Musings: Analysis: NES My Gaming Audio History Lessons Learned

This is a rather long entry, but contains a lot of information.  If you're new to the blog or a regular reader, I highly suggest taking your time and reading.  There's a lot of insight and information below as I analyze the NES games in My Gaming Audio History, a journey I've come to the end of after over a year.  Next up, SNES games... but for today, the last of my musings and analysis of the NES era audio.

I've been taking some time to think about what I learned by studying the music (and audio) to these NES games that I played growing up.  Not only have I been wondering about results of my study and what I've learned so far, but I've been asking myself fundamental questions like: why is the NES era so fascinating to me, and why am I studying game music?  It's this final question that I'm going to start with now...

For one, I've always played games.  I've also played the piano as well as several other musical instruments.  I've already written about the connections I see between playing games and playing musical instruments, particularly my life and career as a pianist.  Yet, recently I've thought of another reason that games study is so appealing to me.  My partner is a very successful opera singer and is traveling the world roughly half of the year.  I'm at home... my connection with his work is in preparing him for those roles and performances.  After that initial step, then he leaves and is gone for months working on the projects in fabulous places around the country (the last year took him to France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, and Holland, for instance).  I've begun to realize that games are not just nostalgic, but also a way for me to go to exotic locations and hear amazing sounds right from my living room.  I think this "away from where I am" aspect is a big part of the draw in studying game audio for me.  It's a way to travel anywhere and hear new sounds from my life at home.

Continuing in reverse order, why is the NES era so fascinating to me?  And, it's not just me!  Many other folks love the 8-bit era above all other game audio times.  One thing is that the NES was nearly universal-- it had such a huge market share in the 80s that nearly everyone who played games played the NES and could relate to it.  Thus, it gives a universal language among people around my age.

Another reason I think the NES era is so fascinating is that with the development of the NES, the era of home gaming was born.  One can definitely hear the influence of the arcades (the "ringing" up of your score at the end of Super Mario Bros, for instance, imitates pinball).  However, music needed to fill out the audio experience of gaming because it was at home and not in a crowded arcade.  Also, your NES was plugged into a TV, which didn't have great speakers, but probably better ones than your computer sound in the 80s!  So, there's an influence of what came before (main the arcade/ pinball sound effects) but also better audio quality.

For me, undoubtedly one of the most amazing aspects of game music in the NES era was the lack of precedent.  By the time of 16-bit consoles, there were years of game audio history to build on.  But the developers of NES games and game audio were in uncharted territory.  What should a game sound like?  What should a power-up sound like?  What should death sound like?  What should running out of time sound like?  What did music tell the player about the scene and moment in the game?  These questions were decided in this era of home gaming in a way that still carries influence today-- and not just because some sounds are exactly the same (finding a treasure in Zelda, for instance), but even more basic parameters.  Generally, power-ups rise, death music descends, running out of time speeds up....

By the time of the SNES, my parents had bought another TV and my brother and I were moved into a new room where we could game without using the "family TV."  Thus, game audio no longer filled the house in the same way.  Thus, games had lost their universality as my parents no longer watched and listened as we played along for hours.

Finally, what have I learned so far?  I've already created a chart where I show how the amount of music in NES games increases over time.  But what else?  Well...

When I started this project, I expected to find a grand key scheme and design in these games.  By this I mean: like a great Beethoven symphony, I hoped to find that a game was in a certain key with various tracks in related keys, which were connected by musical (mathematic) significance.  I really didn't find much of this.  Koji Kondo definitely has key relationships in the Mario Bros games (these games are overwhelmingly in C major), and David Wise has moments of it-- like the E centered RC Pro-Am.  However, composers don't do this as much as one might expect.

I also expected to find lots of thematic relationships.  By this I mean musical symbolism that occurs by the use of motives that describe feelings, people, places, things, etc...  If you need more info, check out my video on Leitmotifs in Final Fantasy 7.  I've only just started my SNES research, and am looking forward to writing about it soon, but I can already say that this is more common in SNES games than NES games.  Koji Kondo is definitely a leader in this way.

