Duolingo for instruments will teach you to play guitar

Rocksmith also makes the boring basics of learning an instrument fun. 

Rocksmith also makes the boring basics of learning an instrument fun. 

Once upon a time, there was a game called Guitar Hero that made everyone think they could play guitar. Notes would fly down a path on screen, and you had to hit one – or more – of the five coloured buttons on the guitar neck while “strumming”.

A whole generation of Millennials suddenly got unearned confidence in their ability to play music. Now, with Rocksmith+, Ubisoft wants to bring back that same playing experience, only this time help you learn guitar for real.

The way Rocksmith+ works is you plug your guitar or bass into your computer (or, later this year, use a phone app to recognise your acoustic guitar), which will allow the computer to know what notes you’re playing. The game will then give you a track showing you where to put your fingers and when to strum, starting with just the absolute basics and then building up to the point that you’re able to play the song perfectly, or riff on it. As well as playing famous songs, Rocksmith also makes the boring basics of learning an instrument fun, like turning learning scales into a game instead of a chore.

Shane Gann is the lead guitarist for post-hardcore band Hail The Sun, as well as being lead music library developer on Rocksmith+. 

Gann, who is a proudly self-taught guitarist, wishes Rocksmith had been around when he was first learning, because of the pitfalls and lack of guidance in just working it out yourself. “My father who inspired me to play was also self-taught and I loved that idea of taking yourself through that journey of understanding what the instrument is to you. But with self-teaching there are so many drawbacks. You have no way to monitor your progress, you don't necessarily know if you're doing things correctly or learning bad habits.”

Learning skills using technology is nothing new. But while apps like Duolingo prepare you for the specific moments when someone asks you to identify an armadillo in Portuguese, Rocksmith+ encourages you to go off book and learn how to riff early on. Within my first hour with the game, it was already showing me how to jam on my bass to a Brandi Carlisle song.

“[Bass chord charts] allow for you to explore and try different notes, and there's no penalty for that exploration. That is absolutely meant to encourage that sort of discovery and just lack of a hesitation or fear of trying things that you haven't familiarised yourself with yet.”

Rocksmith as a series has been around since 2011, originally releasing two console games, with the second in 2014. Each came with a fully formed library with more songs available as paid downloadable content. Those games inspired thousands of people to pick up a guitar for the first time, including kids who went to start in Broadway shows, and YouTubers who went on to become famous for their musical skills.

While a cynic might think that the reason to relaunch Rocksmith as a subscription service is purely motivated by profit, Gann says it’s because education, unlike traditional games, doesn’t have a defined endpoint.

“Music learning is a lifelong journey. It's not something that you can finish like a book or some video games."

"We wanted to make sure that we have the most opportunities to continue to support players through things like library growth, but also through lessons, content, video content... We want to continue to incentivize and inspire players to keep going on this musical journey because well we think that the more you play, the more enjoyment you're going to get out of being a musician yourself.”

The game will have more than 5000 songs available at launch, including from Australian bands and musicians like Natalie Imbruglia and Something For Kate. 

Rocksmith+ is available on PC from today.