Settling the Score: A Requiem for Wii Music

On the morning May 9, 2006, the anxious chatter of an impatient crowd gave way to the lush tones of an orchestra tuning. It was the cross-fade of 3,000 voices falling in silence while strings, woodwinds, and brass all converged on a single note. It was a sound that had been repeated across the globe for centuries.

The conductor moved purposely across the stage, raising his hands in a powerful gesture before dropping into a deep bow for as long as the applause would sustain him. He rose once more, faced the screen, and lifted his Wii Remote.

This was Nintendo’s first live demonstration of Wii for the public.

The First Movement

Shigeru Miyamoto, in this moment, played his part perfectly, with light flicks of his ersatz baton building to full-body explosions of energy, an unstoppable grin spreading across his face. His digital orchestra, meanwhile…uh. Ummmm. Well, it’s a good thing Miaymoto was there to distract from their halting, uncooperative performance.

Wii Music was a part of Wii’s DNA from conception. Even before the E3 2006 press conference, the conducting demo had been featured prominently each time Nintendo attempted to convey the upcoming console’s appeal.

The most basic attraction of video games is one of cause and effect. “I spin this wheel. My paddle moves on the screen.” We want to interact with games because they react to our actions. Games give us control and feedback.

Nintendo’s aim was to shake up the way we think about control. The pitch was a world of possibilities heretofore never considered, which makes for a tough sell when you’re talking about a $250 box of consumer electronics. General audiences don’t have a consistent history of shelling out good money to every so-and-so who promises, “I dunno, maybe this thing could do unimaginable stuff someday, I guess.” A good pitch is digestible.

And so it was that four projects began: Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Wii Play, and Wii Music. Each would compile a set of thematically linked experiences that would serve both as a way to train players to understand this new frontier of video games and allow developers to experiment and explore the possibilities for themselves. The activities were not drawn from the far reaches of the imagination, but from the familiar. The focus was control.

I do this.

That happens.

I move my hand like a conductor. Music plays at the tempo I set.

I move my hand down sharply. I hear the crash of drumstick against a cymbal.

One! Two! Three! Four!

Wii Music is among Nintendo’s most fascinating experiments. It is at once brilliant and confounding; forward-looking and hopelessly backward; confident and timid. It’s a work of tremendous value, and one I’d hesitate to recommend to anyone.

So what is this thing? If Wii Sports, Fit, and Play were about bridging the capability of complex Wii hardware with familiar sports, exercises, and games, respectively, then Wii Music must be…what, some kind of Guitar Hero thing, maybe? I’ve found that to be the expectation each time I’ve roped someone in to join me for a jam session.

Jamming is the main attraction. Select a song, choose your part (harmony, melody, rhythm, etc.), select an instrument, and move your controller when you want to make a note. If you’re on a stringed instrument, move your hand like you’re strumming. For a piano, pretend to strike keys. Pressing buttons modifies the sound, but, no matter what you do, you’ll always play in the correct key for your song and part.

Five! Six?

Without fail, everyone asks the same question sooner or later: “What am I supposed to do?” We’ll return to that devilish word — supposed — in a moment. Let’s first talk about what you can do.

At it’s simplest, a player selects a song and an instrument, listens for the four-count, and then plays. And that’s Wii Music.

What do you play? When do you play?

No, no. You misunderstand.

The song begins, and you play.

Once again, my anecdotal observations of this process are nearly universal. New players, scrolling through the dozens of available instruments, often zip past conventional options and settle on something comically obnoxious like dog barks. They roll their eyes as their CPU-controlled band mates fall into a dutiful rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. The song is already underway and they still don’t know what to do. They shake the controller and maybe press buttons, and they’re rewarded with audio/visual feedback, so they do it again. By the end, everyone’s violently waving their arms in an unpleasant cacophony that matches the mood of the room.

“Wanna try another song?” I ask.

They do not.

Obviously, no one expects aggressive convulsions to be the intended solution to the scenario presented by Wii Music, and yet I’ve seen this repeated often enough to conclude that it’s no fluke. It might not be what the developers intended, but this mess is the path they created.

What, then, did they intend?

The Frontman

Our most complete look into Wii Music’s development comes courtesy of Nintendo’s own Iwata Asks feature, in which the company’s then president, the late Satoru Iwata, interviewed key personnel.

It’s here that we learn the simple conducting tech demo was the genesis of the entire project. From there, ideas for other minigames were conceived, but it’s clear there wasn’t a coherent vision for the complete package until much later. According to the interview, the team felt “lost for over a year.”

