"That’s not how you do it, Dad … Da-aad.” “Mo-ooom!” Dan yelled up the stairs.  “Dad won’t give me back my guitar.”
 
“Come on, Dan,” I said. “One more chance. I think I’m getting the hang of this thing.” You would think that after teaching your son how to grasp everything from baby spoons to tennis rackets, he’d sympathize when the ineluctable decline of your own dexterity started giving his the upper hand. Not hardly, as my friend from Missouri likes to say.

In all fairness to Dan, my performance on the first three dozen Guitar Hero video game songs was less than stellar. Even the most patient of elementary-school music teachers would have been tearing their hair out by now. Why should I expect Dan’s ears to endure what theirs could not? His heckling wasn’t helping, however. Now I was losing track of the next song’s flashing fret changes, which darted down the TV screen like candy-colored torpedoes (green-red-blue-yellow… gree-red-bl-yel …). “Dern it.”

“Hey, wait! I know this song!” I yelled. All old air-guitarists know this song. I’ll bet the little techies who invented Guitar Hero weren’t even born when we virtuosos of the virtual were wailing and flailing to it. Who needs your karaoke chords? I’m going freefall, baby.

I then selected the strumming stance and sneer of one of my favorite rock legends (Keith Richards, Pete Townsend, Neil Young …), and began smacking the little faux Gibson while mimicking the sweet sounds of a six-string (or noises remotely akin to those from the real thing).

“Dun-dun-dun-dun ... dun-dun-dun-dun …” Recognize it? That’s right. It’s Leslie West’s full-bodied opening riff from “Mississippi Queen.” Very good, look at you. Do you play air-guitar, too? If you do, then you already know the liberating release this playing provides.
 
For the uninitiated, the premise of air-guitar is quite simple. Form follows form, not function. It’s Picasso flecking his wrist against an imaginary canvas – sans brush. It’s Robin Hood hitting a bull’s-eye – without a bow (or an arrow, for that matter). In a word, it’s useless. Still, for us non-musicians, playing air-guitar to an imaginary SRO audience is the ultimate make-believe rush. In fact, I know many real musicians who indulge in the hobby – except they actually know where to put their hands on the invisible guitar neck, the showoffs! And before you mock, singing to your loofah-microphone in the shower doesn’t place you many notches below us air-guitarists on the pathetic-meter.

“What’s the #*%#! racket down there!?” For those of you who don’t know Ann, #*%#! translates into “darn.” That’s about as salty as my wife’s language ever gets.

“Dad’s doing that atmosphere music thing again. He’s scaring me,” said Dan, the little tattle.

 “It’s an air-guitar, sweetie,” Ann corrected him. “Daddy’s been playing it for a veeery long time.” Then, with the diplomacy of a Kissinger, she said to me, “You’ve been playing your imaginary guitar so well all these years, why switch now to a little plastic one. I don’t like it on you.”

I know a compliment when I see one. “Gee, I never thought you noticed. Thank you.” I gave Dan back his Guitar Hero guitar, and playtime continued harmoniously, albeit noisily, in the family room. Dan then went online to jam with his friends (this computer game is truly amazing), and I went back to my Pete Townsend-in-“Won’t Get Fooled Again”-mode, windmill-swinging, leg-kicking, rock-icon fantasy world.

About a week later, Dan offered to let me play Guitar Hero, as long as I played by the rules. So, I did. It was fun, but I’m still better on air-guitar. I did get to thinking, however. Wouldn’t it be nice if they came out with a Horn Hero or Flute Hero? What a great way to introduce kids to the classical stuff!

I ran this by Dan during one of his GH sessions. I don’t think he was paying attention. “Um, Dad, Mom doesn’t allow me to play any games with violence.”

“I said violins, not violence! Forget it.”