Continuing our series on Rock Band, we are taking a look at the new songs Harmonix has made available for download today. If you would like to read about previously offered downloadable content, please check out our first review published last week.

We really appreciate the comments we received last week, many of which brought up an interesting point about the positive or negative impact Rock Band could have on musicians or potential musicians. Before we get into the new content, we'd like to address this.

As some people have mentioned, the guitar is very dissimilar from an actual guitar. In spite of the fact that you certainly could learn bad habits, it is hard to confuse the Rock Band guitar from anything but a glorified controller. The drums, however, are quite different. In fact, the kit is very similar to one of the first Roland electronic drum kits I played, with the obvious and frustrating exception being that you can't reposition the pads.

Teaching drummers poor technique is certainly a potential pit fall of Rock Band for those gamers who would either like to get into drums or already play. But it really isn't much worse than someone setting up one of those old Roland kits with the intention of playing along to the radio as their method of teaching themselves. In either case, those who are serious about drums will take the time to learn some proper technique.

Of course, Rock Band's short comings have forced us to pose an interesting question. What would we want from a game that could also potentially be used as a real teaching device for instruments? Answering that for guitar is difficult short of making the controller into something more like an actual instrument. But since the drums are already so close, we can easily tackle that one.

Building A Real Drum Tutor

Coming from Rock Band, we would first need to either adjust the position of the pads into something more like a real kit, or allow gamers to change the positing of the pads. It's impossible to play cross handed (for a right handed drummer, the right hand would be playing the hi-hat crossing over top of the left hand) on the Rock Band setup which has caused me quite a bit of grief on Iron Maiden's Run to the Hills. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing that I learn to play open handed, but either way the layout causes you to use a different technique than you would on a real kit.

Next on the agenda would be a real kick pedal, more responsive drum heads and the addition of a hi-hat pedal. We've seen mods out there that either alter or replace the Rock Band pedal to address one or both of the two major complaints: durability and feel. Quick foot work is difficult with the Rock Band setup, and in order to learn proper technique people would need an actual pedal. Also, cymbals feel totally different than pads, but we can't think of a good way to incorporate a realistic enough cymbal feel into something like this.

The only other major change we would suggest would be to add a difficulty mode (beyond expert) where dynamics are factored in. Currently, it doesn't matter if you hit something hard or soft as long as you hit it. On a real kit, if you hit something hard it is loud and if you hit something soft it is quiet. This is one of the major things that musicians need to be well aware of that gets very lost on Rock Band.

Personally, I don't see why we can't scroll the sheet music for drums horizontally across the screen. I wouldn't care if they even took liberties with the spacing of notes in order to give the same visual cues that are currently used, but actually having them in there could really help teach drummers to read music. Not many these days take the time to learn how to read drum music these days, and building it into a game could really help.

On top of that, having a tutorial mode that went into depth on different grips, how and when to use them, proper kick technique to achieve different types of sounds, and tutorials built around rudiments and rolls would help. But that's not really a fundamental difference and could easily be incorporated to the game if Harmonix wanted to go there.

The bottom line is that what we have today in Rock Band is a game and not a teaching tool. It certainly can get more people into music who might have stayed out of it, but there could be problems with learning poor technique and causing frustration in future musicians. Unlearning something is much harder than learning it right the first time.

This Week's New Music

The apparent theme of this week's releases was a sort of pseudo punk mix. All of these songs are quick paced and catchy. These songs aren't so punk that you have to be a fan to like them. In fact, even if you don't like punk you might find yourself enjoying a couple of these tunes. But check out the break down to get a better idea.

The Clash :: Complete Control (Skilled Songs)

Difficulty: This is a tough song, but Anand and I were able to make through the first time we played it with 3 stars (having not heard the song before). Our first try is always me on expert drums and Anand on hard guitar. We could certainly nail this one if we played it a few more times, but it did have its tricky spots with interesting transitions. Over all it's just a few spots that will trip you up.

Experience: This song is definitely fun with lots of hammers on the guitar and a drum line that just "feels" right for the song. Even if you aren't a fan of the song this is fun to play. It is definitely and added bonus for fans of The Clash, as you can really get into the groove on this one.

Rank: 2 (a close second)

The Police :: Truth Hits Everybody (Challenging Song)

Difficulty: This one is hard. I had to drop down to hard from expert to finish it, and it would have taken me a while to get on expert. The first time I tried it, having never heard the song before, I dropped out in seconds. Guitar is tough too, and Anand switched over to bass (his favored instrument) for this one to help me get through it.

Experience: For people who don't get frustrated by a challenge, this is a great song. It's fairly straight forward in structure, but it really throws some curve balls out in the details. While I do think this was the most fun song of the week, I'm a huge Stewart Copeland fan and that could bias me a bit. Anand did confirm that this one is a fun song as well, so I know it wasn't all in my head.

Rank: 1

The Ramones :: Teenage Lobotomy (Solid Songs)

Difficulty: This one isn't so much hard as it is fast. It's quite repetitive and not that complex, so the speed really doesn't make it a particularly difficult song.

Experience: The first thing that comes to mind is that it is a repetitive song. The guitar on this one is like the base line on The Killers' When You Were Young, but that's where the comparison ends in my mind. While there were a few fun spots, this is probably more of a song for fans of The Ramones.

Rank: 3 (unless you like The Ramones)

I do think it is worth mentioning that while playing The Police song on hard, I had a very difficult time not playing the bass line that really should have been there. This gave me the thought that it would be terrific if it were possible to mix difficulty on hands and feet for drummers. For instance, I think I would have nailed Truth Hits Everybody if I could have picked expert on the kick and hard for everything else. Anand doesn't seem all that stoked by the idea, but let's hear from the other drummers out there. Is this a good idea?