Why does Mario music sound "Fun"?

[Music] everything about the Mario games is designed for pure unadulterated fun from the bright colors to the silly characters to the less a fair attitude towards the laws of physics the music is no exception to this with each soundtrack perfectly capturing the carefree spirit of the games themselves but what makes this music sound fun what makes it sound so distinctly Mario well it actually has a lot to do with why the games themselves are fun to play probably the most obvious of super Mario's strengths is its simplicity you see bottomless pits you jump over them you see coins you jump into them you see enemies you jump onto them the rules of the games are so intuitive that even absolute novices can understand and enjoy them and this is true of the music as well simple catchy melodies decorate the levels and stick in your brain long after you put down the controller the key word is accessibility no matter how musically illiterate you are even if you've never taken so much as a single piano lesson as a kid you can still sing along to the Mario theme this is partially because of strong melodies that consist mostly of basic chord tones the first third and fifth of a chord are the easiest to hear and the easiest de Seine over that chord so crafting a melody out of mostly these notes makes them accessible to a larger maybe less musically experienced audience [Music] so the music is easy to get into but why is it so memorable I mean the original Super Mario Bros theme is still stuck in everyone's heads thirty years after the game came out first off most Mario music starts off with a big unison hook to draw the listener in it works the same way as a hook in a story or a movie you want to start off with something big and exciting to grab the listeners attention before getting into the meat of the work keeping these intros short an entirely new Nissen makes it impossible for the listener to get distracted since there's no other parts to listen to and no time to think about anything else once we get past the intro the melodies themselves are plenty memorable on their own even though they all use a lot of simple chord tones they're not boring because they all use incredibly dramatic rhythms and as far as making a melody catchy goes the rhythm does most of the work look at the beginning of the very first Super Mario Bros overworld theme the actual note choices are all pretty standard in that other than one chromatic note which we'll talk about later they never stray too far from the tonic chord it's pretty simple stuff if you look at it that way but the rhythm of the melody is so dramatic and interesting we get this big strong rhythmic figure kicking us off followed by a ton of off beats with a quarter note triplet thrown in the middle rhythmically the melody can barely sit still not to mention the shape of the melody the range of this opening figure is a whopping 11 which admittedly puts it outside of the easily singable range but while accessibility is a priority in writing these soundtracks making the music exciting is always going to be more important plus there are other ways to make a melody memorable for instance handling motifs is crucial for writing a melody that stands the test of time luckily koji kondo the composer for the mario series is a master at taking one or two small motifs and turning into a whole theme this is what gives a piece of music depth take a look at Super Mario 64's Bob on battlefield music for instance the whole a section is built from just one motif and it's crafted expertly it's a genius piece of writing the constant repetition of this main motif in grains it in our mind but each repetition is altered just enough so it doesn't get well repetitive the structure aids the memorability and accessibility as well the first introduction of the motif outlines our tonic triad the second time it aligns our predominant four chord this third time we get some more drastic variation to keep it interesting and give the melody momentum stretching this leap to an octave and using this three beat rhythmic pattern creates drama but the most memorable part of the motif is left completely intact this time it outlines our dominant chord placing heavy emphasis on the fifth scale degree of the key which if you take the melody as a whole gives us a one four five structure this is one of the most fundamental and familiar structures in all of music and one that everybody has heard countless times whether they're aware of it or not having it laying the foundation of this tune is what makes the music simple to understand even if the actual harmony on top embellishes the five chord a fair amount in the second half of the a section a lot changes the first phrase jumps up to the flat seven making a c7 sound which sets up the move to the four chord F the second phrase is bumped up an octave from the last time which creates rise in tension and the last phrase inverts the leap before giving us a big finish to the tonic that's sixteen bars of music with an impeccable interest curve all made from one small two bar motif it's easy music to listen to or sing along to and it's insanely catchy but the amount of thought that went into its composition is nothing short of impressive riding the line between accessible enough for the masses and interesting enough for the aficionados is the hardest thing for a composer to do and koji kondo does it spectacularly but it's not just the music that accomplishes this balance Mario may be simple to understand but the games are far from simple to beat they always start off easy teaching you the techniques you'll need to progress through your adventure and putting you in situations where it's intuitive what actions you need to take as the game progresses though you're gradually introduced to more and more challenging scenarios that add more and more different kinds of obstacles to overcome all while maintaining the core concepts introduced in the beginning it's a perfect example of easy to learn difficult to master there's another way that the music achieves the sort of depth to for how jolly the soundtracks are they each use a frankly shocking amount of chromaticism this challenges the ear so to speak and keeps the music from being gland so how do we use chromaticism to challenge the listener without sacrificing and upbeat and overall happy tone well harmonically we often hear mode mixture incorporated to introduce chromaticism typically as either the flat 6 flat 7 or minor 4 chords [Music] it's important to note that this generally will make music sound darker as you're borrowing chords from the parallel minor key but in mario music these generally resolve back to the major keys straightaway we also hear lots of secondary dominance which introduced chromaticism in a slightly brighter way [Music] this is just when you take a chord and set it up with its own personal dominant chord as if it were the center of the universe for a second an offshoot of the secondary dominant technique is the use of passing diminished chords if you take a chord approach it by a semitone and then build a diminished chord off of that note you have a passing diminished chord it's usually used to connect two chords a whole step away so you get some nice chromatic base motion filling out the space in between the chords [Music] if you want you can think of it like a secondary dominant flat nine chord without the root note melodically though and this is where it gets interesting we see a ton of chromatic approach tones chromatic approach tones are notes that aren't in the key but resolve up or down immediately to a note that is in the key it's easy to assume that an out of key note should sound bad or scary or something but it's all about how you use them introducing a dissonance and then resolving it so quickly doesn't give the listener time to hear it as a dissonance so it just kind of blends into the overall sound of the phrase in doing so it makes the overall sound of the phrase one that seems like it's not taking itself so seriously here just listen and you'll see what I mean [Music] [Music] you can hear how it sounds kind of silly or rather light-hearted much like the series as a whole seriously an Italian stereotype with an insane vertical stomps his way through Turtles ghosts and cross-dressing dinosaurs to get to a castle only to find out seven times in a row that he got to the wrong one this is not a game that takes itself too seriously and that's great it's what gives it its charm but that's not to say the game isn't serious a crazy amount of work goes into making something that can afford not to take itself seriously and that goes for both the games as a whole and the soundtracks koji kondo worked on the original super mario bros overworld theme for a long time tweaking it continuously during the development of the game to make sure it fit the tone perfectly and his efforts paid off this sort of meticulous work and dedication is needed to pull off the most important part of what makes the Super Mario games fun which is that the just plain feel good to play the development team for super mario 64 famously worked only on fine-tuning Mario's movement on a simple grid at first making sure it just felt good to make him run and jump around before starting work on any of the actual levels for everything I've said about accessibility and depth all of it would be pointless if the basic actions you used in the game were boring to do it just feels good to move around in these games and when it comes down to it that's why people keep playing them for music to feel good on the same instinctive level it all comes down to groovy proof is the part of music that makes you want to dance or nod your head or scrunch up your face like you just ate a whole lemon whether or not something grooves can be a little bit subjective in the way that a metal song will approach this differently than a funk tune for example and everyone has their own musical preferences but each genre just takes a different route to get to the same place good music always has to feel good to listen to on an instinctive level if I had to pick the style of music that I thought most closely resembled the silly cheerful way that Mario games feel I would have to pick New Orleans 2nd line it has the same feel-good lightheartedness to it [Music] this makes sense because the Super Mario series music draws heavy inspiration from the Jazz genre especially early jazz to capture this feeling everything from ragtime to funk to bossa nova to big dance swing to gypsy jazz has been used by the super mario games at one point or another but one thing that all of these styles share and arguably the one thing that unites all the different styles under the jazz umbrella is rhythmic syncopation syncopation is the emphasis of an offbeat or upbeat in contrast to a downbeat here remember what I said about the original Super Mario Bros theme being really interesting rhythmically let's listen to it again now let's remove all of the syncopation leaving every note on the beat it's boring right it totally kills the music putting emphasis on the off beats makes the music bounce and this is what jazz musicians focus on to make their music feel good let's look at some other good examples of syncopation in the Super Mario games [Music] [Music] most of the other techniques I've talked about especially the secondary dominance and the chromatic approach tones are drawn from jazz music as well specifically from jazz standards which are typically Tin Pan Alley Tunes or old Broadway show tunes that got covered by a ton of jazz artists in the early to mid 20th century before I go I just want to show off a couple of the things that Super Mario music takes from this era that add to the Mario sound the Augmented 5 chord moving to the 4 chord on the bridge [Music] the three six two five one progression [Music] well that's the video I hope you enjoyed it let me know what your favorite tune from the Super Mario series is in the comments below if you have any questions feel free to leave those too or tweet them to me at 8-bit music theory if you like this video and want to help me make more of them consider checking out my recently launched patreon page these videos take a lot of time and a lot of hard work and any support is greatly appreciated thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: 8-bit Music Theory

