You should be able to view this when you go to the instrument selection in the quick jam mode as well I think; you can certainly just fiddle about without being in the middle of a song and see what happens.

You know I'd love to.

@ Sean
I just figured that out shortly before you posted, but thanks.

I still have a hard time remembering what the buttons do while playing. I'm not much of a multi-tasker, so swinging my arms around makes remembering the simplest button combinations suddenly a very trying task. How embarrassing.

Well, there are only a few types of control method, so before starting the jam try out all four to figure out which one works!

True, they just have a few basic types - guitar-like, keyboard-like, violin-like, trumpet-like, sax-like, percussive - but there are a few hidden deviations from the standard forms in there as well. For instance, the harmonica controls primarily as a sax-like instrument, in that you use buttons 1 & 2 for notes and the B button runs rapidly up a scale to a high note, but you can also shake the harmonica to add vibrato, which none of the other instruments with a similar control type allow. Also, most instruments change their controls a bit when placed in the role of "chord", plus there are some details of the instrument behavior that aren't covered in the instructions -- like the fact that, when bending a note up on a guitar-like instrument, if you hold it and keep picking, you can stay on that note as long as you'd like, but when bending downwards, your repeated picking will just continue on as new notes, albeit shifted down one step from where they would have been.

Did not know that! I need to read more instructions, I guess.

Terra and Adam:

5 vids sent your way. Just a rundown of what I was attempting with each, which should help to give you ideas (and, very likely, encourage you to do things better than I did)...

Each of these bear as little resemblance to the original song as I could. I'm not one for direct covers, and I wanted to see what this game could handle.

• Scarborough Fair - I basically just tried to bring the funk as hard as I could. One of the first videos I made...often my favorite real-life jams are funk jams so I wanted to see how close I could get with Wii Music. I got closer than I thought I could!
• Frere Jaques - Initially tried to construct a spacey, ambient jam, which I was using the combination of the galactic drums and NES horn for. As I played over it though I realized it sounded more like a rough, alternative ballad circa 1998 (bands like Bush and such come to mind). Definitely not sounding like the original song here...
• Swan Lake - trying to get a dark, depressing jam down here. Definitely trip-out material, and one of my favorites.
• From the New World - nothing too special, except that I was experimenting with dropping the band out and leaving a soloist, then bringing the whole band crashing back in. Those parts sound great...the rest of it is pretty mediocre, sunny stuff.
• Long Long Ago - my Sigur Ros abortion, but it's only fair I share the misery. Actually, it's not horrible, it just misses the mark so frustratingly. You'll see what I was going for, and I encourage you to try similar things, so that I can listen to your much better attempts. Feel free to make fun of this...but not TOO harshly. (Batman is really sensitive about his violin playing.)

I loved all the songs you sent me, Chicken Philzo. I can definitely hear the Sigur Ros similarities in that one song, so I think you did well considering the restraints. Of course, I might not have picked up on it if you hadn't pointed it out, but there's really not telling. A lot of their songs are just one big crescendo, which seems like it'd have been easier than doing something structured like this... but then again, I'm still a Wii Music newbie, so maybe that's not true.

Speaking of which, how long does it take to make these arrangements for you guys? Do you map it out on paper beforehand while listening to the normal song a few times, or do you just improv everything in a few minutes? So far I'm just playing around with it without much effort or thought, but I think in order to get anything seriously good out of it I'm going to have to put a good bit of time into each song-- not that that's a bad thing!

I'm sending you guys (Wario and Chicken) a few songs just for the heck of it. None of them are very good. They're mostly random improvised stuff without even listening to the song first, and I have pretty horrible timing (not to mention some bad notes on occasion). But occasionally there is also a moment or two in the song that I enjoy, so all's good in the hood. F-Zero and Mario are my favorites so far, though I must admit to my disappointment that they were my first two videos, so they aren't exactly the result of much progress. In fact, I think each song I've done has gotten regressively worse, haha. Oh well.

I actually enjoyed both of those videos, Adam -- particularly SMB. I like the way using long notes on the horns like that can produce some excellent tension even in a song with as lighthearted a chord structure as that one, and it works well against the acoustic backdrop.

I just spammed you with 5 videos that hopefully show a decent variety of styles; a couple more straightforward but hopefully interesting arrangements, some jazzier or more adventurous fare, and a bit of guitar soloing fun.

