Everyone loves music; it’s an undeniably inherent trait in each of us. It should be no surprise that even among the general population around us, just about anyone can find some fun in music video games. Many of those games include popular songs that are familiar favorites, and that alone is enough to draw a player into the game, regardless of whether or not they can actually play the game.

Wii Music, however, is built on a different philosophy, and one new to music video games. It’s such a radical departure from existing music video games that I’m sure many of you watched the videos and heard the hands-on impressions from the E3 unveiling and immediately wrote the game off. To be completely honest, I did, too. As a soon-to-be music educator, I had been hoping for another music game that could potentially be used to make learning about music fun for people. At E3, I was introduced what seemed to turn music-making into a dumbed down waggle-fest for the casual crowd, and I was convinced that this game wasn’t going to be a big title for me this year. I was completely wrong.

First things first, let’s get one thing straight: this isn’t Nintendo’s version of Guitar Hero or Rock Band. It’s not even their version of Elite Beat Agents (which Nintendo even published!) with added motion control. No, those are all music games based purely on the accuracy of rhythm. In fact, because of the visual cues that help you anticipate hits in Guitar Hero or Elite Beat Agents, you could theoretically play the game with the sound off and still score 100%. The music is simply there to make it easier to play. What Wii Music does is throw that blueprint for a music game out the window, and embrace the core of music education: the game enables players to gain an understanding of musical styles and experience the art of creating and reacting to music. If Guitar Hero is like giving sheet music to a MIDI player, Wii Music is like handing someone an instrument and shoving them to the front of a live jazz band. It’s no longer about getting all the notes right according to someone else’s design, but being able to understand and feel the music that’s being heard and injecting a little bit of yourself into that creation.

The first thing you’ll notice with Wii Music is that it’s very simple in terms of layout. You’ll begin the game with a quick tutorial on four basic control schemes (that mimic a piano, a guitar, a trumpet, and a violin), instructed by a Mii named Sebastian Tute, who looks and sounds like a Muppet while resembling Mozart. Or J.C. Bach. Or Haydn. With a mustache. He’ll show you how to follow the dancing metronome (known as the “Be-Bops”) and play along a the melody on piano. From there, you’ll learn that you can shake to your own, non-standard rhythms, and the game will automatically pick an appropriate note to play. Basically, you’re free to improvise any and all parts. After the tutorial, you’ll get to record your first performance of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” be shown how to save the performance as a music video, and then be let loose to the rest of the game.

You’ll be spending most of your “play” time in Jam Mode. Here, you’ll be able to try out the game’s fifty songs and over sixty instruments (once they’re all easily unlocked, of course). The Instrument Improv mode lets you easily browse through the instruments you’ve unlocked, review how to play them, and try them all out. Band geeks such as myself may be disappointed at the lack of trombone, French horn, oboe, and bassoon, but that’s just the trade off for getting awesome instruments such as a cat suit, rapper, and a cheerleader. There are a wide variety of instruments to choose from, and they’re not restricted to the four control schemes you’re taught initially, so don’t be afraid to try them all out.

When you’re ready to jump in and start making music, you’ll start a Jam Session. There’s the Quick Jam option for those who just want to get playing and don’t mind what song, instrument, or part they’re performing. Nine times out of ten, though, you’ll go into a Custom Jam. You’ll be able to choose your song out of a selection of classical, traditional, popular, and game songs. From there, you’ll decide who will play melody, harmony, bass, and percussion, you’ll choose your style (such as playing “Twinkle, Twinkle” as a march or jazz arrangement), and you’ll get playing.

As I said before, the game puts more emphasis on creativity rather than accuracy. You can opt to view basic sheet music as you play by pressing the (-) button, especially if you’re not yet familiar with the original tune. Eventually, though, you’re going to want to use merely the Be-Bops and the band behind you as your guides while you improvise and play each part, based on your knowledge of the song and the styles you learn in the Jam Mastery Lessons you take elsewhere in the game. It’s really about having fun and creating your own unique recording of a song and not about how well you play. In fact, you aren’t even given a score or grade by the game like you would be in other music games. In Wii Music, you give yourself a score, and its merely for organizational purposes when you save and browse through your music videos. It’s an appropriate system for the game because once you’ve scored 100% on songs in games like Guitar Hero or gotten perfects in Dance Dance Revolution, there’s little replay value aside from the need to show off. With an improv-based game such as Wii Music, you have endless replay value, just as you have an infinite number of ways to perform a jazz chart. That system works here.