Finally, I'd like to share one unexpected thing I've learned in my NES game study.  Admittedly, I feel a little foolish to write that this is unexpected, because I should have realized it, but...  Game composers have "sounds" that define them in the same way that Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, etc, have "sounds" that an experienced listener can identify.  I definitely can recognize David Wise music, at least on the NES.  He has compositional forms as well as sounds that he uses more regularly than another composer might, say Koji Kondo, for instance.  And likewise with other composers.  This isn't to say that all games by a composer sound exactly the same, but there are similarities that one can come to hear and understand as this music is studied so that even hearing a piece for the first time allows for educated guesses if you're familiar with more of the composer's work.  Like I said, I don't know why I didn't expect to find this, but I hadn't thought of it until now and definitely hear it.

So there are my reflections on the last year and a half of game audio study I've been doing.  Now, I'm off to the next era; I've already been studying Super Mario World with great delight.  Looking forward to the next journey.

Live Performances: Super Mario theme played on a Sheng

I saw this floating around social media a couple of weeks ago, and as I searched for it this afternoon, I notice that it's quite popular on the web-- pages and pages of hits!

The number one thing I'd like to add to the discussion is to name the player.  Almost every web hit says something like: "a young Chinese student," or "a girl" plays Super Mario Bros theme on the Sheng.  According to this video, which has had just short of 3.5 million views as of my posting today, the performer is Li-Chin Li.  As a performer, I can attest that it's definitely nice to have your name attached to a performance so many have enjoyed, rather than just "a student" or "a girl."  I have no idea how to play the Sheng, but have no doubt that this performance took a lot of time to perfect into the version that so many have enjoyed.  Congrats to Li-Chin Li!

Also, check out more about the Sheng.  I, for one, didn't even know it existed until seeing this video!  Cool sounds and fascinating instrument.

Video Game Music on Television: Campbell's soup "Wisest Kid" Super Mario Commercial

While I was cooking a few days ago, I heard a commercial on TV that immediately caught my attention with its use of game audio.  If you haven't seen it, check out this Campbell's Soup commercial.  

What I find interesting about the commercial is that the sound effects are from the original SMB game, yet the kids are playing a much more modern Mario game on the Wii.  In other words, the images are to pull in the kids, whereas the sounds are clearly directed at someone my age, who might likely be buying soup for my (potential) kids!  It's an interesting, clash of nostalgia in the sounds with modern visual images.

Furthermore, consider the sounds we hear immediately in the commercial: power-up, down a pipe, fireball.  They almost don't make sense.  They're simply all crammed together to create a wash of sound memory for anyone who's played the original game.  Why does the mom catching the soup make the "death" sound?  Is it no longer cool now that mom has it?

In any case, the use of these sounds worked! The commercial got me to investigate more about the soup, though I don't eat Campbell's condensed.

My Gaming Audio History: Super Mario Bros 2 (1988)

Today's feature is another blockbuster game that I loved and played often, Super Mario Bros 2.  Now, no jokes please, but I was very good at playing with Princess-- probably because she could float.  The individual characters having different attributes made the game much more interesting for me.  Even so, I didn't beat the game until much later, once Super Mario All Stars came out and I could save the game and pick it up at a later time.  I loved the fact that there wasn't a timer in the game compared with the original.  In terms of music, this means that you could hear the game music for much longer than you could in the original, where the timer limited how long it was possible to hear the music on any given level.  Also, obviously, there's no hurry up music.

The music here is by Koji Kondo.  I've always preferred the music in this game to the music from the original SMB.  For my taste, there's a natural progression of composition here.  Clearly, after SMB and LoZ, Kondo had established early on his mastery of game music composition.  His melodic writing was superb and memorable.  In between SMB/LoZ and SMB2, according to VGMPF, most of the games that Kondo worked on were not released in the US.  SMB Lost Levels came in between, but I didn't really play that game; it was simply too hard.  Most of the music in Lost Levels is reused from SMB; Kondo had the chance to reuse/update several of his themes and sound effects from SMB.  SMB2 game gave that opportunity again.  For instance, the title screen music in Lost Levels and the title screen music in SMB2 are both remakes of the underwater theme is the original SMB.  With these reworkings and games in between, I hear Kondo becoming more comfortable and familiar with amazing game music and I think his work is even more skillful with the sounds of the NES.

