The answer is usually no. It’s doable, but animating people playing musical instruments is extremely difficult and time-consuming. Playing a musical instrument requires timing and fine motor control. Animating someone accurately playing an instrument requires a great deal of precision and timing, while just using a motion that looks close enough that can be done much more quickly and cheaply.

Spending that much time on specific animation and timing, especially if it is only a short part of the game, is very much a flex by the development team since they could probably spend that time building many other lower-cost animations instead. It’s an example of some devs on the team going above and beyond what’s necessary to make the game work. 

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