Wii Music Hands-On

Maybe it's the part-time musician in us, but something about the Wii Music demo at this year's Nintendo E3 press conference rubbed us the wrong way. Perhaps it was the relatively brazen suggestion from presenters that, even if you haven't spent a good chunk of your life slaving over your instrument, learning how to read music, building up your calluses, and basically putting up with endless frustration in order to learn how to play music, you could still make music using basic hand motions in a video game. Or maybe we were just in a bad mood that day, because we spent a good chunk of last Thursday checking out Wii Music at the Fall Nintendo press summit and came away feeling much better about the game.

What caught our eye this time? Well, you can start with the surprising amount of depth to the game. The virtual drum set, which had a pretty ugly onstage debut at E3, is actually quite playable, even if a bit awkward at the start. While you do flail your arms about to mimic hitting the drums (along with your feet for the bass drum and high hat), you switch between individual drum sounds with the various buttons on the Wii Remote and Nunchuk controllers. For instance, to do a standard drum fill on the three toms, you have to move the thumbstick to different positions while moving your arms. Provided you're accurate with your button choices and have a good sense of rhythm, you can keep a pretty steady beat. The game will include a drum trainer that will take you from the basics of choosing different drum sounds up to more advanced tasks like putting beats together.

That same hand-holding system extends out to the other 60 or so instruments that will be playable in Wii Music. The game will have tutorials to teach you the basics of playing each instrument--though it should be noted that basic movements are grouped by instrument type. Therefore, there's no difference between playing a bass guitar, a ukulele, and an acoustic guitar (all guitar instruments, naturally), just like the controls for drums, marimba, and piano (yes, all percussion instruments) are just alike.

In our time with the game, we got to try out several different instruments, including bass guitar, stand-up bass, accordion, beat boxing, and karate guy. What, you don't think karate is a musical instrument? Well, normally neither do we, but in Wii Music, a strange-looking Mii shrieks while punching, kicking, and leg-sweeping with each movement of the controllers. Surprisingly, it's not that hard to be musical with your kiyais, especially when rocking out to an up-tempo version of Madonna's "Material Girl."

Before you launch into your epic jam based on one of the 50 songs included in the game, you'll need to choose your band lineup. Each of the instruments you can play in Wii Music can be placed in one of six categories--two percussion slots, bass, melody, harmony, and chords. You aren't required to have six players in a band and you can remove instruments as you wish. Once you're happy with the lineup, you can choose the style and tempo of the song you wish to play. Styles run the gamut from the default style to rock, Japanese, reggae, tango, and lots more.

With the song, style, and band chosen, it's time to kick out the jams. Once the song begins, it's simply a matter of jamming away on your chosen instrument. You can follow the tune's melody if you want, or improvise your own tune based on the appropriate scale and chord at any section of a song. For instance, when playing the bass, we were able to hold the A button to sustain a single note, then rapidly strum up and down to get a funky, sixteenth-note effect. We could also choose between muted or normal note lengths by pressing (or letting go of) the C button. On the accordion, playing different notes was as simple as holding the Wii Remote out in front of us, then alternating between the 1 and 2 buttons to change notes. We could also add tremolo and vibrato effects with the other buttons on the Wii Remote.

After you finish a performance of a tune, you can save it as a video, which you can rate on a scale of 100 (the game will keep track of your top 10 favorite videos) or share it with your friends online. After designing your album cover, including importing your Miis onto the album art, you can send your video to your friends, who can then watch it and rerecord certain parts if they feel so inclined. The effect is a seemingly never-ending stream of musical sharing that ends only when you move on to another tune and start over again.

No, Wii Music is not going to turn you into a Julliard-ready savant, but it might just give you a better understanding of how different aspects of music conspire to form a hummable tune. In addition to the aforementioned jam sessions, the game will also come with a pitch-detection quiz mode, a conducting minigame that was shown off a few years ago at E3, and more. Budding musicologists, take note: Wii Music is scheduled for arrival in late October.