Wii Music hits a sour note

Author's Rating:

Pros: Better for younger children to expose them to music and rhythm.

Cons: Very limited song selection limits the amount of play.

The Bottom Line: 
I would recommend renting this game to try it out before buying it.

Author's Review
Wii Music was introduced as a game where you could play lots of musical instruments creating your own music and creative beats and sounds. The game offers many opportunities to play different instruments from the basic drum, guitar, and piano, to the more absurd a nintendo phone (an old school nintendo remote attached to a horn), and a dog costume (barking out the notes of the song).
The creative variety of music is matched poorly with a weak variety of activities and songs.

Another annoying feature are the tutes that are supposed to be musical tutors. The lead tute is a guy that resembles a muppet and makes an awful sounding rikki-tikki-tocky noise as he scripts the instructions to the game. He reminds me a bit of the Swedish chef. The additional tutes join in with you on songs that you perform. The music doesn't always match what you are experimenting with which can make it sound a bit strange.

Games:
Handbells
Music Maestro
Pitch Perfect

The three games that were offered on Wii Music were the best feature of the game but they lacked one quality amount of change and options. You are given a very limited amount of song selection so unless you want to play the game with the same songs it gets a bit boring.

Handbells-This was one of my favorite games on the Wii Music. You are given two colored handbells and you use the nunchuk and the wii remote to play the game. As the colored bells scroll across the screen you move the nunchuk and remote accordingly based on the colored bell that you have. You can increase the difficulty and speed of the song and you can also change the color of your bells to play a different portion of the song. The downfall with this song was a very limited playlist of songs. You have five handbell songs to play and that was it. I would have loved to have played many more handbell songs as I found this to be the most enjoyable part of the game.

Maestro-If you have ever dreamed of conducting your own symphony than this is your chance to try it out. A symphony of Mii characters are ready to play under your leadership. You lift up your Wii remote and follow the beat to lead the symphony through several classical favorites such as Ode to Joy. You can play with multiple players to see how well you stick together or play on your own. This game is ok, more entertaining to watch the symphony than to actually conduct. We got a kick out of seeing our Mii friends singing and playing instruments feverishly. The scoring doesn't seem to match up and even when you are on the same beat playing with more than one person is challenging.

Pitch Perfect-This game is a test of your hearing and musical ability. You start at Level 1 and continue up to Level 10. Each level gets progressively harder but always asks the same task of you. The game has you identify which musicians are playing the same pitch, which musicians are playing the same harmony, which musician is not playing the song correctly, and what order from low to high are the pitches. This game is pretty good but when you play with multiple players it seems like the same person does the same task each time. So if you want to do all the activities do it on your own.

Overall Impression:
I will give the Wii Music the benefit of the doubt as they did market this game for a younger audience but they did show their ads with many adults, especially big name musicians, using the product. I would say that the age range for this game would be 8 and up. If you can tolerate hearing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star until your ears bleed then go for it. Your kids will enjoy the variety of instruments and the games are fun and appropriate for children. If you are an adult I recommend renting the game and enjoying it until you can't stand it anymore. If you want to be a musician I recommend Guitar Hero and Rock Band. If you want to expose your child to music and rhythm than this is a good experience.