Behind the Scenes: Video Game Pianist, Dr. Martin Leung, U-M Residency

I've just finished up an exciting week at U-M that involved Dr. Martin Leung's visit to U-M.  He completed many different activities while here: teaching lessons to my studio, speaking to the piano majors, being a guest in my Video Game Music class, making a Vodcast that will come out later in the year, speaking to students at large about incorporating the internet and video game music into their portfolios, and playing a concert as well.

Dr. Leung's visit was a major event in my year of research about this kind of music.  I was really glad to see how much enthusiasm some of the piano majors had regarding this material.  Even the faculty seemed pretty supportive of it as well.  Most of all, I was just glad to make an School that in many ways is slow to update repertoire outside of the traditional canons and acknowledge career paths beyond the traditional "super star performer" face up to someone who has had success in another way.  Although it definitely made a difference in the present culture, I think and hope it has the ability to make a difference down the road— that students and scholars who come after will be able to look back and say: "hey, this guy X years ago had a piano studio that played all video game music, so why can't I do Y?"

I'm sure some of my colleagues think I don't belong in this space, doing this research or teaching, and/or that the repertoire is not worthy of attention and focus.  But I'm really learning this year just how much of a community this music creates.  One of my favorite take away's from the week was when one of my students greeted Martin at the start of his lesson by explaining that finding Martin's YouTube channel over a decade ago also led him to a community of music lovers who were passionate about video games and video game music.  One of the things I've learned in all my years of work in game audio is that gamers have a "coming out" process— many people play games, but they don't talk about it often.  However, because of my work, people DO talk to me about their interest in gaming and what they're playing.  I'm always glad when anyone can express him/here self more, and it was an emotional experience to see one of my students explain that he'd found inspiration from Martin and his playing video game music for years.  Wow!

Lastly, I'll leave with a comment about the recital Martin played.  (If you're interested in any of his arrangements, you can find them for free for a limited time on the sheet music portion of his website.)  As you can see from the above picture, the recital was well attended by all sorts of students and even guests who had driven a long way to get to Ann Arbor to hear him.  I really enjoyed the event and was delighted to play some duets with Martin at the end of the program.  Turns out these are the first video game music duets that he's ever performed!  I put these duets up on my videogamemusicnerd YouTube channel, but I'll share my favorite of these duets here.  I absolutely loved playing Super Mario Galaxy, and also the reference to Super Mario Bros 3, in the middle of this duet.  Despite the fact that we probably had only about 45 minutes to rehearse, these duets really came together.  In fact, one of my students wrote a reaction to the recital, commenting: "The duets were incredible— really in sync— you seem to play off each other well."  I think that playing piano duets is one of the hardest things to really have exactly together because of the percussive nature of the instrument, but we did it!

I think that Martin will eventually post the whole recital and I'll link to it here once he does.  For now, you can see the other two on my channel if you like.  Including some antics jumping around during Mario Kart Double Dash: Baby Park.  About this duet, one of my students wrote: “BLUE SHELL!  DUCK AND COVER!— that sort of thing is something you simply can’t get at a normal concert/recital.  Part of why I love video games so much; in the end, it’s about fun.”

Overall, a tremendously busy week, but also an important one in my research that I'm still digesting.  Have you heard Martin play video game music?  Did he inspire you and help you find a sense of community?  I'd love to hear about it, if so.

My Gaming Audio History: Super Mario Bros 3 (1990)

Of course, Super Mario Bros sculpted the gaming world.  But Super Mario Bros 3 perfected the Mario platform genre on the NES.  After this, the series needed to move to a new gaming system!  Arguably (and probably) the best of the Mario games for the NES, this game and its music was unique and memorable.  This entire entry dips in and out of comparing SMB, SMB2, and SMB3 music, so if you're interested in that, keep reading.  If you're more interested in the breakdown of SMB3 music, that's at the bottom of the page.

Unlike the previous SMB games, this game had a world map that necessitated music.  Also there were in game power up, one up, and Hammer Bros mini games that didn't arise in the first two games.  SMB2 did have slots at the end of each level, but they only used a sound effect and then a musical fanfare depending on your success or failure.  Here the mini-games are underscored with a short bass loop.

I had a blast watching this game through.  Interesting that when you grab a coin, touch an item, or fly, the "melody" is what drops out of the texture to provide the sound effect.  Usually in these games the harmony voice does, but in this case, usually the melody is what drops.  Wonder why that decision was made?  Maybe to let players hear some of the other lines they might not hear normally.

The music here is again by Koji Kondo.  I feel he was becoming more comfortable with the sound set up of the NES and he has a better handle on the length of tracks and provides a wider variety of music. SMB has a 90 second overworld theme, which most players probably rarely, if ever, heard through.  Here, the longest overworld track is 34 seconds.  The longest musical tracks are reserved for the end game sequence.  This seems to show a better understanding of what the typical player would encounter aurally.

