Wii Music: Epic Win For Music Education?

Filed in archive Wii on October 1, 2008

Shigeru Miyamoto, in an interview with Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata, stated that he felt Wii Music could be good for music education.

Of course, any comment from Miyamoto about Wii Music now causes people to quite reasonably exclaim that he should be hit by a truck and die. But beyond the usual Wii Music Derangement Syndrome (a disease in which people who haven't played Wii Music think it stinks, versus the rest of us who think it might be good and are willing to give it a shot), what of Miyamoto's statement? Some people think that this can't be true, because Wii Music isn't the real thing. Some even suggest that pantomiming instruments even hurts music education.

I don't think so. Our culture is so far removed from real music performance (remember that 100 years ago, a family almost always had one member who could competently play piano- it was required to play the pop music of the day) that anything that encourages it is good in my book.

Also, Wii Music presents a sort of "meta design" on music education. Let people experiment with musicality in a safe environment. They can make whatever mistakes they want, laugh at the results, but have fun. It is logical to see some of those people move on to the real thing.

Rock Band and Guitar Hero have both done a great job getting people familiar with Classic Rock music. But Wii Music offers so much more- many people don't even know what a taiko drum is, or even a ukelele. Broadening people's horizons is good, and Wii Music serves that function well.

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