EDIT: I said "both of those videos" because I didn't receive the third until just now (must have been sent after I already started up the game). In any case, if / when you do eventually pick up the game, I'd love to hear both: your further development of that lineup, since you could certainly continue to turn that into a well formed band, and.... you trying something completely different, like a non-game song with a completely different set of instruments.

If you guys keep sending me good stuff, I might need to get the game just to listen.

I particularly liked the Bjork cover of Sakura Sakura, very weird.

I'm glad you liked the trumpet thing because that's basically what I've done in every song so far, at least the ones that came out halfway decent, haha. I like having two horns so one can hold out an earlier note over a later note that the other horn will play. I could do that all day, but it's a nice bonus if the result entertains someone else, too!

I need to work on getting some more neat, patterned stuff like you guys do. Mine are all very, very messy and not thought out at all. I'm going to take paper and pen to this game tomorrow and see what comes of some more effort.

Nice. I'll listen to that when I get the chance. At the moment though, I'm stuck away from the Wii and Halo 3 + Virtua Fighter 5 arrived today after I ordered them so i won't be able to listen until late evening for me at the earliest.

Sounds like you're likely to pick it up in the future, so I'm happy to sign you up and experience some of your horn magic. I'll add your code tonight!

No, you're right. Something a little more tight and raging, over a shorter period of time, would have been the type of Sigur Ros song to take inspiration from. I still haven't given up on the longer, flowing composition with distinct moods, but I probably should have started a little closer to what I could realistically do.

I don't do the pen and paper thing, but I'm not against it, and when I get better I'll use it to see what I can do. Right now I basically just play through the song a few times with each instrument, "jamming," and when I hit upon something that feels right I'll start pulling in that direction intentionally and see how it turns out. Sometimes it works (the 5 vids I sent you) and sometimes it doesn't work nearly so well (the 7,000,000 vids I didn't send you). Once I get a better feel for some of the obscure songs, I'll map out a structure on paper and see how that turns out. Until then, though, I'll take five or six sweeps through each instrument until I feel a strong direction being established, and I'll work off of that.

I can't wait to see them. I truly doubt you're getting regressively worse though! More likely you are slowly exploring the limits of the game (and learning how to react to the game yourself). I'd love to hear where Adam's Good-Time Ukulele Clone Band stands in a month's time.

My arrangements generally take several attempts for each piece; I don't really think about it too much, but I've become more critical of my performances and will do more takes than my earlier pieces where I just kept the first one or two takes.

Lessons are helpful in getting down some basics for the various styles. I presume that if I actually complete the balance board drum lessons I can use the balance board for drums in the jam mode? My coordination broke down after the first couple of lessons, though; I simply couldn't keep track of which button to be pressing with which hand on which beat!

@Sean_Aaron

I believe you can already use the full drums for custom jams, you just have to select it from within the drum area menu... unless that option wasn't there until I completed the lessons, but I'm thinking it was always there. It is a bit weird to have to do that, though -- it means that you have to lay down your drum track from within that mode, then exit back to the main menu, enter the normal Custom Jam, and resume working on your other instruments.

On the question of planning out the structure of songs re:Adam's question, I also have never used pen and paper; sometimes I just play around with a song until something hits me, and the remaining pieces sort of fall into place from there. Other times I might actually have some technical musical idea in mind, perhaps something simple like a change in rhythm or meter, or a way to enliven the chord progression, but that can be hit or miss, as your musical idea might create something that holds together nicely or it might just end up not working well with the song.

What's this?! A 10 page thread about Wii Music?

Come on in, Morphballer. The water's fine.

Ah, that would explain why I've not seen it; I had thought there would be an option to do that all the time and when there wasn't that the balance board was only used for lessons. I'll have to mess about with it then because I'd love to have more control over which drums get used and was thinking that wasn't possible which made no sense to me.

@morphballer: yep, people enjoying the title is strange on a gaming forum isn't it? I think if you started this thread in any other gaming forum outside of NeoGAF you'd end up with non-stop flaming...

to Terranigma: i've added you, add me and help us to finish the F-zero song. It misses two elements, so try.

to Adam: i suggest you the purchase. It's like having SNes and not Zelda III. Wii music it's one of the Wii generation game, one of the games which most takes the mening of this console.

...seriously, comparing Wii Music to Link to the Past? That's a stretch.

I enjoy the game a good bit, but it's more analogous to Mario Paint.

I think it's more like Double Dragon 2, by way of Dr. Mario, with a little bit of Galaga thrown in for good measure.