguably tougher to pick up than any of the other core instruments. And like the other parts in regular game play, incorrect pitches aren’t played to allow players to listen and correct their mistakes.

Guitar
The Fender Squier Pro Guitar is, for all intensive purposes, a real guitar, released by Fender and running for about $280. The real benefit of the instrument as a teaching tool is the ability to simply unplug it from the game and plug it right into an amp.

But as the newest and most intuitive of all the “Rock Band” technology, users might just want to keep playing. The tutorials, while similar to the ones for the piano, are very in-depth and coach new players every step of the way. 

The gaming interface has numbers flying by on a virtual guitar neck to indicate which string on which fret should be played, and chords are notated with a blue bar stretching across the several frets that must be held down. This does not make for easy sight reading at any difficulty level.

The pluses are that the game acts as a physical metronome, forcing players to keep up, and that at its nitpicky standards, high scores means technical proficiency. The game, however, does little in the way of teaching musical theory, and while it tells you where your fingers should go, it is not as good about clarifying how they should be placed. 

All the technical sensory in the guitar makes for great 1-to-1 response time in the game, even if it limits the ability to bend notes, play harmonics or perform palm muting.

Drums
Andy Ziker, a professional drummer and teacher from Phoenix, revealed a remarkable pattern and similarity between drumming in “Rock Band” and doing it on an actual kit. Ziker successfully transposed the 3-D scrolling pattern into a rotated 2-D pattern that could then be easily transposed to notation for an electronic drum set. With this, he was able to construct musical notation to the song “Vasoline” by Stone Temple Pilots in the easy through expert difficulty levels. 

It’s a remarkable discovery, and while it can’t fully replace a drum teacher, the game’s drum trainer and expansion pack, which will include a full symbol set and a second kick pedal, allow players to perform a full range of patterns, from triplets to paradiddles.

The ION Drum Rocker is even literally a complete electronic drum kit fitted with musician-grade drum pads and a sleek metal frame.