One of the most interesting musical themes for me (though it's heard only briefly in typical gameplay) is the character select theme.  Have you ever given this a listen beyond the first few seconds that most people hear it?  When the second voice gets really high and virtuoso several seconds into the theme is just completely unexpected and almost crazy!  I remember playing this theme on the piano as a kid and when it got to this section I just immediately stopped because it sounded so complex.

Here's a link to the soundtrack.

A brief comparison of the music of Super Mario Bros and Super Mario Bros 2

There are definite similarities to the original game in that there's different music for different game locations (Overworld, inside, boss music, stage clear).  SMB 2 has more "menu" screens, though: character select and the slot game, which the original didn't have.  Because there is no "Super" or "regular" states for the characters in this game, the jumping sound doesn't change an octave in pitch as it does in the first game.

Considering sound effects, it's interesting to me that Birdo makes a sound when he shoots eggs at you, but enemies that shoot bullets don't make any sound.  In SMB, Bullet Bills made sound!  Also, boss monsters have an audio and visual reaction to being injured (Birdo, Mouser, Triclyde, etc).  Bowser wagged his feet as the bridge disappeared in SMB, but there was no sound of injury or demise.  Coin sound effects seem to be the same P4, B-E.  The invincibility theme is the same D min 7- C maj 7 3 sec loop.  The 1 up sound is transposed from the original, I think to G but it's hard to hear isolated on the playthrough I wanted.  The collecting a heart sound is similar to the LoZ heart pick up.  The throwing of enemies/items sound effect is definitely musical, a glissando up to a C and I'm struck that sound effects in this game are starting to relate in pitch to the overall key of the game.

I count SMB as having just under 3 minutes of music
SMB 2 has a bit more, about 3 and a half minutes of music

Both games have a home key of C major for all the music that appears in them.

Also, the Overworld track of SMB2 is significantly shorter (40 sec vs 90 sec).  Beyond the Overworld theme, SMB had very short tracks for underground and underwater and SMB 2 has slightly longer ones.  Also, the end game music with SMB2 is quite a bit longer and Wart has his own theme as well whereas Bowser's castle theme is the same in each of the SMB castles.

Probably my favorite comparison here is the Subspace music.  This music is literally half of the A and then the B of the original SMB theme.  Even though the key and tempo are the same as the original game, the music is slightly different sounding, though, it's not a literal quote.  I love when composers quote themselves!  Reminds me of Mozart quoting Figaro in Don Giovanni!



Here's my normal breakdown of the music by track with whatever notes I made as I listened.

Title screen.  28 sec.  C major.  Sounds like a carnival or merry go round
Character select C major. 29 sec.  Crazy second high melody later in the piece that few hear because of how briefly this screen is active.
Overworld C major.  40 sec.  Intro (doesn't repeat 1 sec), Form: A-B-B-C
Dream world C major (reference to SMB). 14 sec.  Just uses the A-B from the SMB theme.
Invincibility: 3 sec.  D min-C maj alternation.
Inside theme F minor.  11 sec.  Open fifths and fourths give this a very different feel from the opening.
Birdo theme-- all tritones.  9 sec.
Wart theme: 14 sec. G minor.  Very chromatic and dissonant.
World clear: C major. 4 sec.
Ending: C major, 33 sec, 37 sec, C major w/ Ab motion-- similar motion to winning at slots w/ coins?

My Gaming Audio History: Super Mario Bros (1985)

This blog project has already been completely worthwhile and I'm still in the early stages of it.  I've learned some things about American folk music, classical music, history, technology, and of course game music.  Incredible!

I wish I could say that I played Super Mario Bros first, but actually, now that I've done some research, I realize my family bought a Nintendo a little later than I thought we did.  The first NES game we played was Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt, which came with the purchase of the NES, and that combo with the NES Zapper was released in 1988.  Before I played it on a Nintendo, I've got vivid memories of playing Super Mario Bros at the local Pizza Hut in Burlington, NC where I was born.  I don't even think that Pizza Hut location exists anymore-- it's a parking lot now.  It was a sit down arcade over in the corner of the store.  Once my family ordered pizza, I'd run over to the game and play it.  And now I'm craving Pizza Hut....  

