Many non-musicians enjoy listening to music, and would like to be able to play along with it, but do not have the talent or the time to learn to play a musical instrument. The system described herein allows non-musicians to follow along with a display that is based on the principles of musical notation, but is designed to be intuitive and require no training to use. The player is guided through the steps of playing a rhythm along with a musical performance, and the system provides the illusion that the player is actually playing a melodic part on an instrument. In addition, the system indicates how closely the player is following the guide, and it also scores the player's performance. The score is used to drive interactive feedback to the player. The system can be configured to work in local area networks or wide area networks with low latency or high latency in the network. This system is ideally suited for video arcade games, home entertainment devices, dedicated toy applications, music education, Internet entertainment applications, and other uses.