Gusty Garden Galaxy's Perfect Melody

a great melody feels just as natural and expressive as human speech there are plenty of great melodies from throughout history embedded in our collective memory melodies that feel like they're reaching out and speaking right to the emotional part of your brain in some sense this is true but at the same time all great melodies are the accumulation of a number of well-balanced technical elements working seamlessly together to add up to something that sounds natural John Williams the king of melody in film music would tirelessly test out dozens of variations of each of his melodic ideas before settling on the one that felt perfect koji kondo wrote and rewrote the now famous Mario theme over and over again refining it gradually into its current iconic form in an attempt to dissect at least a little bit of the craftsmanship that goes into writing a truly great melody I'm going to talk about another one of the best pieces of music in the Mario canon the gusty garden galaxy theme from Super Mario Galaxy to write a great melody that can communicate with a listener requires both a perceptible internal logic and a sense of fluency for the melody to be coherent and sound natural if there's no logic to follow the melody sounds like random notes or maybe like a language that you don't understand but if the melody follows too strictly a line of logic if the bones of how the melody is constructed are too obvious then the melody can sound more like a stiff musical exercise in fundamentals of musical composition Arnold Schoenberg writes about finding the right balance between these two extremes by figuring out the appropriate amounts of variation and repetition to use when composing music intelligibility in music seems to be impossible without repetition for a repetition result variation can easily produce monotony juxtaposition of distantly related elements can easily to generate into nonsense only so much variation as character length and tempo required should be admitted so coherence of motive forms should be emphasized let's take a look at gusty Gardens a section melody from this perspective analyzing the balance struck between repetition and variation the first four bar phrase introduces the two basic melodic ideas that fuel most of the piece shown specifically in bars 1 & 3 the first bar gives us this melodic embellishment of our tonic D flat note first sitting on D flat and then dropping down a half step to C jumping up to E flat and then resolving back down to our initial D flat we'll call this our enclosure figure since the surrounding notes are used to enclose our main D flat note it also establishes this rhythm of a half note tied to an eighth note followed by three eighth notes we'll call this our bar one rhythm for obvious reasons [Music] the third bar puts forward a very simple but important musical idea the appoggiatura or an accented non chord tone on beat one here that resolves down by a step to a court tone in this case the second resolves down to the root of our underlying G flat chord the four chord in the key of D flat this melodic movement happens in this very specific rhythm that will call our accompaniment rhythm as it's been set up by the accompanying strings and bassline in the intro and will continue in the accompaniment throughout basically the whole piece in between these two bars we see our first bit of variation the rhythm of our first bar is repeated but the contour is completely changed from the enclosure figure to a skip down from and walked back up to an a-flat note this variation is crucial to the flow of the line listen to the melody as it is [Music] it sounds perfectly natural fluid and intelligible now listen to how it would sound if we kept the contour of our previous enclosure figure and just moved it down to start on our a flat here it's still illogical melody but it sounds so much more stiff and unnatural we don't get that human voice quality that the original has the second four bar phrase is a logical continuation of the ideas of the first phrase with a perfect amount of variation giving the melody a sense of forward movement our first bar here uses the exact contour and rhythm of our bar one enclosure figure but shifts it up a step to start on the tonic of the underlying a flat minor chord rather than the original D flat notice how the half step below whole step above structure of this melody line is maintained even though it means we dip reef Li out of our home key this adds a little bit of color to the line and emphasizes the e flat note that we resolve to at the end of the bar bars three and four of the phrase are also kept the same other than a shift up of a whole step the appoggiatura figure resolving this time to the fifth of our tonic D flat chord once again the second bar of the phrase introduces the most variation with a totally new contour and syncopated rhythm this is the perfect time to introduce this variation couched in between two very recognizable restatements of previous musical ideas if this second bar had had less variation if it had maybe just been shifted up a step from our first phrase like the bars around it we'd risk introducing a little bit of boredom into the piece hitting us with something we couldn't expect here keeps the melody fresh and exciting already we have a real resemblance to human communication through this call and response or question and answer type of phrasing the first phrase poses a musical question and the second gives a satisfying answer this can be a tough thing to achieve but it's such a powerful melodic tool when done well and a lot of it comes down to what notes you use to start and end each phrase starting on our tonic is an easy choice it clearly establishes the key of the piece and starts us off at home base the phrase ends on the 4th of the key a note not found in our tonic chord which means that it sounds unresolved this is kind of like putting a comma at the end of a phrase it suggests more information to follow the answering phrase starts