Apparently, the arcade version was called VS Super Mario Bros, was slightly different from the NES game, and came out in 1986.  This means the earliest I could've played it would've been age four, or even five before we owned it.  Although it's impossible for me to remember, it's likely the first video game I ever played.  Wow!  Playing a game in an arcade setting is really different from playing it at home, where the atmosphere was usually more quiet than a restaurant; I'm sure, though, that I heard the music clearly.  

Sorry the audio here is a little glitchy, but this is practically the only gameplay footage I can find of VS Super Mario Bros.  Here's a longplay of the NES version so you can have the complete experience.  

What can I say about this game?  I've already blogged about its music, blogged about the sheet music to the game at mariopiano.com and reblogged some video of Koji Kondo playing its themes on the piano.  It's obviously one of the most famous games of all time.  Compared with the other games I've looked at in My Gaming Audio History, SMB is hugely different in that it has continuous music.  Some of the most memorable game music of all time.  

Who created the audio experience?  Koji Kondo.  Thank you Koji Kondo!  

What is the audio experience?  Distinctive musical themes for the normal ground areas, water worlds, underground areas, and the castle theme, as well as sound effects that are equally memorable for invincibility, power-ups, fireballs, jumping, running low on time, death, etc.  Unlike many of the Atari games I played which went on indefinitely, this game had a definite ending and thus an ending theme!  Oh yes, and hearing the sound effects cause certain voices of the music to drop out... classic NES.  I used to jump and hit expired question blocks just to hear the music more clearly when the voices drop out as a kid.  What a dork....  I mean, nerd, I was!  

How does the audio experience draw the player more deeply into the game?  Obviously, the sound effects help to convey what's happening in the game and add realism.  The continuous music was likely created for the NES, since it was a home console, and the home TV thus would've been occupied with the gameplay.  The game music simply extended the game environment into your home even more completely.  It's such a change from the Atari games I played that only had occasional music.  I think we only had two TVs for much of my young life, so playing this would've been a living room, multi-person present affair.  

My nostalgia with this game is huge.  Up next, the other half of my Super Mario Bros cartridge, Duck Hunt.  

Game Music Online: 8-bit Analysis

A few posts ago I mentioned I'd stumbled upon Jason Brame's blog 8-Bit Analysis doing some internet searches.  I've taken some time between now and then to read through it throughly and really enjoyed his postings.  Reading through a blog a few years older than mine definitely gave me a heads up on some of the challenges of maintaining a blog long term.  The hardest thing as I see with many of my favorite blogs are continuing to update regularly.  Also I realized that by linking to YouTube videos, over time my links will become broken and require updating.  I guess that goes with the territory of online blogging!  

If I'm honest with myself somewhere inside, Jason's blog is in some ways what I thought I wanted to make of this blog.  He does some very specific analysis and lots of detail with just a tiny piece of music.  However, as I read through it, I realized that I've definitely got a different audience in mind.  He shows the most impressive transcriptions and musical analyses, but the people who can read that sort of information and process it are few.  His blog is aimed at classically trained musicians.  So, even though I know basically all of the music he's listed (SMB 3 World Map 7 music is a little vague to me because I sucked so much at that level!), the advantage of having transcribed the music in standard notation is that a classically trained musician can look at it and hear it very clearly in the mind regardless of linking somewhere.  That said, some of my favorite posts were where, despite the transcribed versions, the videos he links to make his point perfectly clear with only aural means.  This post where he compares the water music of SMB and the Title Screen theme from SMB 2 is a perfect example.  

He's also got several links up at the bottom of the blog that I want to follow to keep learning more.  We would have overlapped at UNC by a year, but I don't think I knew Jason.  I'm definitely going to give his article "Thematic Unity Across a Video Game Series" a read soon.  

Analysis: Music and Nostalgia in The New Super Mario Bros Wii

My partner and I have been playing The New Super Mario Bros Wii again recently because we like to play games together and, of course, because of my blog, I've been thinking about the music.