As Kazumi Totaka tells it, he was not involved with Wii Music during this lengthy period of fruitless floundering; he was simply working within the same department and had happened to catch some glimpses of the work in progress. One day, he was casually asked what he thought, and in his words, “I just came right out and said, ‘This is what I’d do!’” Just like that, he was made the director of the project.

Totaka will be familiar to any serious Nintendo enthusiast. He’s one of the company’s most senior composers, with credits on The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Luigi’s Mansion, and even the Wii Shop Channel. Animal Crossing fans know Totaka not only for that series’ iconic soundscape, but as the clear inspiration for K.K. Slider (Totakeke in Japan), the laid-back dog who will gladly strum a tune in any genre you ask. He’s even the original voice of Yoshi.

Oh, and you might have heard of this musical signature he likes to hide wherever he can…

Totaka has proven himself again and again to be a brilliant musician with versatility and personality to spare. But a video game director? This was a first for him. More than a decade on, it remains his only credit in that space.

Setting the Tone

Big game publishers tend to be risk averse. It’s tough to convince share-holders to sign off on millions of dollars for years of development without strong assurance they’ll see a return, especially if they’re fearful one misfire could sink a successful brand. For better or worse, Nintendo was willing to pin the Wii name on what amounted to outsider art.

Totaka was not on his own, of course. He was supported by experienced sub-directors who thoroughly understood the process of game development. His team was Nintendo EAD, inarguably one of the most accomplished groups in their field. Miaymoto was hands-on in his role as General Producer.

Ultimately, though, leadership fell to the musician. Wii Music’s distinguishing trait can be summed up with one note from Totaka:

“…when I started working on Wii Music, I hadn’t played many conventional music games, so I tried some out. When I was playing one of them, I was having fun, and decided to try to play one of the songs perfectly. I played flawlessly through the last note, and in triumph laid on an extra note at the end of the song. But when I looked at my score…it wasn’t perfect! … it said I’d done something I shouldn’t have. But isn’t adding a note in keeping with the music a good thing? So I wondered if we could make a game that would allow such embellishments, and came up with the design we have now, whereby you can play normal melodies or elaborate however you see fit.”

Just as Wii Sports had stripped away all the complications of tennis, making a difficult and taxing sport immediately accessible to anyone capable of flicking their wrist in time to clear cues, Wii Music would take the treble clefs, rental fees, and callouses out of performance. Rhythm games challenge you to follow the prescribed path. Wii Music would make you the trailblazer.

“What am I supposed to do?”

You’re supposed to play.

I want to play music. Music is played.

Let’s Start at the Very Beginning

I was born into a house with a Realistic Concertmate-360. We’re talking 32 keys, 100 sounds, and 19 rhythms at your fingertips and ready to generate all the grating noise a parent’s ears can stand and then some. There were no musicians in my family. It was just a toy we had.

It was probably another 20 years before I learned to play my first keyboard chord, but that lack of skill never stopped me from banging on any ivories I could find. I loved making music. And barring that, I loved making noise.

At age 11, I started playing cello with the school orchestra. At 14, I quit that and got my first guitar. I began writing terrible songs and started crummy little bands with my friends, and wouldn’t you know it, somewhere along the line I got sort of okay at it. Good, even. I pick up any instrument I can, creating hour after hour of unholy racket until, much to my surprise, one day I don’t.

Learning to play an instrument is not so different from learning to play a video game. Do this. That happens.

When I tap the A Button, Mario jumps. When I hold the B Button, Mario runs. When I combine the two, I can clear wide gaps.

When I strum the string, it produces a note. When I press my finger near a fret, the string bends. When I press and strum the string, I get a different note.

Trial and error produces results. I adjust. I try again. And then I wonder what will happen if I try this…

The Pitch

Sound fun? It is! Go pick up an instrument you don’t know. Trust me, you’re gonna have a blast.

Ooh, I should warn you, though—basic competency might take a few years.

That’s the fantasy Wii Music set out to sell: Play any instrument like a pro in minutes. More than that, you’ll be able to improvise — collaboratively, even — with nothing more than vague hand-waving and a basic sense of rhythm. In fact, forget the rhythm. Every choice is valid. Every note is always in the right key. Drop the anxiety, and just play.

With Guitar Hero, you can pretend to be a rock star. With Wii Music you can be a musician.

Where did it all go wrong?

Accompaniment

In order to thoroughly answer this question, I would need a qualified musical expert’s opinion. I turned to Dr. Laurie Betts Hughes.

