I know what I want for Christmas.

Accordion Hero II [Shadenfreude Interactive GmbH]
via: Accordion Hero makes you want others in the genre [Make:blog] and MITer Cati’s blog Architectradure. (Nope. Can’t pronounce that, Cati.)

Come on, you know this was your first thought when you saw the original Guitar Hero. (I know it was mind. I also wondered about maybe Contrabassoon Hero.) And check that double-bellowed controller. Perfect for playing the song lineup:

• Leichtensteiner Polka, Traditional
• The Bowling King, Those Darn Accordions
• Can’t Touch This, M.C. Hammer
• Ya Ya Wunderbar, Frankie Yankovic
• Pictures of Matchstick Men, Status Quo
• In Heaven There Is No Beer, Traditional [Ed.: Whoo! My favorite!]
• Ride The Lightning, Metallica [Don't Fear the Reaper could sound good on accordion, too.]

I have touched the Future

All of this xxx Hero and Rock Band and Harmonix stuff does raise the question: how will we listen to music in the future? Will we have new interactive platforms for music that turn us from passive listeners into active. What will that platform be like? Some of you expressed, to put it kindly, a healthy dose of skepticism when I said I thought a new Harmonix-developed game for the iPod suggested new possibilities for mobile, interactive music.

Now I understand why. The real interactive platform for music could turn out to be a marker and your hands (if you, like me, weren’t one of the 7 million people who found this on YouTube, just wait until about halfway through for it to get interesting):

See also Daft Bodies, though that’s strangely less successful.