In general, the music has a calypso feel that reminds me of the original Super Mario Bros game.  And many of the NSMB Wii themes, like the Underwater Theme or the Beach Theme, while not a direct remake of the original, call to mind classic themes like the Super Mario Bros Underwater Theme or Super Mario Kart's Koopa Beach Theme.  Likewise, for a thirty year old gamer who can remember playing the original game, some of my favorite moments in the game music are those tracks that bring back classic themes from previous games.  Many of the sound effects, the death sound and the "Help me!" cries of your character-- which actually play from the Wii remote speaker (Wiimote as I call it).  These bring a cool added dimension of 3D spacial sound for the player that highlights the audio advantage the Wii has by giving you a speaker in your hand.  There are other touches too: the layering effect of adding percussion (first used in Super Mario World) when you get on Yoshi in NSMB Wii is still a part of the classic audio experience.

Several of the short, classic themes make a reappearance, for instance, The P-Switch, Star Theme, Course Clear (with fireworks), and Princess Peach Rescue Theme come to mind immediately.  However, some longer themes make an appearance as well as remade, updated versions.  These are some of my favorite sound tracks in the game because they bring up nostalgia from my childhood, particularly from Super Mario Bros 3, which many gamers of my generation would consider to be the "best" of the Super Mario Bros classic games.  For instance, the Koopa battle theme is a remake of the theme from Super Mario Bros 3.  Compare:

The Hammer Bros Theme from SMB 3 is redone as well for this game for the battles that occur from encounters on the world map.

The Underground Theme from the Original Super Mario Bros also gets a remake in this game.  I never thought about the original not being in common time, but as I re-listen I realize that it got moved to 4/4 at some point.  These first examples have all been lengthened in some way from their original versions.

My favorite classic remake, though, is the airship level theme.  Not only was I super pumped to see an airship level because they are so much fun, when the music starts up, it's an absolute flashback to my childhood.  This is the first remade theme I've listed here that's not in the same key as the original.

Other miscellaneous audio thoughts:

While not a direct remake, the Volcano Level theme reminds me of Ganon's Dungeon Theme from the original Legend of Zelda.  The World Map 3 theme, being an icy world, uses sleigh bells in the instrumentation to convey that sense of holiday/winter that is prevalent, at least in America.  Similarly, the Snow Level theme is the same as the new Overworld theme of the game, but has sleigh bells playing in the background.  It's a cool way to make the music sound wintery (Christmas-y?).  Compare Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride.  The Giant Bowser theme incorporates organ and chimes, classic sounds that invoke the ideas of death and godlike imagery common to many games, but of course, I think of Final Fantasy IV Golbez theme and Final Fantasy VII, Sephiroth's theme.

Game Music Online: Audio mentioned in G4 Top 100 Video Games: Part 5

And the final of the best of the best list.  The top games of all time whose music was worthy of being highlighted in G4's series.  I've learned a lot from this process and will reflect on it in a journal follow up next.  Enjoy!



13 Portal:  GLaDOS-- computer female voice-- a "you're being taunted by HAL's sarcastic sister with her very pleasant speaking voice and her passive aggressive nature."  -Todd Stashwick  This is the highest spoken game audio highlight.  Not a game I know, but one I definitely think I should check out.

12 Doom II:  One of the members of Soundgarden mentions dreaming about the audio effects in Doom II.  I've dreamed about all kinds of music-- definitely game audio as well-- but never thought about the importance of this level of musical engagement with game music.  As a classical musician, I regularly dream about operas/musicals/chamber music/ songs that I'm studying.  I've definitely done it with game music before, but interesting to really consider how deeply this sound event enters our consciousness.

11 Zelda 64 (Ocarina of Time):  "Adding to the Legend were the music moments made possible by the Ocarina."  "They completely integrated this thing where you actually got to play the music in Zelda."  "So to call your horse, you actually play its song."  Music is such a central part of the Zelda series and why I love it so much.  I'm interested to consider some of the newer additions to the series-- I think Skyward Sword has incredible music.