Dr. Hughes is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer, conductor, choral director, and all-around font of knowledge. Her video game experience topped out sometime around Super Mario Land on Game Boy.

As we loaded the disc and Sebastian Tute, the in-game tutorial Muppet, began extolling the joys of music and promising endless possibilities ahead, Dr. Hughes’ excitement was immediately apparent. Tutes led her through a suite of instruments, and she’d grin with each discovery. “Ooh! Vibrato!”

But, just as quickly, the cracks began to show.

She mumbled questions to herself, wondering what she could and couldn’t control. Did her movements affect pitch? Volume? Anything? “Doesn’t sound like I think it shooooooould…” she said through gritted teeth.

Her kids, giddy at the prospect of watching their mom play a video game, went through a similar arc. Halfway through the tutorial, her seven year-old scooched up beside me on the couch and whispered what we were all thinking: “I have no idea what this is talking about.” Indeed, this pick-up-and-play toy is wordy.

With the basics finally out of the way and confronted by an unintuitive menu that does nothing to highlight any option as the primary mode, Dr. Hughes found her way to the conducting minigame. How would a professional conductor fare compared to a game developer dressed up in a tux? Not well, judging by the failing score she earned.

Perhaps she could have done better, though if she hadn’t been having so much fun playing. She began with full, authentic motions and perfect time-keeping. Just like Miyamoto on the Kodak Theater stage so long ago, the sound she produced was inconsistent. She sped up and slowed down, determined to smooth out the sound. Finally, she stopped altogether to take a breath and reassess…

…and in response, everyone lowered their instruments, took their eyes off their music stands and stared back in blank confusion.

“That is real!”

Curiously, these moments of unexpected verisimilitude provided the biggest highlights. Now hooked, Dr. Hughes was determined to try again and increase her score. I couldn’t help but notice that as she did, her movements became stiffer and less expressive. Within minutes, the beautiful, flowing conductor’s movements, earned through years of pulling a unified sound from dozens of individuals, gave way to robotic tapping. She took her eyes off the screen and tuned out the music, focusing entirely on the steady click of the Wii Remote’s speaker.

Her new score was higher.

I Go Crazy when I Hear a Cymbal

These days, my sights are set on learning to play the drums. I’m terrible! But I won’t always be.

My interest in learning to play can be traced directly to video games. Sure, given enough time listening to music, attending concerts, and bouncing from instrument to instrument would have led me to percussion eventually, but the processes was accelerated in 2003 with Donkey Konga for Nintendo GameCube.

Many rhythm game fans dismissed Donkey Konga as overly simple. For me, it was perfect. The only inputs possible are to slap the left bongo, slap the right, hit both simultaneously, or clap (picked up by a small microphone).

From there, I began hearing music differently. I suddenly noticed rhythm in a way I hadn’t before, and my hands had the independent coordination to tap along. Running out to buy a full drum kit or take lessons didn’t cross my mind, but the interest in drumming had been sparked.

When I did finally buy my own drums, I didn’t get a big, expensive, infuriate-the-roommates set. I got secondhand Rock Band drums and rigged them to work with my computer. I developed my basic muscle memory and understanding with the Rock Band games before easing off the training wheels.

Video games have always been part of my relationship to music. I got enthusiastic about the cello when I discovered I could make some approximation of the Gourmet Race theme from Kirby Super Star come out of it. I was never going to play electric guitar and not figure out the riff from Final Fantasy VII’s boss theme. The primitive synth sound of the keyboard encouraged my fingers to stumble their way toward the Spy Hunter theme (which, of course, paved the way toward an eventual love for the work of Henry Mancini — the track from games to music to arts of all kind and back again is unceasing).

Crescendo

As I see it, Wii Music’s strengths come down to three concepts: Play. Discovery. Trust.

It isn’t about play in the typical video game sense. This is less structured. The goal isn’t to survive to the end. The act, itself, is the reward.

Discovery comes from exploring the limits of the tools. What is the effect of your actions? What surprises await? What option is locked behind that question mark on the menu? The promise of something more is what draws players forward.

And it’s trust that makes the Wii series special. Think about doing a push-up in Wii Fit. You can put on your tank top and do push-ups with perfect form to build your score, or you can sit in a chair with your feet lazily resting on the Wii Balance Board, shifting your weight to trick the game. You can make full tennis swings in Wii Sports, or you can curl up on the couch and bend your wrist. The software makes no attempt to police you. Want to cheat? Then cheat.

