Cuphead's Music has NO business being this GOOD

this video is made possible by skillshare hey everybody my name is charles let's talk about the music from cuphead this is a game that i've gotten a ton of requests to check out it's something that i honestly don't really know anything about other than i i heard that the music in it is really good so we're going to take a listen to that today so let's just jump in [Music] [Music] this type of music is some of my absolute favorite when i went to college at uh purchase college just outside of new york city i got to play for pretty much all four years in the latin jazz orchestra you guys might know my professor dave who was on the channel recently we talked about some things back at school it was a little q a with my with my old college professor dave is the director of the purchase live jazz orchestra and getting to play in that band for four years was one of the most fun experiences of my life i think that there is very little music on the planet that has the same energy and power and just pure just fun as like latin big band music it's just absolutely incredible at first i wasn't 100 sure which direction this was kind of going it sounded like it could almost be sort of like a like an african drum vibe uh and then obviously with the horns it definitely takes on more of a latin feel i am not the most educated person on the specifics and the one thing i learned when i was in the lan jazz orchestra is that with latin afro cuban music the rhythms are incredibly specific it could be a 2 3 clave or 3 2 clave or a 3 2 roomba clave like there's there's totally different definitions depending on where the accents and the syncopations fall and they are all very specific and certain ones go with other ones and other ones are not supposed to go together so when you are kind of an outsider to this music you kind of hear it and it all just sort of sounds like oh yeah it's latin flat and jazz it's you know it's fun but once you dig levels and levels deeper there's a lot to it that you have to know and you have to keep track of because it either works it's correct or it's not and with latin music especially because it relies so much on this repetition you know because it's dance music essentially and it relies on this repetition and a lot of the improvisation happens over these kind of infinite open loops that can just go on and on as long as you want those things have to be specific everybody's got to kind of know okay we're this is a this type of clave or it's this type of montuna or it's this type of cascada or whatever it is like all of those things are very specific and that was something i had no idea about and getting to learn from dave and be a part of that of that band was like an incredible experience to kind of like learn a lot about that stuff and i'm still not an expert in it but i i definitely know a lot more than i did before i started and i can definitely tell you that it is some of the most fun music you will ever play if you have the opportunity to play in a big band that plays latin jazz do it it is a blast [Music] [Music] [Music] this just feels like a like a tito puente track honestly like it's super fun and just like really up tempo and fast paced and what a blast this stuff is and the chords that's one of the best things about a lot of this music is the chords most of the time they're pretty simple it's not it's not that much going on like check this out [Music] what i'm getting is that there's kind of two sections for how the solos work the whole thing i feel kind of in the key of d minor right and we start on one two three four minor four we start a minor four and then there's an interesting thing happening where i'm hearing that we go to the one chord but it's kind of over the five the bass is kind of going so it is playing the one that first root that we go to is the five so i feel like four one over five and then we stay here but it switches to the true five chord before resolving so that's like one section so that's kind of like what i'm hearing is the first section that repeats a couple times and then it goes into a different section that flips and feels more major even though it's the relative major same exact scale d minor f major it's the same scale we'll apply d minor and f major they are the relative minor or relative major to each other we just flip it major so whereas before it was g minor to kind of like the d minor here well now the second part we're gonna go b flat major to f major which is pretty much the exact same chord change it's just which are you focusing on as the root does it feel more minor or major and we just we just switch that part we start minor and we flip it to major same kind of sound palette really a lot of the same scales but it just changes the feel up a little bit and it's super cool and it makes it fun to play on and before we continue i just want to take a really quick moment to thank the sponsor of today's video skillshare you guys if you don't know i actually have a small introductory course on skillshare if you want to dive into the art of improvisation it's got all the basic building blocks from which you can start and right now you can try it out for free by using the link in the description the first 1 000 people to use that link are going to get a free trial of skillshare premium access skillshare of course is the online learning platform for creative and curious people there are thousands of courses on everything from design to illustration freelancing video editing and even improvisation the classes are designed specifically for learning so there's no advertising you'll be inspired to do more create more and most importantly you'll be exposed to a community of millions of like-minded creative individuals again the first 1000 people to use that link in the description are going to get a one month free trial of skillshare premium access so i highly encourage you to check it out you