Wii Music is a bit of a strange one.  It’s not really a game as such, more of a gentle introduction to music.  It’s also something that most gamers will probably steer well clear of, being cuter than a whole bunch of kittens tied up with ribbon and having no real challenge.

What Wii Music does do is to let those with absolutely no musical talent play music.  It does this by using the Wii remote and Nunchuk to form various instruments from Guitars (nunchuk as the neck and Wiimote as the strings) to Drums (as you’d expect).  For the most part it does this successfully too. 

Much fun can be had when a bunch of people get together, choose an instrument and ‘jam’.  The Mii’s on the screen react to the music being played and the animated backgrounds bring the whole thing to life.  It’s great fun to watch the replays and then create your own CD cover to store the ‘video’.

Another nice touch is that these videos can be uploaded for your friends to watch, making use of the internet to show off your musical prowess (or lack of!).  It’s fairly easy to use and uses the tried and tested friends codes to connect to others.

Aside from jamming, Wii Music takes you through a set of lessons which explain musical notation, timing and pitch among other things.  It’s all entertaining enough until you realise that you’re playing the same song over and over to learn something new.

In addition to this, Mii Maestro lets you wave a virtual baton to conduct an orchestra. This works well but has limited replay value.  Handbell Harmony lets you ring bells and works like a rhythm action game and Pitch Perfect gets you to choose a Mii that matches the same pitch as the pitch meter in the middle of the screen.  This last game is the most annoying of the three as it doesn’t always make sense and gets far too difficult for younger children at times.

Add in a Drum Mode and Wii Music seems to have a lot going for it, but the main issue is that the fun doesn’t last very long before getting repetitive.   My 3 and 4 year old do like having the odd Jamming session, especially when I get involved too, but I soon found that their attention wavered after half an hour.

In the end Wii Music is a great little tool for kids to have fun pretending to play music, but just like those play guitars and the plastic drum kits in their toy box, it’s a short term thing.

6/10