For example, instruments such as and require the player to swing the controllers as if striking drums; and some such as the violin and the guitar are played by moving the Wii Remote as if drawing a or the strings, while the Nunchuk is held as if the gripping the instrument's. The can also be utilized in playing the various, emulating the foot-operated pedals. All instruments have extra playing options, where additional button-presses or restricted movements have different effects on the sound. Softer notes can be played with slower Wii Remote movement, and holding various buttons can create,,,,,. Jam Mode [ ]. Screenshot of four players playing different parts of ' using,,, and dog suit. Unlike, playing to the on-screen (not shown) is optional.
Wii Music allows players to either stick close to the original melody or new arrangements, using any selection of instruments. The game's main feature, Jam Mode, features 50 songs that consist of a combination of and songs, seven, and 15 songs. Before playing the selected song, the players each choose any of the available instruments and then perform as one of six different members of a; the six available sections are,,,, and two parts. Unoccupied sections are played by 'Tute' characters or can be dropped altogether. Unlike other music games such as or where players are based on playing certain at specific times, Jam Mode lacks a scoring system and does not objectively penalize for missing or playing 'incorrect' notes nor do players have any control over the of the notes played.
Instead, the internal for each section of all songs is specially programmed to respond to all possible player actions: the game will attempt to make any notes played be harmonious to the song, including those played outside the original melody. Consequentially, players are encouraged to practice and experiment with different ways to play songs using any arrangement of instruments, either choosing to stick close to the or diverge from it and create unique compositions. The quality of the new arrangement is up to the player's judgement. Players can also do what is called an ' session in which the same song is played again controlling a different musician or instrument; this allows the players to play over the music recorded in previous playthroughs and allows a single player to play all parts of a band.