The major difference between Wii Music and other music games on the market is that Wii Music allows players to participate regardless of their musical or gaming experience. Players can quite simply pick up the Wii Remote and start playing 50 tracks with over 60 instruments.

The concept is simple, choose which instrument you want to play, whether it be the electric guitar, trumpet or even the marimba, and move the Wii Remote and Nunchuk as if you were playing the real instrument. Hold the Nunchuk in your left hand and strum with the Wii Remote in your right hand if you are playing the guitar, lift the Wii Remote to your mouth and push the ‘1’ and ‘2’ button to play the sax or tickle the ivories by lightly alternating between the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. Although you need no experience with the instruments, it remains intuitive as you soulfully strum the guitar or bellow out a classic on the sax as you would in real life.

The main section of the game is aptly called Jam. Jam is divided into Improvise, Quick Play and Custom Jam and sees players jamming as part of a six member band. If you are serious about learning different playing styles you can rehearse them in Improvise while Quick Play creates a random performance and Custom Play allows players to customize the musical style, instruments and even where to play.

My Mii band was jiving to the beats of Wham’s ‘Wake me up, before you go go!’ and Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ before the night was over. What makes the experience more fun is that you can add beats to the existing tune, letting the creative juices flow will lead to great improvisations and more competition between you and the other players. Adding an extra ‘wicky wow’ to jazz it up is surprisingly rewarding!

Those creative beans among you will be happy to know that you can save your song as a video clip and even personalize it with a record sleeve and share your success thanks to WiiConnect24. You can also engage in the various tutorials offered in the game to help you on your path to becoming a maestro. The Pitch Perfect music quiz is perfect for players who enjoy the challenging tasks such as sorting notes by pitch or identifying matching sounds.

The good news is that Wii Music is yet another game that makes use of the Wii Balance Board. Simply place the Balance Board on the floor in front of you for foot pedals and use the Wii Remote and Nunchuk as drumsticks. 15 drumming lessons will ensure that before long you will be hitting the hi-hats, snares and cymbals on the virtual drum kit like a pro.

Never thought you’d get the chance to conduct an orchestra? Well, now you can not only conduct an orchestra through various classics but control how they play the song. I started simply with ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,’ (Rome wasn’t built in a day after all) and worked my way up to raising the roof with the theme tune to ‘The Legend of Zelda.’ Hold the Wii Remote in your right hand as the baton, raise it to cue the orchestra and then tap them with a countdown to start the tune. Again you can control how the song is played, you can choose to try and play the song as close as possible to what it traditionally sounds like or you can change it subtly.

If you raise your baton, the orchestra will hold the note. You can hold that note for longer should you wish but prepare yourself for a few nasty little stares from the Mii orchestra who don’t forget are holding their breaths in an attempt to deliver your musical masterpiece. If you wave your baton softly the orchestra will play more softly and slowly but if you wave it more quickly they will speed up and get louder. You can also push the ‘B’ button to make a bit of a louder finale but after a couple of these the Mii orchestra will start breaking a sweat so keep an eye out for the little guys won’t you.

Although you do get allocated a score at the end of the musical piece, there is no right or wrong way to play the tune so you can improvise by playing the song faster, slower or even add an extra beat or skip a few beats. Above all this makes Wii Music fun and the variety makes sure it keeps on entertaining you long after you have mastered one particular instrument.

To end I believe the creator of the game, Shigeru Miyamoto, summed up what the game is all about in these words: “Why shouldn’t people who like music, but find playing instruments difficult, be able to perform music just by letting their feelings take control and simply waving the controller and pushing a few buttons to the rhythm? With this goal in mind we created Wii Music, which is not quite a game and not quite an instrument, I hope that as people play, they will truly understand the joy of performing and develop a greater passion for music.”

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