6 Legend of Zelda  "LoZ mixed a high fantasy adventure with some of the most memorable music and sound effects in gaming history."  "The whole Zelda series is one of the most powerful pavolvian audio experiences you can have in terms of the sound effects you hear that trigger crazy reactions in your body." --Tim Schafer

5 Tetris  "most obnoxious get stuck in your head music ever"  -Claire Grant.  I love this music-- and as I know it, a Russian folk song.

1 Super Mario Bros:  Introduced by nearly all the hosts singing a part of the theme song put together in a montage.  I used to play this game at the local Pizza Hut growing up.  The audio was life changing.  Incredible.  An article about this game audio inspired me, in part, to start this blog!

Game Music Online: Original Super Mario Piano Free Sheet Music.

I just found the most amazing resource created by Joseph Karam.  Pianists who love video game music, Mariopiano.com has are amazing precise transcriptions of the original audio.  Best of all, it's free!  I'd like to meet Joseph...  Think we'd have a lot in common. 

Video Game Music on Television: The Legend of Zelda Cartoon.

Anyone close to me in age who love video games will undoubtedly remember the Super Mario Bros Super Show that came on in the late 80s.  Every Friday, there was an episode of The Legend of Zelda-- which I much preferred to the live versions of the Mario Bros making dumb jokes.  I still think about this cartoon sometimes when I think of Zelda.

Last night, I re-watched a couple of episodes.  If you've not seen it before, check out episode 7, Doppelganger.  I love the German reference in the title (which in my mind, brings up the Schubert song from Schwangengesang), but even more, I love at 2:12 when Link is whistling Mario's Ground theme!  Also cool is how they incorporated the real sound effects from the game as well as making some arrangements of the themes as background music.  Ironically, they shortened Link's ground theme even more than the game does.  I loved this show so much as a kid! 

Analysis: Repetitive Game Music via Super Mario Bros

In a recent conversation with another classical musician, I brought up the topic of video game music.  He replied that video game music was extremely repetitive.  This is definitely one way that academics dismiss the music as being "repetitive."  (Plenty of good music is repetitive!)  I'd like to find some specifics about the electronic limitations, but I'm thinking that for our classic Nintendo/ SNES games, music was not given a huge allocation of data space, and music was probably difficult to code into the games. Therefore, musical themes had to be short, but not overtly looping and annoying. 

Recalling this conversation and my recent foray into Super Mario Bros music has me thinking about how many times you might hear any particular theme in a given playthrough.  Consider the musical experience of the shortest runthrough I know of Super Mario Bros.  Let's analyze what music is heard. 

1-1: Main theme, underground theme, main theme, flag victory.
1-2: Main theme (intro), underground theme (repeats once).
4-1: Main theme.  Flag victory.
4-2: Main theme (intro), underground theme, main theme.
8-1: Main theme (as far as theme).  Flag theme.
8-2: Main theme. Flag theme.
8-3: Main theme.  Flag theme.
8-4: Castle theme 3x.  Underwater theme.  Boss theme 1x
End game theme!

So the question for me here was: excluding the mute button, what is the minimum amount of music that's heard in a playthrough of Super Mario Bros?  As you can see, even though you don't hear the main theme all the way through, you hear it or its intro/fanfare 8 times.  The victory theme is heard 5 times.  As far as playing completely and repeating, the underground theme plays 3 times, repeating once, and the castle theme plays 4 times.  Finally, the underwater and end game theme make just one appearance, the underwater not playing completely and the end game repeating once in this video.

So if this is the shortest possible audio experience of Super Mario Bros, what might a more typical one be?  I was never great at Mario, so if I got stuck somewhere, it's possible I heard the music of that level (and the ones leading to it) MANY times. This is the same path that my friends and I followed to try to beat the game, which, if we were lucky, we could do in about 15 minutes-- but it we could also spend hours trying it, probably dying somewhere near the end.  Granted, these projections won't be completely accurate because expanding the timing/music this way supposes an equal increase in time spent everywhere, but this will give an idea of the repetitive nature of the music.

Musical Theme	5 min playthrough	15 min playthrough	60 min playthrough
Main	8 times	24 times	96 times
Victory	5 times	15 times	60 times
Underground	3 times	9 times	36 times
Castle	4 times	12 times	48 times
Underwater	1 times	3 times	12 times
End game	1 times	3 times	12 times

96 times to hear the main theme (or at least the intro to it) in an hour-- no wonder the Michigan Daily said every student on UM's campus knew it!

