I felt a bit like Maris Janssons yesterday.
He is the Latvian conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.
Gramaphone declared it the best Orchestra in the world this week.

So this was a good thing.
I was waving my Wiimote.
And the orchestra played Carmen, the great Opera by Georges Bizet
My wife Celine played the Violin. Osama some horn and Zardoz did a bit of percussion.
I got 68 points, and was very happy.

Classical music sounds quite good in the Midi Nintendo chose.
Pop songs less.
But Midi makes the game flexible, allowing for all those instruments.

I say game, but i'm not sure of it.
It has three mini games: the aforementioned Orchestra, a standard rhytm game with cowbells, albeit with few songs and a Wiiplay-like quiz, making you choose Mii's with the right pitch, or putting them in the right order, which makes good fun.

But the main thing is just jamming.
While real artists frown upon Guitar Hero,
You have far more control there over a single instrument than in Wii Music.

The variety here, makes it fun though, and also the arrangements to make different songs of the same basics,
And playing all the different parts in a row.
One person on the flute, and one on the drums is excellent fun.
In a very different way than Rockband.
The drums by themselves are special too, as you use the Wii Fit boards as foot pedals.



Other good things: The first Wii game i have seem without a seperate friends list
Which i noticed when one of the world famous Pickford Bros appeared in my list.
Still, you can only send them videos.
Mii integration is as allways wonderful, Having a band full of people you know makes it a bit more fun

Bad things: You're not that much in control, I would love more Guitar Hero like stuff.
The music sounds rather bad, and the selection is very limited.
Surely Nintendo, with all that DS money, you could have licensed some songs.

A conclusion is hard to draw, and probably depending on your expectations.
If you're expecting Guitar Hero with Mii's you are going to be dissapointed.
If you're want to have some fun with friends making a song together, and actually learning a few things about music too, you're going to like it.
If you always wanted to direct a big orchestra like me, you're going to like it for some swallow fun.

Ouendan remains the best rhytm game in history, and Guitar Hero/Rockband do the rockstar thing miles better, but I've got a few nights of fun of it, and felt more that i was doing something with music than i did with the aforementioned games. I am happy that i overcame my doubts and spent 30 pounds on it. It's does what it sets do do rather well, and if you can appreciate that subniche of music games, i can recommend it. Some of you are going to hate it though.

790 bananas
3/5
7/10