How to play music in Where Winds Meet

Where Winds Meet is filled with great mini-games, and one of them is playing music. You will have access to a Pipa (pear-shaped lute with four or five strings typically), and will engage in some pretty intense rhythm game action. Not every song you play is going to be incredibly challenging, but there are some instances where this mini-game will put you to the test. Thankfully, I figured out a trick that will work in some of those harder moments, at the very least.

Like fishing, you won’t have to complete a complicated quest to unlock this mini-game, which is a nice change of pace. All you have to do is find where the musicians are, and start jamming, if you want to play music in Where Winds Meet.

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How and where to play music in Where Winds Meet

You can begin playing music in Where Winds Meet early in Chapter 1, once you can move around and explore the Verdant Wilds. However, it might not really be obvious, unless you’re paying attention. If you zoom in on the map, you’ll see a variety of black icons as you progress through the game. One of these is a musical instrument (Pipa), and that shows the location of a musician.

Just find one of these musical instrument icons and go play! (Image via NetEase)

In fact, you’ll come upon one while on the way back to Heaven’s Pier during Heaven Has No Pier. As you return to the area, on the left side, you’ll see a white icon just over the first bridge as you’re returning to Heaven’s Pier. Just go talk to them (or any other musician out in the wild), and select Play Music.

You can play Solo or Duet as well, where a Duet requires another player to join in. Each song has a name you can see on the screen, and in the top left you’ll see your score. Each note you hit in succession will add to your Combo Score, which increases your points. Think of it similarly to Guitar Hero or Rock Band. When the circular icons reach the circles on the bottom of the screen, tap the appropriate button when they're together for a Perfect.

Naturally, the early game songs will be pretty easy, where you’re only required to hit one note at a time, or perhaps a couple in quick succession, but the songs definitely ramp up in difficulty. During the Shadows in Bloom sidequest in Kaifeng, you will be required to complete a very challenging song where, at times, there will be incredible amounts of notes to hit rapidly.

(Clip begins at 41:53)

However, this is when I learned there’s kind of a trick to those harder songs in Where Winds Meet, while playing the music mini-game. You have six potential notes, and each one has a button corresponding to it.

On the controller, I found this strategy was much easier. Hit every button at the same time, and keep rhythm. As long as you’re hitting the correct button, it didn’t penalize me for hitting the other buttons too. You can see in the video above at the timestamp 41:53, what I mean.

As long as you’re hitting the correct notes, the game doesn’t care that you’re hitting buttons that don’t have notes attached to them. This could change, but during Early Access that’s how it worked for me. It’s hard to say what the rewards for the music mini-game were outside of quests, because every time I tried it, it would go to a black screen and I’d have to reset the client.

Some of these songs genuinely get challenging, unless you're cheesing through it like I did (Image via NetEase)

When the full launch of Where Winds Meet comes out, we’ll update this accordingly. That’s all you have to do though if you want to play music! Find an NPC out in the world, invite a friend if you want, and jam out in a challenging rhythm game.

Note: We've heard that there's another instrument you can play in Where Winds Meet, likely the Erhu, but we have not unlocked any of those challenges yet. When we've found it, we will update this accordingly.

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Check out our other Where Winds Meet guides and features

• Where Winds Meet walkthrough: How to complete Volume VII - Ruins of a Thousand Buddhas
• How to change time in Where Winds Meet (and why you should want to)
• Where Winds Meet walkthrough: How to complete Volume VI - Twelve Years of Grudges