SurveyIng Literature: The Evolution of Video Game Music (NPR, All Things Considered)

Today I'm listening to an NPR story from 2008, The Evolution of Video Game Music. If you've not heard it, I totally recommend it.  Not overly technical, but for a video game/ music lover, it's a good intro. One of the best parts is hearing the video game music in the background!

Some highlights for me are:

The mention as far back as Space Invaders of game designers testing to see the effect of the sound effects to have an effect on the player's emotional state. This has me thinking about the interplay between marketing and video game music-- wondering what sort of marketing video game music principles exist. 

The program compares video game music in comparison with film music-- but, says that unlike film music which has, according to Tommy Tallarico, "background" music, video game music has "foreground" music.

A question seems to be resounding as a theme in several of these sources: Is video game music serious music?  I wonder, why does it matter?

The audio story goes on to mention Video Games Live and how successful these concerts are selling versus a classical concert.  Video Games Live concerts are a multimedia experience where the audience is encouraged to be loud and energized compared with the "stiffness" of a classical concert.

Very interesting to learn that Berkley and USC are teaching video game music composition.  As a college teacher, I'd be interested to teach a video game music history course.

Just hearing the music excerpts in the background of the NPR story as the music becomes more contemporary in time is awesome!  Or follow links on the left side of the NPR page for live performances of a Final Fantasy piano medley and some of your favorite classic themes from Tetris, Super Mario Bros, and Myst.

Live Performances: Koji Kondo plays Super Mario

This is the introduction of a new label on the blog, Live Performances.  Entries under the "Live Performance" heading will have performing musicians playing game music.

Following some footnotes from that Wikipedia link I just posted, I found a couple awesome videos of Koji Kondo playing his own Mario music on the piano.  Most applicable to my last post is this first video where he plays themes from Super Mario Bros.

My friends and I have made our own live versions of these songs for years, but when you hear the composer do it himself, it's different somehow.  For me, it brings him out of the shadows and puts more focus for me on him and his creation process-- sitting at the piano and creating these themes all those years ago.   

Here's one more link to a longer performance where Kondo plays even more Mario themes. 

Analysis: Music in Super Mario Bros.

Today begins a new blog label, Analysis.  Blogs under this heading reflect my own study, notes, reactions, and analysis of video game music.  Where to start?  At the beginning, of course, with one of the most popular game audio references of all time, Super Mario Bros.

Inspired by reading Wahlen's article, let's consider the classic NES game.  What aural elements does the game have?  In other words, during a playthrough, what does the player hear?  How many themes are there?  How long are they?  What sounds are there in the game?  Using a combo of myself playing and this game play video, here's what I discovered:

Considering sounds, I count 18 sound effects: jumping, coin collection, jumping on enemy, pressing start, breaking a brick, powerup emerging, powering up, fireball, 1up, fireball contacts monster/shell contacts monster, fireball hits wall/unsuccessful hit, going down a pipe, bullet bill shot, swimming action, sliding down flagpole, Bowser bridge collapse, and Boswer falling, and the casino slot sound of time adding into the score at the completion of each level.  

There are also six entities I'm calling fanfares: the death fanfare (:03), hurry up fanfare (:03), victory fanfare 1 (overworld flag) and 2 (boss castle) both lasting (:06), game over fanfare (:03), and the Mario theme intro (:02), which is also the intro to the ground theme and serves as a fanfare as Mario walks to transition between the upper and lower worlds.

Considering musical themes and lengths, I count six themes: the main theme (:90), the underworld theme (:13), the swimming theme (:26), the boss/castle theme (:09), victory/end game theme (:07), and the invincible star music lasts only (:03) but loops for the duration of the invincibility (:10), giving it time to loop just over three complete times.  All of these themes double in speed after the hurry up warning sounds, when one minute of play remains.  Each has a character appropriate to setting the mood for its location.

As far as I can tell, this video plays most of the musical themes in Super Mario Bros.   Here's a video so you can hear most of them (castle theme and victory theme are missing).  Bravo to the editor for syncing up the death music right at the end-- super cool.