on the second of the key another unresolved sounding note not found in our tonic chord then winds all the way down to our fifth a note found in the tonic chord but the least resolved sounding of the three tonic chord tones this note is perfect for this point in the melody we're only halfway through the section so we don't want to resolve so cleanly that it doesn't feel like we should keep going but this note being part of the tonic chord and the tonic chord being used underneath it resolves musically in a way that gives a satisfying answer to the previous melodic statement listen to the two phrases back-to-back and see if you can hear what I mean [Music] the same building blocks that were used to construct the first half of this melody are used to construct the second half as well the intensity shoots up as the pace of the melody quickens rather than another 4 bar phrase the basic elements that made up the previous four-bar phrases are squished into two two-bar phrases that play back to back starting off way up at the peak of the sections melodic range we first have 1 bar of our enclosure figure outlining the tonic a-flat of an a-flat minor 7 chord which shifts directly into a bar of our appoggiatura figure resolving down to the 5th of a B flat 7 this same 2 bar version of our initial phrase is repeated down a step to outline an e-flat minor to G flat minor 6 progression before resolving down to the third of our tonic chord at the start of the next phrase [Music] this final four bar phrase has the job of setting up a repeat back to the top of this section of melody so instead of resolving super cleanly we get another variation of our main melodic ideas we have two bars of our enclosure figure one surrounding F over a D flat chord and the next surrounding a flat over an e-flat over G chord notice that this e flat over G bar makes use of the syncopated rhythm used as a variation way back in the sixth bar of the melody we're avoiding monotonous repetition here but in a way that ties back to the ideas already introduced earlier in the piece these final two bars offer up our appoggiatura figure resolving to the third of the underlying a flat chord before giving us a variation that moves upward to follow the flat 6 flat 7 one chord movement that sets up a return to the top of our form the balance of variation and repetition here is beautiful we've never actually heard the same exact bar more than once throughout this whole section but the repetition of easily recognizable rhythms and contour keep this melody completely intelligible it's the repetition of these elements that gives this melody a discernable structure it's how we can perceive that the third phrase of the section is quickening the pace of the melody which is how the melody can create this feeling of rising and falling intensity while the variations in the melody make the story it's telling interesting it's the repetition in the melody that allows it to tell a story at all let's listen to the whole section now following along with how the various transformations of the initial melodic ideas take us through a dramatic musical narrative [Music] compare this with the sky station theme from Super Mario Galaxy 2 which is clearly inspired by gusty Gardens theme the a section melody here has much less variation and therefore much more repetition than gusty garden and the variation that it does have is a lot less dramatic like gusty this opening phrase gives us two main melodic ideas a half-step dip down from this b-flat and back in our old bar one rhythm from gusty garden and a melodic figure that winds around our tonic a flat notes starting on the step above F walking through it down to the step below D and then stepping back up to e-flat the first and second phrases are built from a bar of the first motivic idea a bar of the second idea and then a variation on the first bar that replaces the chromatic half step with a diatonic walk-up back to b-flat maintaining the original rhythm the second phrase is the same but with the final two bars bumped up an octave and replacing the walk up to b-flat with a walk down to F using an octave displacement in an answering phrase like this is really common in modern Nintendo music [Music] it's a nice melody for sure but you'll probably notice that it just doesn't hold your interest the same way that Gus Teegarden did remember how gusty Gardens melody jumped around so that each phrase started and ended on different notes never repeating a bar the exact same way twice Sky stations melody starts or ends on a big half note B flat seven times and twelve bars coming back continuously to the same note like this can make it hard to keep the listeners interest imagine if we took the second phrase and bumped it up by a step like Gus Teegarden did then maybe introduced a little more variation in the third bar while retaining the original melodic ideas I think that feels a little less repetitive than the original a little more like it's going somewhere maybe this isn't to say that sky station isn't a well-written piece of music it was composed by Mohito Yokota's the same as gusty garden I just wanted to use this comparison to illustrate how difficult it is to write something that strikes that perfect balance of variation and repetition and to shower praises on Gusti garden galaxy for managing to nail it the second statement of gust ease a section melody shows us another way to use variation to avoid monotony the phrasing is identical the notes and rhythms are all almost the same but the section is reharmonization outs first our D flat to D flat over F to G flat progression is replaced with a D flat to E flat over D flat move with this a flat highlighted by the altering of our first melodic phrase to end on a G natural rather than a G flat [Music] this G being the sharp 4th in the key of D flat draws a lot of attention to itself but its function as an unresolved note still totally fits with where it shows up in the melody we're still getting a melodic call that begs a response even