Wii Music

Basics:
Wii music is one of those games that you really are either going to really love or really hate. I don't think anyone can honestly say the game is "alright", it's one extreme or the other.

The premise of the game is quite simple. You have a your wii mote nunchuck combination and you pick an instrument. You pick a song and performance area and then play. Now you could just waggle but you'll go "Wow, I bet this will sound real bad." And you're right. Simple waggling and do completely random actions will produce a bad sound and then people will know you have failed at Wii Music (can there be such a worse fate?). However, put some love in it, put some rhythm in it and play like you mean it and you'll get something that sounds great. Once you finish one part, select a new part with a new instrument (or the same, up to you) and created the next part. You'll have a melody part, a harmony part, chord, base, and two percussion.

You can use the minus button to turn sheet music on so you can see what notes you are "suppose" to play, but the game encourages you to think outside the box and add some flare to the game. You have a bunch of instruments to choose from, and you can have up 6 instruments playing. Don't worry about when you don't have 6 people, these muppet looking guys called "Tutes" will play the standard part while you work on whatever instruments you want. You can remove them (as well as any part) with the B button on the instrument selection.



The different instruments do a pretty good job at mimicking their real world counterparts. A guitar is played with the wii mote for strumming and the nunchuck for different sound effects. Moving the analogue stick up or down changes the pitch, the Z button is a chord and the C button stops it. If you hold down on the D-pad however, you start playing tremalo, so a maybe five quick strums for every one (it can get crazy).

Cellos and Violins are played like they would normally be. Longer bow strokes produce louder sounds and smaller bow strokes produce softer sounds. Different volumes make for a different effect, remember that.

I could go on and on, but the game is rather intuitive (unless your Game Informer or IGN, who I don't think know how to actually hold the Wii remote.)

So you play a song however you want, and when you're done you put make a CD jacket and save the video and store it into your library (which is distributed to your friends who also own the game through connect24).



Mini-Games:

There are some actual games in here though. Nothing really special, pitch matching and rhythm matching. However, the maestro mode which has you conduct an orchestra. This mini game however, seems like it would be creative, and it is, but points are assigned to how well you keep the beat. Basically, if you want to get a higher score try and follow the directions it gives you before yo start a song, if you want to experiment, you can, but it will cost points.

Another game-ish thing are the lessons. The lessons are more or less annoying if you are already experienced with music, but they teach style which is good for those who are maybe less experienced with "jamming". Unfortunately, it seems lessons are the only way to unlock a good amount of songs.


Depth:

This is something I'm not sure no one has tried and either Nintendo hasn't realized it or they're waiting for someone else to throw it at them, but, basically, you can create your own music. It's not exactly easy, in fact, music creation should never be easy so creating something that sounds good is quite a reward. Okay, so remember the minus button that brings up the notes, the one I told you about? Now don't push it. "But Xander, how are you suppose to play the song?" Exactly! You don't play the song you selected, you try and make your own, using the notes as the foundation. The game itself is less about notes and more about rhythm (the exact opposite of a game like guitar hero which is all about hitting notes while the rhythm aspect is done for you). For example, I took Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, took off all the Tutes and just set up me playing the drums. There's my base rhythm that I've established while completely ignoring what the game wanted. Then I do the same thing with a bass finally followed by the melody. If I so choose, I'll throw in the chord part and harmony. After about half an hour of experimenting and replaying parts multiple times, I get something that sounds decent and after some serious love, I get something that sounds good and original. This is simple the best part of the game. It's not a perfect system, but as more old high school music teacher use to say: "Keeping the rhythm is more important than playing the right notes" so even if the notes sound a little out of place, some quick thinking will put whatever song you are playing back on track.


Gripes

I do however I have some problems with game, as I do with most, none are perfect. The music selection (for when I do want to play some familiar tunes and add my own style to them) is quite limited to classical stuff and the mainstream stuff is stuff...you really don't want to change. I made some different versions of legend of zelda theme and those are the songs I want to mess with. Apparently Miymoto wanted 100 songs (he didn't actually spearhead this project, it's just his brainchild) but something happened I guess. Also, while the quality of the midi sounds are pretty top notch, often times drums are louder than the guitars, like way louder, now different stages have different acoustics, so sometimes the kind of song you want to play might have a factor in where you play it.

As of right now, I'm waiting for some homebrew hacks so people can start making their own custom songs (ones that at least be replicated when following the sheet music.) and once that's done then Wii Music will far surpass Guitar Hero and Rock Band in terms of music games in general.


Overall:

If you want to create music in a simple environment without spending tons of money on computer software or real instruments, wii music is the game for you. It's not Guitar Hero, it's not rock band, it's not Gears of War. If those are the games you would rather play for whatever reason, fine, but for everyone else, at least give this game a chance and really just experiment and see what you can do with it.