Now, let's consider the longest, most iconic of these themes in detail, the "Ground Theme."

What's the scoring?  Three voices of synthesizer along with a synthesized drum track.  Considering the melodic channels, one is melody, one harmony (these two are homorhythmic-- meaning they have the same rhythm), a third channel is bass, and fourth is the drums.  When you perform an action onscreen that makes a sound, the harmony voice drops out and only the melody, bass, and drums persist along with the sound effect.  

My traditional, classical background has me wondering about the form of the ground theme-- in other words, its overall structure.  So what is it?  Intro-A-B-B-C-A-D-D-C-D-- repeating with no intro.  Got it?  If you're in doubt listen to it following the timings below.

Intro/fanfare (:00).  A (:02)-B (:12)-B (:21)-C (:31)-A (:41)-D (:50)-D (1:00)-C (1:10)-D (1:20). 

Wikipedia's got an article on the theme with excellent sections on both the creation and the legacy of the Super Mario Bros "Ground Theme", as well as a list of its appearances. 

Surverying Literature: Zach Wahlen's Play Along-- An Approach to Videogame Music

I'm first and foremost a classically trained, scholarly musician, so the idea of studying anything evokes in me the desire to survey printed literature.  Therefore, as I continue my quest of video game music study, it only makes sense to take note of what's already been written on the subject.  Thus, today I'm introducing a series that will be a staple of this blog: Surveying Literature.  Blogs under this label will follow my study of any printed (and occasionally visual) literature on game music, detailing what I've read and my reaction to it.

I've been perusing scholarly journals for articles on the topic, but sources are limited.  Of course, the modern scholar must scan the internet-- as it's undoubtedly a playground for research.  Perhaps this is even more true in the case of video game music because of the similarities between the internet/computer use and video gaming.  In any case, a google search of "video game music" has a reading list that I'm progressing through.  First on it, Zach Wahlen's article in The International Journal of Computer Game Research, "Play Along--An Approach to Videogame Music."  While this article is particularly scholarly in tone, with an undoubtedly complex lexicon for non-musicians, as well as being lengthy for the casual reader, it's definitely a worthwhile read if you're a nerd about video game music like me!

Though the target audience is not the casual player, Wahlen's article is a good introduction in some ways because it presents presents a formal argument for what to me seems intuitive: the right to compare video game music and film music.  Surely we must, no?  Both involve moving images interplay with music.  That said, video game music possesses unique qualities that make it different from film music, necessitating a different analytical lens... something more to think about.

An interesting point this film music/video game music comparison brings up is a reminder to carry over the distinction found in film music between diegetic and non-diegetic music-- that is, music that only we as audience members are aware of versus music that characters in the game hear.  Similarly, Wahlen also emphasizes a distinction between "sounds" (sound effects) and "music" in video games. 

For me, the most interesting writing is in Wahlen's analyses of different Super Mario Bros and Ocarina of Time video game music and sounds.  These are two games I've played many times and whose soundtracks I can recall on demand.  Here, Wahlen presents his main point: that the aural experience of video games makes them more compelling and helps to draw the player more vividly into them.  He supports this with examples of both music and sounds.  For instance, the mimetics of Super Mario's jump making an octave lower sound when he's large versus the higher octave when he's small Mario.  Or the effect that the "hurry up" music has in the final minute of the level-- a warning siren before the music doubles in tempo-- a sound that can make me feel more anxious just by thinking about it!

In Ocarina of Time, I've felt, but never formed into conscious thought, the effect of hearing the background music playing themes before you learn them on your Ocarina, so that when the game point becomes learning the melody on the Ocarina, "players experience feelings of déjàvu as the melodies they must learn have an eerie familiarity."  On the other hand, even the casual gamer relies on the blatant "danger" music to announce monsters in this game as well as the most recent Zelda game that's still got my arm sore, Skyward Sword.  If I'd played Silent Hill, I'm sure that section would have resonated more with me, but it's not a game I know. 

The bibliography and mentioned authors are people to investigate further.  I've put this info into my reading list and I'll have more on them as I peruse them.