My Daughter, the Drummer

So she's only three years-old, but any time I start up Rock Band, my daughter's instantly in the seat to bang on the drums. Her favorite thing to do is hit the sticks together with a "One-two-three-four" before the song begins, and has been known to get upset if she misses her cue.

I only recently began to have an interest in the instrumental portion of the musical simulation games. It was all because we stopped at a Best Buy that used to be Best in Sacramento and one of my favorite songs — definitely my favorite Aerosmith song — "Sweet Emotion" was demoing on Guitar Hero. So I gave it a try. And failed. And failed again. And finally made it through.

It was then that a realized two things:

1. This is fun.
2. It's not just a disguised version of Simon (i.e. button sequencing), it, more strongly, is a Pavlovian mechanism. To wit: If you don't hit the buttons the game tells you to, it won't play your song.

My brother (the one we dropped a van bench off with for Midnight Madness) a few days later gifted me with his old version of Rock Band, having upgraded to Rock Band II. Since then, I've been somewhat addicted, working my way through the songs.

Last night, "Enter the Sandman" kicked my butt three times. And I know why: My little drummer girl had fallen asleep a few hours earlier and wasn't able to count me in.