The 8-bit analysis blog has quite a bit of information on the SMB3 music, particularly the world map music.

I love that the SMB3 whistle plays the LoZ whistle tune.  Koji Kondo is so clever to reference himself that way!  And it's an inside joke to players of both games (which most players probably were since they were both seminal games!).  Speaking of references, the Music Box plays music from the B section of the SMB overworld theme.  This same section of music is also used in SMB2 in the inverted world.

The key of this game is definitely C major.  In some cases, for instance the Victory Fanfare or the Game Over music, both cadence in G.  Is this a subtle aural push to get you to continue to the next level to hear the music resolve or to try again to get back to C major?  Love that there's an established key overall in this game.

Compared with the tunes by David Wise and Rob Hubbard tunes I've been thinking about recently, this music has a much more regular form and structure.  Perhaps it shows a little more overall thought through the game design.  Or maybe they were just going for very different feels throughout their games and this was an attempt for a more unified aural experience?  I'm not sure which, but I do tend to think there's a bit more planning here.

Super Mario 3 has no title screen music, like the original SMB.  Super Mario 2 did have title music, though.  The first music you hear in SMB3 is the World Map 1.  SMB and SMB 3 also share the same ending music, although SMB 3 brings in a new theme after about 30 seconds of the original theme.

SMB 3 clocks in at about seven and a half minutes of music.  That's almost twice the amount in SMB and SMB2.

Unlike the first game, there's no change in pitch when jumping depending on if you're super or regular Mario.


Here's a link to the soundtrack I studied plus my notes:

-World Map 1: C major.  14 sec.  I-IV-I
-World Map 2: F minor.  4 sec.  Very short loop.
-World Map 3:  C major.  12.5 sec.  7th chords.  Chromatic melody.
-World Map 4: C major.  12.5 sec.  I-ii-V-I.  Contrasts the previous chromatic steps in Map 3 with leaps!
-World Map 5: C major.  7 sec.  1 sec drum intro (doesn't repeat).  6 second short loop.  I-IV.
-World Map 6: C?  6 sec.  Alternating augmented chords.  Otherworldly sound.
-World Map 7: F.  8 sec.  Very swung.  Bluesy feel.  
-World Map 8: F minor.  8 sec.  Lots of tritones!
-Overworld 1: C major.  29 sec.  3 sec intro doesn't repeat.  Intro (2)A B.  I-IV motion.
-Overworld 2: C major.  34 sec.  Intro(2) A(4) B(6) (last measure is 5) C (9).  Cool 5ths sequence!  Intro doesn't loop.  Irregular phrase shape!
-Underwater: C major.  30 sec.  Intro(2) A B(4)  Intro doesn't repeat.  I-IV motion.  Then IV-iii-bIII-IV-V!
-Underworld: C minor.  19 sec.  Intro(4) A(12).  Same music as SMB, but with drum beat!
-Warp Zone: C major.  8 sec.  Alternates between I-bII.
-Star: 3 sec.  D minor 7 alternating with C major 7.  Same as SMB and SMB2.
-Warp Whistle: G major.  2 sec.  Borrowed from LoZ!  Awesome!
-Music Box: C major.  17 sec.  References the B section of the SMB overworld theme!  (SMB 2 does this as well with this section.  SMB2 also plays the opening of A first.)
-N' Spade: C major.  2 sec.  A short 8 note vamp.
-Toad's House: Eb major.  12.5 sec.  I-II-I-II-bIII-IV.
-Fortress: Eb as tonal center?  18 sec.  Extremely dissonant.
-Hammer Bros:  C major.  18.5 sec  Battle start: 2.5 sec.  Intro: 3 sec.  Loop is 12.5 sec.  Blue notes.  Blues form (I-V-IV-I)
-King: C major.  7 sec.  Short loop.  Melody is in the bass.
 -Airship: B as tonal center?  30 sec.  Intro(4) A A B Lots of diminished motion.  Atmospheric.
-Koopa Kid: E minor.  21 sec.  2 sec battle start.  19 sec loop.  Groovy loop.
-Victory Fanfare: G major.  4 sec. Interesting that this makes for V of the next music in the palace...
-King Restored: C major.  6 sec.  I-V-bVI-bVII-I.  That same triumphant bVI-bVII-I motion!
-Course Clear: C major scale.  3 sec.  IV-ii-V-I
-Death: C major.  3 sec.  Simple cadence.
-Game over: G major.  3 sec.  Interesting, again to think of this as V.  Does that make you want to play again to hear C major?
-Bowser:  16 sec.  A minor.  i-bII.  Vamp, Vamp+ melody.  1.5 sec battle start.  14.5 sec loop.  Very percussive with noise maker track plus percussive beats.
-Ending C major.  88 sec.  First section A B(4) A (4), 34.5 sec, is the traditional ending music from SMB.  Music is synced up with onscreen action-- rising of the curtain brings a sudden musical change to the second section (1:52 ending, curtain 2:27).  Transition(2) C D E E

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.