I've said this before. Wii Music is the 'hardcore casual' game. It has all the makings of a regular casual Wii game. It's simplified, simple graphics, easy language and interface, not very many options and almost completely lacks the traditional rewards for getting better. At the same time it requires skill and dedication from the player. And what's more, it requires inspiration and some talent.

I bet it's really frustrating for any reviewer coming up against this game. Since it has all the casual signs it's easy to go into it with that mindset. Something easy that is mastered in about 5 minutes. And after playing for an hour it still sounds like shit. What do you do then? Stick it out and wait for the reward, or throw down the game in disgust? And what if the reward you were expecting never comes?

The Guitar Hero games do not make things better either. It's the reference point for all music games nowadays, even though it's in another genre entirely. So it's natural that reviewers feel Wii Music is lacking in Guitar Hero qualities, because that is what reviewers are expecting when playing Wii Music. Instead of seeing it as something new and unique they see it as an expanded version of the reference point.

Guitar Hero is about listening to the music while playing a game, while Wii Music is about playing music. If you are not interested in playing music, learning what music is about or how it works, but only want play a game, you will never enjoy Wii Music. It will be just that, a noisemaker for children. Then Guitar Hero is much better for you and you should keep to that (and not review this type of game).

But, shouldn't you review games even if you don't like the genre and style? Apparently not, says IGN after the Football Manager scandal a month or two back. So who should review Wii Music then? Well, we need a new kind of reviewer, or at least reviewers that actually try to understand the game they are about to play, what it sets out to do, what it actually accomplishes and what gamers want from it. Or we let the Football Manager reviews through, to make reviewscores a bit more balanced.

I am eating crow on the use in classrooms to teach music. I am curious how Wii Music is supposed to teach one music.

Uhm? Why? I thought it was kinda obvious. It teaches what types of instruments make what kinds of sounds together, it teaches you composition, it teaches you what signifies different styles of music, I think it even has a couple of lessons in music theory. But most of all, it shows you and guides you through how an idea can make music, and how the idea is actually the most important part of music. Without it, it's just noise.

EDIT: Actually, to be able to teach that is an insane achievement. Usually, you have to learn so much to get to that point. Learning an instrument (or how to write music) to get up to the level where you can start playing around with music in a creative way usually takes years. With Wii Music, it takes hours.

I heard there is a push to get it into classroom settings.  What you stated, which may be an accomplishment, sounds more like an introduction to music, and playing instruments.  Maybe it is of greater value than Guitar Heroes, but doesn't sound like something one wants to use to master music.  I guess it would be like Spanish Tutor I have.  Spanish Tutor does a mediocre job at teaching Spanish, but is good as an introduction.

One has to be concerned schools will turn to Wii Music as some sort of magic bullet to teach music.

More than a way to "teach" music, it allows creativity within the game, which I think is what makes it so appealing to me. Listen to the different ways they played Mute City, and imagine the possibilities, which are infinite, to play all of the songs on the disc.

That's the true benefit of Wii music, making one think about how they will approach creating the sounds.

Not just memorizing a series of buttons.

Magic bullet?  Of course not; any teacher who seriously thinks that has no business teaching.  I don't think educators are going to just put wiimotes in children's hands and say, "here, learn music."

Music is more than mere notes and technique and theory.  Joy, in my opinion, is the most important part of music.  In that regard, Wii Music has the potential to serve as a useful pedagogical tool to convey the joy of making music.

I would say that is an unfounded concern. Games have been used for teaching things for a long time, and I think that everyone knows that no game is a complete education. They are only tools that teachers can use to teach certain concepts and give students a different feeling of how things work (I'm thinking of Civilisation and Sim City here).

Thinking back on my own music education, I can honestly say that most of it was based on learning how to use instruments and training my ear in harmonics (not sure that's the word). Very little to no time was spent on learning about what music was, and how to create it for ourselves. This was a part that I actually found lacking, but it's very difficult to teach this to a person that has not mastered an instrument or knows music theory. THIS is the part where Wii Music can help, and the MAIN reason I'm interested in the game.

Of course Wii Music cannot give you a complete musical education. What it can teach you though is very, very important, and it's probably the best tool to teach those things. It takes away a lot of the distractions of making music so that you can focus on only that. Making music (and learning to waggle).

Used correctly it can be a powerful tool. Combined with traditional education, I believe it can speed things up, or at least make the goal a lot clearer.

For the most part, I don't think WiiMusic is suppose to be for 'Hardcore' gamers or suppose to 'teach' music to people. Miyamoto said this. Just as WiiFit isn't suppose to help you lose weight, WiiMusic is just to get people interested in music and to allow you to do something with different instruments you wouldn't be able to play without hours and hours of training otherwise.

Does that mean people will want to play it and it will take off? Not necessarily. I can play various instruments from Clarinet to Trumpet and was in Band for 5 years in School. But I find games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero to be huge gimmicks to allow people to 'feel' like they're playing Instruments in a game environment. In the same way, WiiMusic can feel like one of these games, but only if you let it. As WiiMusic doesn't encourage you to 'feel' like you're a rock star. Just imitates various instruments in a game like environment and wants you to experiment with them.

But do I advocate WiiMusic as a good game over Guitar Hero and Rock Band? Not really. Because in all ways, this experimentation gameplay of WiiMusic makes the game sort of bland and limited. Its not so much a game as an elevated tech demo. A Synthesizer with a Wiimote.

Wii Music - Free Form

Guitar Hero - Rhythm

Casual and hardcore has nothing to do with it, these are two entirely seperate genres.  Stating a preference for one over the other is like saying, "Quake is way better than Final Fantasy"