One of the fun features in the Jam Sessions is the ability to record yourself playing one part – such as the drum track or the melody line – and then play another part while overdubbing your previous recording. You can potentially record yourself playing up to all six parts to a song, save it to a music video, and hear an entire ensemble made up of just you. It doesn’t have to be all you, though. You can overdub parts with your friends in the room, or send your music video to a friend via WiiConnect24 for them to overdub a part or parts and send back to you. The collaborative creativity unique to Wii Music opens up a whole new door for music games and begins to blur the line between games and, say, two jazz soloists “trading 4s.”

Aside from the Jam Modes, there are several other modes that define what this game’s all about. You can take Jam Mastery Lessons to learn about different musical styles from rock to jazz to Latin to electronic. You can play and record all the songs in any style of your choosing, so these lessons are where you’re taught the difference of how to play a rock drum beat versus a pop or march drum beat, how to play a walking bassline as opposed to a power bass line… all that jazz. For those that want to develop some aural skills and do a little ear training and some listening exercises, there’s a timed challenge mode called Pitch Perfect that serves to test your musical ear.

Other modes that might appeal to select groups are Mii Maestro, Handbell Harmony, and Drum Mode. Mii Maestro is the conducting mini-game we’ve been expecting since Iwata revealed the Revolution controller trailer back in 2005. It’s limited to a mere five songs, and you are in fact graded on the steadiness of your conducting pattern as well as your musical use of accents and rubato. If you don’t know how to conduct, that’s okay – the game is more concerned that you can give a consistent flick, or “ictus,” rather than whether or not you know what a “four pattern” is. As for Handbell Harmony, it’s the one mode that’s about as close to Rock Band as this game is going to get. You again have a limited choice of songs to play, but up to four players can control two bells each, sounding their bells as the icons pass along the screen in typical fashion. Finally, Drum Mode is another single-player mode that simply serves as an added bonus for those with the Wii Balance Board. You can play the same variety of drum sets as before, now with the hi-hat and bass drum pedals mapped to your feet on the Balance Board. It doesn’t emulate a set nearly as well as the games with pedals do, but it’s a nice addition to an otherwise wrist-oriented game.

Of course, as both a music educator and game reviewer, there are several aspects of this game that could have easily been improved. My first issue was with the game’s navigational system. Often times, there would be no way to simply go back in a menu system other than to go back to the main screen. Also, once you finished certain Jam modes, there was no direct way to quit, forcing you to either save a Jam video or navigate your way through the “Change Instruments” screen to make your exodus. Another issue included the selection of songs for the game, most of which fall into either the “owned by Nintendo” category or the “public domain, and therefore free to Nintendo” category. Fifty songs may sound like a lot, but neither a gamer nor a music teacher will find much excitement when half of them are songs like “The Flea Waltz” and “Oh, My Darling Clementine.” Aside from that, my final issues with the game lie in the instrument controls. Lumping cello playing with violin controls (when they are in fact inverted), restricting guitar and bass playing to downstrokes-only unless certain buttons are held down, the lack of trombone, and sound production on the violin caused by finger tapping rather than the stroke of the bow are all pedantic control scheme issues that only music enthusiasts would lose sleep over, but if you’re going to create a complete control scheme for several single instruments such as a DJ Turntable, surely a cello or trombone should be no problem.

Nevertheless, Wii Music should be considered a success. It is the first major music video game of its kind to embrace such creative freedom all while attempting to advance the education of music among the general public. Gamers looking for Rock Band: Mario Mix may have to keep on waiting, but eager musicians looking to learn about musical style, develop their ears, and get a feel for what it’s like to hear music and be able to do a little improv here and there have a good reason to be excited. As a music educator, this is a game I wouldn’t mind recommending to my students. Wii Music may not be a deep game, but it has convincingly shown us a brand new path for future music games.

The Tanooki Rating – 7.9