more so than the first time around if that first phrase sounded like it ended with a comma this one might sound more like it ends with a question mark the following phrase gives the same answer as we saw before only this time with the second bar shifted to the parallel D flat minor scale to fit over the new colorful G flat minor 6 to D flat cadence the 6 5 ' Gyor that ended the first version of this phrase is changed to a flat 6 to 5 but the resolution to the fifth stays constant and so does the function of this phrase as an answer to the first 4 bars [Music] the final phrase is cut short and replaced with a lock-up from flat 6 to flat 7 to 1 resolving the melody in a way reminiscent of the flat 6 flat 7 1 cadence that we associate so strongly with the original Super Mario Bros interestingly enough this move is actually harmonized by a minor for 2 minor 5 to 1 an evolution of the classic cadence that fits with this game as an evolution of the franchise [Music] [Applause] zooming out a bit from the nitty-gritty note by note details that we've been looking at so far I noticed that this melody is structured exactly like a limerick the first phrase establishes an idea the second phrase responds to that idea then we have two shortened phrases back to back that end with a final phrase resolving the whole thing there must be something about the rhythm of this kind of structure that's super satisfying to human brains whether it be in music or dirty poetry once again I want to draw a comparison to another Mohito yoga composition from Super Mario Galaxy 2 the theme from cloudy court galaxies this is kind of the sequels version of the gusty garden galaxy level and the music draws obvious influence from the gusty garden theme the structure is the same a four bar melodic phrase sets up a question then a following phrase answers it another for VAR phrase increases the pace or intensity of the melody before resolving down to our tonic in the final 4 bar phrase where a Sky stations melody didn't use as much variation as gusty garden cloudy court goes the opposite way and uses almost too little repetition and in doing so loses the clear overarching structure that gusty garden has the initial four bar melodic phrase introduces three main melodic ideas this scalar walked down from a held half note the same winding melodic figure that we saw in sky station and a leap down of a fifth in the same accompaniment rhythm that we see throughout both gusty garden and cloudy courts accompaniment these ideas are immediately elaborated upon in the second phrase starting off shifted up by a whole step before leaping up to an octave above their original incarnation [Music] the following phrases used the same general structure of gusty Gardens melody but they don't make clear use of the motifs already established by the first eight bars we have an octave leap up followed by some syncopated melodic figures that while interesting enough don't tie together with any of the three initial melodic motifs and don't really tie together with each other either it's not like they sound totally random or anything there's just not one clear idea developing over the course of this melody [Music] this is a little more interesting than sky station in my opinion but the lack of repetition keeps it from being as powerful as gusty garden it almost feels a bit like a variety show cycling through a series of ideas that are all perfectly entertaining but that don't give a sense of these ideas developing towards a climax and conclusion again this is a perfectly good piece of music it just can't touch the level of greatness that gusty garden manages to achieve it might be hard to believe from the last almost 20 minutes that I've spent showering praise on it but gusty Gardens a section melody is not what has cemented this tune among the greatest in Nintendo's impressive history so to end off the video I just want to draw your attention to the climax of the piece the c-section melody as catchy as any pop hook and a perfect culmination of everything built up over the course of the piece up to this point the appositive figure from the very first melodic phrase has been used many times up until this point in the piece but never before has it resolved to our tonic note until now building up from a contrasting B section in the distant key of a major the music boldly returns to our home key with this triumphant melody [Music] [Applause] in fact this section was so good that they used it in Super Mario Galaxy two's main theme I hope this could shed a little bit of light onto what makes this piece so legendary there's nothing I love more than diving into a deep piece of music like this and getting to see all of the little connections between the different parts I feel like every time I looked at this piece I found some connection between two melodic figures that I hadn't realized were related big thanks to patron domain for suggesting Super Mario Galaxy if you'd like to join door main here in supporting this channel please consider checking out my patreon page here or buying an 8-bit music theory staff paper notebook made in collaboration with the musicians notebook you can follow me on twitter at 8-bit music theory thanks so much for watching and I'll see you all next time [Music] you

Channel: 8-bit Music Theory

Views: 382,703

Rating: 4.9574785 out of 5

Keywords: Mario, nintendo music, super Mario galaxy, super Mario galaxy music, super Mario galaxy 2, gusty garden galaxy music, cloudy court galaxy, sky station galaxy, Mahito Yokota, video game composition, Mario music, Game Soundtrack, How to write a melody, video game music theory, 8-bit Music Theory

Id: CYE2DOybFV0

Length: 19min 57sec (1197 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 16 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/NerdyKirdahy]

I love his analysis of game music, but I always feel kind of dumb when he gets really technical.

Maybe I need 7-bit music theory.

[u/passtime-paradise]

What a legendary piece. I understood that spiritually.