A partnership between Guitar Hero III publisher RedOctane and music product trade group NAMM aims to encourage virtual rockers to pick up real instruments. Red Octane and NAMM announced that they will be partnering up for NAMM’s annual NAMM show in Anaheim, Calif. They want to encourage gamers to pick up real guitars and other instruments as well as support Guitar Hero 3.

“Our partnership with Guitar Hero will demonstrate a fun progression from playing an interactive game with roots in music to learning how to play an instrument for real,” said NAMM CEO Joe Lamond in a statement.

Some signs point to evidence that Guitar Hero really has helped raise interest in musicianship. In October, Alex Rigopulos, CEO of Harmonix, which created Guitar Hero, told Next-Gen, "All of the evidence that we’ve received indicates that in fact the millions of hours that millions of people have spent playing Guitar Hero over the past couple of years translates into a huge surge in actual guitar study.

"We’ve heard from multiple guitar instructors that their business is actually booming because of Guitar Hero."

Since creating Guitar Hero, MTV Networks acquired Harmonix, which recently released the full-band performance sim Rock Band.

As part of the new NAMM campaign, there will be links between NAMM’s wannaplaymusic.com site, RedOctane.com and GuitarHero.com.

NAMM retailers nationwide will also host Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock kiosks, even sponsoring Guitar Hero competitions that offer prizes like musical instruments, lessons and “the honor of being crowned the local in-store Guitar Hero champion.”