Views: 887,573

Rating: 4.95261 out of 5

Keywords: 8 bit music theory, 8-Bit Music Theory, Music Theory, Music, Analysis, Musical Analysis, Mario, Nintendo, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario 3D Land, New Super Mario Bros., Super Mario 3D World, Overworld Theme, Ground Theme, Mario Theme, Super Mario Music, Super Mario Analysis, Delfino Plaza, Bobomb Battlefield, Super Bell Hill, Level 1 - 1 Music

Id: vVwEeiyPfFg

Length: 15min 31sec (931 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 05 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Telodor567]

This video is amazingly well done and made me appreciate Nintendo's excellent music even more! Check out his other videos too, like the Ghost house music and Zelda overworld themes ones!

[u/TheTrueAlCapwn]

Was not expecting as much music theory, was a bit overwhelmed but it was still very interesting. Also any excuse to listen to some great Mario music is fine with me!

[u/[deleted]]

This is very interesting! I love Nintendo music in general, Mario and Zelda most.

[u/SvenHudson]

The parts I understood were very enlightening.

[u/Spoon_rhythm]

This is a great overview that people of varying (or no) background in music theory can enjoy. Very impressive!

[u/jawbit]

Awesome to see so much music theory in there. Fantastic video!

[u/danreviews]

Great video. I love music theory and this one explained how it applies to Mario music in a really great and easy to understand way. Also, I'm instantly going to love anything that uses Vulfpeck footage.