With games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band dominating the music and rhythm genre, Wii Music serves as a potentially refreshing alternative that removes the emphasis on scores and places it on creativity. You may randomly stumble across some truly fun moments in Wii Music, but most of its potential has gone unreached, as the game lacks a decent soundtrack, creative control, and overall depth. Like Wii Fit before it, Wii Music serves better as an introduction to its subject matter, rather than a fully-fledged game.

While the primary focus of Wii Music is to use the Wiimote and Nunchuk to simulate many different instruments, there are only four different methods of control: drum, guitar, trumpet, and violin. Drum controls, which are used for the numerous percussion and keyboard instruments, require the player to swing both the Wiimote and Nunchuk up and down to play notes. There is also the option to use a full virtual drum set with the Wii Balance Board serving as the bass and hi-hat pedals. The problem is that the controls aren't as well executed as they should be. Instead of hitting different areas that correspond to the appropriate drums, you must hold different buttons while striking in the air to achieve the same effect. This results in an overly complicated and unnatural drumming experience.

In the occasional instances when everything comes together, Wii Music can be quite fun.

The guitar movements encourage the player to hold the Nunchuk outwards like the neck of a guitar, but this only affects how the player's Mii holds the instrument on-screen. Swinging the Wiimote downwards will strum the guitar, while upward strokes only register when holding down on the d-pad. This method of control is awkward at times, and as a result, can prove difficult to execute precise strumming. The violin controls are also complicated: notes are hit by pressing buttons while the volume is determined by how quickly you move the Wiimote, which acts as your bow. The trumpet control scheme is the simplest, since you only use the Wiimote by itself. Holding it backwards, you can play notes on the various horn instruments by pressing the 1 and 2 buttons with your thumbs.

The four control types, minus the full drum set, come together with sixty-seven instruments to potentially form music. Your basic concert instruments like harps and tubas are present, as well as more contemporary options like electric guitars and rock drums. Additionally, there are more fantastical instruments like the galactic horns that are included alongside bizarre offerings like dogs, cheerleaders, and black belts. These instruments can be used by one or more of the six different parts of an arrangement, which consist of melody, harmony, chord, bass, and two percussion parts.

To get a feel for the instruments, you can improvise with the Tutes, a family of tiny musicians who guide you through the game's lessons; which are wordy and not very informative. The majority of Wii Music is played in Custom Jam Mode, where you arrange and record covers of an eclectic, though rather boring, list of songs (such as "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" or more modern tracks like "Wake Me Up Before you Go-Go"). A few tunes from Nintendo games are thrown in for fans, but they're not a saving grace from Wii Music's boring song assortment or the underwhelming MIDI sounds produced by the instruments.

The in-game lessons encourage you to create your own interpretation of the provided songs, and the true fun of Wii Music comes from working around their limitations. After you select the music you want to perform, you'll choose a venue to record a music video. Shortly thereafter, you'll begin piecing together the arrangement by choosing a musical style. Doing so will change the instrumentation or remove parts entirely. You can specifically choose what you'd like to play and then assign Miis to fill in any number of other roles.

While playing, you can press the minus button to bring up a flow guide which indicates where you should play if you're trying to go along with a song. This usually results in a nice sound, but you're encouraged to fill in the gaps with improvisations. For the best effect, you should only use the flow guide to see what parts are ahead in the song, as there's a good bit of fun to be had in creating your own rhythms and melody. You might be surprised at the varying and interesting results you can achieve when you don't stick to the guide for a song. Unfortunately, it's hard to stray from the provided drum beats since majority of the instruments will produce entirely different sounds depending on when you strike your imaginary drum.

Considering how much focus Wii Music puts on making videos, it's surprising that you have no options to edit the video itself. The positions your Mii musicians perform in are determined by the order in which you record. If you want to edit a part or change a Mii's position, you'll have to play the entire section again. The final video will use a random assortment of your Miis as extras walking around and enjoying the music. You have no control over the camera angles, so you'll occasionally end up with videos that focus on resting band members while another is playing a solo. When you're finished recording, you'll be asked to rate your performance on a scale of one to a hundred. This serves no real purpose other than to quickly go through your archive of videos and see which ones you thought turned out okay. You'll find more traditional scoring in Wii Music's mini-games.

Speaking of which, there are quite a few them included in the package. The Mii Maestro mini-game has you conducting a group of your Miis as they perform various orchestral songs. The faster you conduct, the faster they play and the harder you conduct, the louder they play. When finishing a song in this mode, you're given a score, but it's not evident how the game rates your performance, which is a little annoying. Handbell Harmony is similar to more traditional music games where the notes scroll horizontally across the screen. Each player holds two colored bells and must only play when their bell passes by an on-screen marker. The third, and deepest game, is Pitch Perfect. It has players dragging and dropping Miis to answer different music related questions ranging from "who has the higher pitch?" to "which three Miis produce the chord provided?" The higher difficulties of this mode can be very challenging depending on how good your musical ear is.

Your Miis are used to their full effect in this title.

Wii Music's multiplayer experience entails all of the same gameplay as the single player modes except for the drum set. Since the majority of the game's fun comes from performing covers as creatively as possible, playing with other people can remove some of the enjoyment if everyone is just doing whatever they please. The mini-games are a better alternative if you're looking for a decent multiplayer option.

As part of the "Wii" series of games, most everything utilizes your Miis in one way or another. The graphics work well with Wii Music, but oddly, the music does not. While there's a certain charm to the MIDI sounds, they are generally low in quality and often grating to listen to. However, the greatest downfall of Wii Music is its substandard soundtrack. It's hard to get excited about unlocking new songs when most of them only appeal to toddlers or people older than most traditional gamers. It seems evident that the track list was primarily designed to be played with parents and their children.

Deciding whether or not to check out Wii Music isn't easy. On one hand, it's a unique take on a familiar genre that must be experienced to be truly understood. On the other hand, the title's lasting appeal is virtually non-existent, and the often awkward controls can hamper the experience. Ultimately, the longevity of the game depends on how much fun you can derive from improvising with a lackluster soundtrack. If you have an interest in the music provided and don't mind participating in what amounts to a MIDI synthesizer with motion interaction, then Wii Music could be worth a try.