Rock Your Husband’s Father’s Day With Rocksmith

OK, I’m going to tell you right off the bat, this recommendation for Father’s Day is not your typical gift choice.  Our Father’s Day gift suggestion is unique, robust, out-of-the box even, but for a good number of dads out there, this will amp them up a few notches!

First, one disclaimer.  This recommendation is geared towards younger dads…like your spouse…not your fathers!  Your father wouldn’t quite “get” this gift.  This gift is recommended for all those dads out there who have played air guitar all their lives and have dreamed of playing Aerosmith’s Walk this Way or Def Leppard’s Pour Some Sugar on Me…and of course, Queen’s We are the Champions!

It’s time to throw that air guitar away and feel the power and excitement you feel when you play a real electric guitar.  Now I know what you’re thinking.  My husband doesn’t have time to learn how to play the guitar.  Or perhaps he has no real musical talent or even the inclination to learn an instrument at this stage in his life.  You may be right, but what dad can resist plugging in an electric guitar in an amp and having at it?  Perhaps your husband already has an electric guitar, but it’s collecting dust because he never learned how to play it.

Rock Your Husband’s World

Our Father’s Day gift recommendation…believe it or not…is a video game!  It’s called Rocksmith 2014 Edition and it promises to be the fastest way to learn guitar.   It is available on all the XBOX 360, PS3, the PC and Mac and is a game changer in learning how to play guitar in a fun and effective manner.  Rocksmith teaches how to play single notes, chords, and even advanced techniques.

Rocksmith arrangements include lead guitar, rhythm guitar, and bass guitar, so according your husband’s inclination, he’s good to go.  Rocksmith tailors its level of difficulty to the player’s skill level, even if you’re better at lead guitar than bass guitar.  Unlike Rockband, Rocksmith is the real deal, including over 1,000 chords and interactive chord charts.  Rocksmith was designed to teach playing first, game playing second, with over 80 interactive lessons to teach budding electric guitarists every technique out there.

As you play, Rocksmith shows you where your mistakes are and provides help and videos to hints you correct them.

Lessons Covered in Rocksmith

Your husband will learn everything from the basics of electric guitar playing to the essentials of playing music, including:

No one likes to practice, but the Guitarcade mini-games area of the game make practicing chords, techniques, scales, and muscle memory loads of fun and competitive.  They rate your progress to motivate you to do your best on the next game.

Once you move along further in your skills, you can play alongside with Rocksmith’s artificial intelligence virtual musicians who follow your lead and dynamically react to what you’re playing.  Rocksmith will even teach you how to jam and improvise.

But the fun doesn’t stop there.  With the Rocksmith game, you don’t need an expensive amp.  Rocksmith gives you the opportunity to play with thousands of dollars worth of custom amps and pedals to create your own sounds.

OK, all of this sounds great, but…

What About the Songs?

Rocksmith 2014 Edition has over 50 songs, including some great tunes your husband (and you) will love:

Aerosmith’s Walk this Way

Def Leppard’s Pour Some Sugar on Me

Queen’s We are the Champions

Kiss’ Rock and Roll All Nite

Nirvana’s Heart Shaped Box

Kinks’ You Really Got Me

The Police Every Breath You Take

The Rolling Stones’ Paint It, Black

The Who My Generation

Bob Dylan Knocking on Heaven’s Door

Foo Fighters’ Everlong

There are more songs he’ll like and others he may not know but are good for guitar training.  Check out more songs here.

Rocksmith is designed to match the way your guitar is laid out, so there’s no need to interpret or learn sheet music to get started. Have strings on your guitar? You’ll see strings on the screen.

Features:

• Has a chromatic tuner built right into the pause menu, so you can tune up anytime
• Built-in scoring, games, and goals make practicing and repetition more fun
• Game is laid out exactly like your guitar to make learning easier
• Includes some classics and newer music you’ll love
• Teaches you everything from using a pick, finger chording, to using pedals and creating custom riffs
• The Riff Repeater allows you to practice on specific song segments. You can play note-by-note in challenging areas
• Over 50 songs to learn and play with
• 80 interactive lessons included to help you be your best

Pros:

• The chromatic tuner is great, it even can tell you the name of any note you play!
• Rocksmith allows for two players utilizing a split screen so you and a friend can play guitar and bass together
• No matter your skill level, you will get a lot out of this game
• It’s less expensive than real guitar lessons
• If you don’t get how a note, slide, or chording works, you can play it over and over again without judgement!

Cons:

• Stairway to Heaven is not available yet 🙁
• There’s no way to add your own music into the game (important if you’re a musician)
• Rocksmith is an incredible teaching tool, but it’s not magic – you get out of it what you put into it

Note:  To use Rocksmith you must use a Rocksmith 1/4″ output jack tone cable, which is a unique quarter-inch to USB cable that allows players to plug any real guitar with a quarter-inch jack directly into their Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, or Mac. This tone cable turns the analog signal from the guitar into digital so it can be used with your Rocksmith game.

Rocksmith on XBOX sells for $56.96 without a real tone cable, the PS3 Rocksmith with a real tone cable for $74.81, and the PC/Mac Rocksmith version for $73.77 at Walmart.com.

Buying an electric guitar will not set you back as much as you think.  I bought a full size Electric Guitar with an amp for $94.95 at Walmart.com.  I was surprised to get both a cool guitar with external 10 watt amp for such a great price.

A Mom’s Perspective

So you might be thinking, OK, this sounds like this would be a cool gift for your husband, but as wives and mothers, we all know the noise that is associated with learning a new instrument.  Fortunately, there are two ways around this. First, there is a volume control…that could be used to turn down the music.  In the likely event that your husband balks at this idea, you can always have him use headphones…so he can really be in tune with the awesome music he is creating!

Albeit, the Rocksmith game along with an electric guitar can be a little bit on the pricer side of Father’s Day gifts, we can guarantee you that this is a gift we won’t soon forget, it will definitely peak his interest, and may jump start a new passion to play the electric guitar, a secret dream many men have always had.  Oh, and as an added bonus, this study shows that women find men who play guitar more attractive! 🙂