At Dial M for Musicology, Jonathan Bellman rails against the music video game Guitar Hero, which allows the player to be rock star-ish without learning how to play an instrument.

Bellman would rather that his son “play aggressive (meaning, like Halo; nothing worse) games than this. His sole comment: ‘That’s really weird, Dad. Everyone will find that odd.’ I gave him to understand how much I cared about what his friends thought, which didn’t surprise him. But: for a psychologically healthy person to play aggressive video games is a kind of play-acting, a way of gettin’ yer ya-yas out in a controlled and safe atmosphere. ... Cut to the music.

“The very last thing I want is to short-circuit the musical impulse, to enable people to play at playing music. ... Look: you want to play? Great. Practice an instrument, sing in a choir. Is that too much discipline? ... You can buy your music, then; you get to be a pure consumer—that’s your choice.

“There’s some kind of bizarre, practicing-is-its-own-reward puritanical streak in me that believes that make-believe music-making past the age of young childhood … ’tain’t fitten, an illegal shortcut. ...

“It has been explained to me: the game [is] not playing at playing music, it’s playing at being a rock star. This was not an argument I found persuasive.”