So we all know about StepMania, the immensely popular DDR simulator that we love to play both on keyboard, pad, and other creative four-panel instruments. We also know that there are arrows which scroll up on the screen and that the objective to hit those respective arrows according to the beat and/or rhythm of the song. Because of this requirement, a sense of rhythm is needed to gain proficiency at the game (and dance games in general).

This brings us to the question for the day: Knowing that some knowledge of musical beat and rhythm is a must in order to be successful to the game, what becomes of those who don’t know jack squat about it? Does StepMania train players, to the very least, on the basics of musical theory?

My answer is yes.

Of course, StepMania isn’t the be-all end-all replacement for music theory classes, not at all. After all, it’s a dance game; not an instructional piece of software on analyzing the inner workings of a musical piece. However, there exists certain elements in the game which music theorists are most likely familiar with — things like BPM, notes, measures, and rhythm are all apparent in the game… and rightfully so — it’s a music game! All StepMania songs contain information about their potential BPM, which is integral to knowing what lies ahead if one is playing a new song for the first time. In order to cope with the game’s strict and intelligent timing windows to achieve decent-to-high scores, one must follow the ongoing beat of the song in order to correctly time the right moment to hit the next note — an application of music theory? Yes.

As far as songs are concerned from the player’s point of view, that’s all StepMania really teaches: Following the beat, rhythm, and patterns. For the simfile builders and the more observant players, more important elements of music emerge, some that simfile builders should most especially be aware of in order to produce high-quality, synchronized simfiles that go well with the music. More experienced players are able to not only examine the beat of a song, but are also able to break down and estimate/determine how fast the 8th, 16th, 24th (and so on) notes will need to be hit within a given measure, allowing them to figure out just exactly how fast their fingers or feet will need to move. Creative simfile makers, after close examination of a song, can come up with quite interesting arrow patterns and rhythms which synchronize in all sorts of different ways. Following my experiences as a simfile maker, I can say that I have learned a lot about how music works. Not saying that I’m a guru of music, because I’m not, but I did learn a lot. I didn’t know that a default measure contains 4 beats; I didn’t know that each beat is divided into infinitely-iterating groups of 4. I didn’t know that the notes which produce the beat are called quarter notes. I didn’t know the term “16th run” or “16th notes” that I hear almost everyday in music classes at school — I didn’t know all of that until I started playing StepMania. Had I not realized the slightest bit about how beats work, I would have never been able to discern the difference between a stream of 16th notes at 140 BPM and 16th notes at 190 BPM.

Call it sad or call me late learner, but this is where I get my learning from. I never had the opportunity to take any music class of any kind at school, so I was at a disadvantage — and probably still am today. It doesn’t change the fact, though, that my knowledge of the way music works is definitely greater than what I had started out with. It may not teach us anything more than the basics, but it’s better than nothing, and the best part is, you get to have fun while doing so.

So play a little StepMania, and learn something new about music while you’re at it too.