'Guitar Wizard' -- Like 'Guitar Hero' With a Real Guitar
'Guitar Hero' may be fun and cool, but one thing it certainly can't do is teach you how to actually play guitar. In fact, the connection between playing 'Guitar Hero' and actually playing guitar is tenuous at best. Just ask Slash.
That's where Music Wizard is hoping to one up the gaming phenomena by taking the basic concepts of 'Guitar Hero' and applying them to an actual guitar. 'Guitar Wizard' should drop in August with a suggested retail price of $149.95 when packaged with the Sound Tech Interface that gets mounted on a guitar or $299.95 with student quality electric guitar.
Different colors and shapes are used to represent the different frets on the strings. Slowly the game evolves, from what is essentially an extremely complex 'Guitar Hero, until you're no longer playing a game, but instead reading music. Sadly, Music Wizard's creators dont have the deep pockets that Activision has, so don't expect to jam along to original performances of 'Godzilla' or 'Welcome to the Jungle.' Instead you'll have to make do with MIDI versions of the tracks. Upside, less red tape involved so you can download thousands of tracks from WizardTunes.com. Down side, it's like jamming along to a Super Nintendo.
Related Links:
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Al Winters @ Jan 9th 2008 11:47AM
Finally a learning game for teaching someone something.
Jan Altman @ Jan 13th 2008 7:15PM
As a member of the Music Wizard Group team, I can report that we think Guitar Hero is a great toy, and has been enormously successful at instilling in people a love for creating music. That's where we step in.
Guitar Wizard can not only teach you how to play almost any song on any guitar, it can also teach you how to read real written music. Piano Wizard, our flagship program selling since fall of 2005, has proven time and again that our Wizard technology teaches people in mere minutes to play the piano and read music. We've won several awards and acclaim for our revolutionary method, dubbed "The Teaching System of the Future" (Future Music Magazine).
Guitar Wizard's five-step method is completely scalable for any age or level of musicianship. It works on any steel-stringed guitar, yours or ours. You can choose which and how many strings you play, the tempo, the song, and any of the five steps to play in.
Want to expand your repertoire? Go onto http://www.WizardTunes.com and download some of our thousands of MIDI files to add into the game. Your choice of music is virtually limitless, making Guitar Wizard last a lifetime.
To learn more about Piano Wizard and Guitar Wizard, please visit http://www.EvenYouCanPlay.com.
Jan Altman
Evangelist/Creative
Music Wizard Group
Eliana @ Jan 14th 2008 3:16PM
I think the "down side" cited at the end of the article actually can be viewed as an "up side" as well, since a lot of mothers will love to see their children to transition, as smoothly and willingly as possible, from video games into a more productive activity.