Assorted Afflatuses

Christmas — whoops, "holiday" — music tends to make me sick. Hearing the same overly treacly lyrics and conspicuously upbeat music over and over at every turn should make anyone sick. (Even when Frosty is on the brink of a meltdown, the song stays in major!) But, for whatever reasons, as soon as Thanksgiving has ended and people begin eating turkey sandwiches for a month, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer rears its obnoxious head. Or, in the case of Costco, the ballads and dancing Santa displays come out in August.

Nonetheless, at my family's behest, I began looking for some cheerful holiday music to play on the piano to spare them from the usual classical and jazz compositions I play. Trying to find something tasteful, or, at the very least, not overplayed, posed something of a challenge. After a few hours of auditioning songs in iTunes, though, I stumbled upon the only Christmas album I genuinely enjoy listening to: Lee Mendleson and Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Thrilled at my discovery, I rushed to sheetmusicdirect.us — my favorite source for downloadable compositions — and bought a few pieces from the Charlie Brown songbook.

Whatever the difficulty label may have said to the contrary, playing "Christmas Time is Here" is no walk in the park. I could not play some of the chords, like the C13 that requires the player to stretch his or her hand an eleventh from C to E flat.

Fast forward a day or two to this morning. Reading The New York Times Magazine, I came across this article about the Guitar Hero-Rock Band phenomenon sweeping the United States. I have never understood why someone would rather pick up a dinky plastic guitar-cum-game console controller and press a series of multicolored buttons instead of picking up a real guitar and playing real music.

Of all the impossible, fantastic places a video game could take a person, the land of Playing a Guitar seems very unimaginative. It is not legal to carry a machine gun through a deserted part of the American heartland and engage friends in a kill-to-win game of tag, nor is it possible for a plumber to fly through interstellar space and engage whimsical robots in an intergalactic epée. On the other hand, guitars of questionable quality can be found at any big box retailer.

But, as I continued to contemplate "Guitar Hero," I realized that it can and does take people somewhere they would not ordinarily go: to a place where they can play the guitar.

I find it incredibly depressing to think that a sizable chunk my fellow countrymen have grown so tired of physical and mental exertion that they must now resort to a simplified method of playing the guitar. I cannot play the instrument, but given the relative simplicity of most popular music — like the rock and roll anthems immortalized in Guitar Hero — I doubt it could be that taxing for the body or the mind to play on the guitar.

It seems to me like attaching a gyroscopic stabilization system and a motor to a bicycle with training wheels.

Of course, some people will probably write me angry emails asking me why I have never made the same statements about other "simulation" games, like Madden NFL of NBA Live.

Those games, however — unlike Guitar Hero or Rock Band — take the player somewhere fantastic. Few people ever have the chance to play football for the NFL or manage a professional basketball team. But anyone with an instrument and a desire to learn can play a rock song. Even The Sims — in which players do nothing more than tell simulated people whether or not to laugh at another character's joke — allows a person to transcend reality and live life as a werewolf or a crazy cat lady.

Sorry Lou Dobbs. We need to mend our broken minds before we even begin to contemplate (if indeed we would even dare do that before taking action) our broken borders. Some have compared our current era to the Dark Ages, with people questioning sound science — intelligent design, anyone? — and demanding our politicians provide easy-to-comprehend sound bites. If people require their music spoon-fed to them via a series of multicolored dots, I may be inclined to agree. For my part, though, I will go back to the ivories and try to master "Christmas Time is Here."