can check out the introductory improv course completely for free and you can browse all of skillshare to see what's available so that you can learn about whatever it is that you've been wanting to learn about all classes include a combination of video lessons and class projects and most classes are less than 60 minutes so they fit into your busy schedule so use the link down in the description give it a try every time you do it helps out the channel a ton and i really appreciate it so thank you and thank you to skillshare for sponsoring this video let's get back to it [Music] so [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] oh man what a blast the game itself has just got to be chaotic and just absolute just like there's tons of fun the fact that this was recorded with obviously live instruments obviously a live big band i mean that is such a cool thing to include in a video game i remember we talked about the mario kart 8 soundtrack well the first mario kart to utilize a live big band in that way we don't often hear this type of music in video games let alone recorded with live a live band to this quality i mean it's absolutely incredible to see in a game [Music] there's a really fantastic video i'll put a link in the description down below but it's it's kind of a look inside of a rehearsal studio to make music like this and it's just man it just puts me right back into latin jazz band rehearsal you guys who are in band like you know you know what this stuff is like it can be equal parts some of the most fun you'll ever have but then also there are times when you just are sitting there while like i don't know if you're a trumpet player and they're running through like a sax section or something and you just feel like you're in this purgatory of never ending just waiting just sitting around and playing the same section over and over and over again but that's that's how you get good you know for just being rehearsal hand is super tight [Music] i hear that four on the floor bass drum this is super cool it's like some of this a little bit older style big band not not getting like super far back but it's definitely like an older style compared to maybe some of the more modern big band sounds like you're count basie duke ellington but you know earlier duke maybe and and getting back into like cab calloway and gene krupa like a lot of that sort of feel that kind of 30s jazz big band feel it's super cool [Music] those saxophone backgrounds are very uh reminiscent of the the swings or sing things is i think sing sing why swing swings yeah the benny goodman tune well it's not actually it was written by louis prima but uh made popular by benny goodman 1935 clearly that that style intending to kind of emanate that feel but it's a super great feel and especially like for a video game like this you know with again with the kind of chaos the same as the latin stuff like what a cool concept for a video game i mean it's just it's almost like a nice you know step away from maybe your the typical thing you expect with a with a game this is fantastic [Music] yeah the other thing that's cool too is like the style of the game it all kind of blends together in this really cool way with this kind of like throwback animation style and then and the way the announcer or whatever you want to call it like the voice and it's usually that super 50 style with the music from 50s 40s 30s what an awesome concept to just kind of create this whole world and this whole game in this era it's just a lot of fun just hearing a tenor solo like this in the background during a boss fight i mean it's just it's great the whole thing is fantastic you know and another reason that this is so cool too is there's a lot of music in here that people who play the game might never have heard before or in any other context and this is kind of an opportunity for people to discover this incredible big band style and the music that came out of the 30s the 40s and 50s so much incredible big band music that ultimately paved the way for like a lot of things that came after it in terms of like more modern big band and modern jazz and everything like not a lot of people have checked it out to any real extent so to have it kind of in the background even if you're not totally aware of it at first like it's just gonna it's just gonna sit there and grow on you and and you're gonna hear it over and over again i think it's just like a fantastic way to kind of expose people to new music and expose people to different styles of music the band sounds fantastic the writing is phenomenal and the game has this ultra cool throwback feel it all just fits it sounds incredible i want to play this i want to actually like dive into it and try it out and hear how everything is applied and how the music fits into the game and everything it's incredibly interesting to see so i want to know from you guys like what what is your favorite part of the soundtrack and what are some ways that you think it's particularly well applied to the game itself let me know down in the comments below because i'm super curious and let me know your thoughts on the cuphead soundtrack in the comments below if there's any specific thing you want me to cover from it i'm just thoroughly blown away by the by the quality of the music and the style they went with it's just so much fun and if you ever have a chance to play in a band with this type of music or latin music or any any of the uh big band-esque things do it because you will have a blast as always thank you so much for watching i appreciate you taking the time and we will see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: Charles Cornell

Views: 511,234

Keywords: Charles, Charles Cornell, Charles Cornell Studios, Studios, Cornell, Piano, Piano Covers, Piano guy, cuphead, cuphead game, cuphead music, cuphead sountrack

Id: Xj9Iqe0VM1U

Length: 13min 17sec (797 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 02 2021