Guitar Hero drives interest in playing real guitar

Guitar Hero 3 is like a plague in the bit-tech HQ at the moment. Tim is the worst culprit, regularly skulking away and locking himself in the console room for hours on end, but we're all guilty of indulging.

The good news though is that that time may not be as wasted as you'd think. According to a recent CNet article (not that anybody really trusts them very much at the moment) the Guitar Hero series has noticeably increased interest in playing the actual guitar.

The past three years have seen a fairly dramatic increase in business for guitar teachers, but more importantly the new pupils aren't all untalented wrecks either. It turns out that playing Legends of Rock has helped the novices pick up some basic music-making skills.

One of the instructors interviewed in the article credits the game as helping to build "rhythm in a musical context". Yep, sounds like something a hippy would say.

Now we put the question to you in turn: Have you played Guitar Hero? Do you play the real guitar? How do the two compare and complement each other? Let us know what you think in the forums.