I've never gotten as into rhythm games as other genres. The only type of game I've played less is sports. Actual sports and virtual sports. I think the reason is that there was a great deal of music in the house as I was growing up, and PaRappa the Rapper didn't always jibe well with the classical piano my mother was playing.
After playing the games for 20 minutes, it became clear that the skills I developed learning the guitar, piano, and clarinet absolutely do not transfer. And that is frustrating. For example, while playing Rhythm Fireworks 2, I had a moment where I was playing perfectly. I thought that maybe, just maybe, the part of my brain that made me terrible at these games had finally woken up. I was quickly proven wrong when the arrows changed color and my brain completely shut down. I had a similar, but slightly funnier experience while playing Adventure Time: Rhythm Heroes. I didn't perform any better, but at least when I screwed up, I got glared at by some really cute bears.
What these games to well, aside from making me look ridiculous, is developing both the physical and synaptic muscle memory. They put you in a situation where there is a defined set of possible responses, and condition you to respond appropriately more often, and in increasingly more stressful environments. This could arguably help prepare students for standardized testing, but further discussion on that would lead us to the Dark Side.
In the English classroom, the method can be used when developing rhyming skills. There are hundreds of low-tech rhythm games that have been played for generations. And what kid hasn't laid down some phat rhymes while his or her buddy dropped some mad beats? They might not have been good at it, but it was still a valuable exercise in improving word choice.
Pax and Petra,
Ben
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