I’ve mentioned that performance in minigames is evaluated and scored. The main mode is also scored, but not how you might think. At the end of a song, you’re asked to grade yourself, 0–100. No other information; no criteria.

To my knowledge, this score doesn’t affect anything. Perfect scores won’t unlock rewards. It’s a question just for you, with the trust that you will be honest. An algorithm isn’t going to shower you with praise. Are you getting better or not? You tell me.

Decrescendo

As I see it, Wii Music’s weaknesses come down to three concepts: Play. Discovery. Trust.

For all the promise of unrestricted play, there sure is a lot to learn. Just like real music lessons start with Hot Cross Buns long before moving on to heavy metal solos, it is necessary for Wii Music to present basic concepts before the fun starts. Throw someone into the deep end; get chaos. Walk them through the full tutorial; get boredom. So much for pick up and play.

The most fundamental discovery should be tied to the most basic action and reaction. I shake the Wii Remote. I hear a note. Except…sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you get two notes when you expected one.

And that brings us to trust. When I play my drums poorly, I trust that I can get better because I have heard what it sounds like for drums to be played well. When I run into a Goomba, I try again because I trust that Super Mario Bros. has been designed in a way that all its challenges can be overcome. When I watch a professional conductor fail to keep a steady tempo, and I see the same errors in a carefully rehearsed performance by Shigeru Miyamoto, I reach for the Power Button because I no longer trust that I can get better.

Coda

“I’ve always hoped this game would serve as the starting point for new encounters with music. I think there’s a connection between the fun I have playing this game and the enjoyment I get out of playing a real musical instrument, so I’m not exaggerating when I say Wii Music could lead you to take up a real musical instrument. I sincerely hope people who have given up on music or think they’re not the type to play an instrument will play this game. You know how when you were a little kid and you saw a musical instrument you’d bang on it or randomly blow through it? I hope this game reawakens that desire in you.”

— Kazumi Totaka

Iwata Asks interviews were typically timed to promote a game’s release. Wii Music, however, got a second interview following its lukewarm reception.

I get the sense Iwata and the development team really did believe in what they made. Miyamoto describes traveling to the United States and Europe while promoting Wii Music:

“As I was getting on and off planes, catching taxis and walking around, I heard the local music wherever I went, and I could feel the regional differences in the music. Even in genres I’d never been interested in before, I could hear the individual parts for some reason. Even when I heard a song that I knew, I would think, ‘Is this how it was arranged?’ I’ve always been interested in music, but I’d never noticed such fine details before. I was astounded by this. It was as if my ears had changed.”

In between lamenting that they don’t know how to explain the game’s appeal, this subject — an enhanced appreciation for music — gets several mentions.

Wii Fit didn’t make me a bodybuilder, but it did make me aware of my physical self. I notice my balance and breathing. I consider my form when exercising. I exercise. I haven’t logged into Wii Fit in years, but I still live with it daily. It inspired an interest and an awareness that are a part of me.

I throw a Frisbee straighter than I did before Wii Sports Resort. I hold my own in ping-pong. I’m not ready for skydiving, but you know what? Sometimes I canoe.

Encore

As we finish a rendition of Daydream Believer so arrhythmic even Davy Jones would find the time to put us down, Dr. Hughes turns to me. “You get feedback from a bad note,” she says. “A bad note tells you what to fix.”

But there are no bad notes in our song. Everything is in key. And we are unsatisfied.

The grand promise of Wii always mattered more than the limitations of the console. It found success in the bridging of old and new, experimental and intuitive, universal and unique, and it was based on showing us what we all wanted to try for ourselves. Yes, you could could replace those frivolous tennis swings with a button press, but how many college dorms, nursing homes, and family rooms would have needed that? Nintendo’s lateral thinking and showmanship elevated something simple into something that touched the world.

Wii Music promised easy performance, but it isn’t easy, and it isn’t rewarding. It’s timid. It’s so scared that we might fail that it never lets us succeed.

When I fall short, and I know I can do better, I try again.

I do this. That happens.

I try again.

Wii Music is a failure as an entertainment product, and yet it holds a promise not found in any software since. Beneath the issues with functionality and presentation is an invitation to play, to discover a passion for music, and to trust that your best is still ahead of you.

Wii Music is not a bad song. It just hit some bad notes.

That’s feedback.

Jake Spencer likes overthinking. You can listen to him talk about the joy of sadness on Of Horse: A BoJack Horseman Fan Cast. He wishes he knew the way out of Twitter. His hobbies include writing bio paragraphs in third person and not knowing when to stop. Two sentences ago, right?