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At E3, the only way to sound good in Nintendo's new rhythm game was to already know the music.
The first time I picked up Wii Music it was a disorienting experience. Four little boxes started hopping in the lower right corner of the screen showing me the beats of a four count measure, but if I'd decided to do nothing, then my on-screen Mii wouldn't do a thing either. Decked out in the appropriate attire and backed by five other musicians (I'm told that up to four players can participate in the six-Mii band), my virtual Mii was in danger of experiencing virtual stage fright. I figured that at E3, a wrong note was better than no note at all, so I raised my Wii Remote to about mouth level and strummed the air madly.
I'm sure that I have no idea how a jaw harp is supposed to sound, or even how it's supposed to play harmony on "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." If there was a clarinet, I would've picked that: at least I had some training in that instrument. Alas, I couldn't locate one in the E3 demo though I wouldn't be surprised if the woodwind made its way into the game's promised 60 instrument ensemble.
So I waved the Wii Remote beside my cheek and pressed either the A or B buttons to change the sort of sound that resulted. Aside from that I had absolutely no direction. Unlike other music games, Wii Music gave me no notes to hit and no timing to follow. I would simply attempt to play a note on my end, and apparently the game would guesstimate the appropriate note, or filler note, on its end. I could play on the beat, off the beat, hold a note as long as I wanted (on some instruments), and the game would just supply a sound depending on my timing, what buttons I had pressed to modify the sound, and where all that might fit in the song.
This works pretty well for music that you know by heart. I played the "Super Mario Bros. Theme" as lead melody on the trumpet and my familiarity with the song allowed me to perform with more confidence. I could tell when my timing was correct, anticipate what sounds would come out of the game, and vary things up a little bit in the second half by opting not to play some of the signature sections and instead hold a first signature note over several measures. I also tried to play some notes in a syncopated, half-a-beat-off timing, but I don't think that came out sounding quite like I expected. Sometimes I tried pressing the A, B, 1, or 2 buttons to cause the game to change the sound a little bit, but there were some times when this seemed like the right thing to do musically, and many times it seemed very much the wrong thing to do. In order to deliver an ideal performance, I'd probably have to learn what each of the buttons does for the instrument. In limited playtime, they were effectively arbitrary.
Of course, the game doesn't score you or rate your performance. It doesn't instruct you, so it makes sense that it doesn't grade you. You'll have to be the judge of your own talent and make good use of the game's replay option, or the save-a-music-video option that I didn't find in the demo.
Unfortunately, all this "play" that happens when you know the music by heart is impossible if the music is completely alien. I selected the trumpet again and tried playing a classical piece I'd never heard before, Symphony no. 9 "From the New World" by Antonín Dvořák. (As I write this I'm looking it up on Youtube and I suspect that Wii Music had me playing the third movement.) The result was… an aimless muddling around, mashing of buttons, and lifting and lowering of the Wii Remote. The same freedom that let me have my way with the "Super Mario Bros. Theme" resulted in utter disorientation. I'd make sounds, but I didn't know if the sounds I was causing were correct or not. They didn't sound correct. I didn't know the timing, so even if I did hit some correct notes and recognized them, I wouldn't be able to follow up with whatever was supposed to happen next. Lost, I tried playing on the four-count beat provided by the game's only guiding interface, but the piece was far too complex for simply playing on the beat to yield anything remotely musical. Wii Music had provided me with musical liner notes which I read beforehand, but those didn't do me any good either. I simply didn't know the song, I couldn't play it, and the game wouldn't teach it to me.
The E3 demo was obviously limited – I couldn't find a clarinet, remember? – but what was there had no structure, no guidelines, and only emerged from a musical morass if you already knew how the song was meant to be played. It only sounded good if you knew exactly how off-tune pressing the buttons would make you sound. But whereas the Casio keyboard from my childhood memories had succeeded in guiding me through several performances of Greensleeves (a skill now sadly lost to time), Wii Music failed to teach me the music I'd need to know to improve my performance. That's why I'm on Youtube, listening to the third movement of Dvořák's New World Symphony.
Wii Music
Wii Music
Wii Music
