hello I'm scruffy and today I'm talking
video game music not Pikmin music not
yet I'll be getting to that in this
video I want to talk about the music in
a different franchise of Nintendos and
to tell you which one all I have to do
is play a little snippet
here yep it's Mario I mean I suppose you
may have also seen the video's title but
my point is if you've played a Mario
game or two chances are that you don't
need the visuals or the name of the game
to think of it the music of Mario alone
can evoke the idea of Mario in fact the
melody alone can do it if I play this
melody and you've played a Mario game
then you probably just beat me to
identifying it as the star man or
invincibility theme why is that why are
these Melodies so catchy that we have
them on standby in the backs of our
minds today I'm going to show you you
why it's so important for the most
prominent memorable Mario themes to be
catchy and some music theory behind how
they achieve this catchiness to tackle
the first point we need to address the
purpose of these Melodies what they do
in a Mario game if anything besides make
it fun to listen to well music certainly
Spurs you on to explore the levels laid
out for you or it at least tries to set
the mood for a particular level but
there's an extra purpose to Mario's
themes that calls back to before Mario
before video games and even before
Electronic media we're heading all the
way back to late 19th century Germany to
recall an important figure in music
History Richard Vagner he was a composer
best known for his Innovative operas and
he popularized a technique that has
become a staple of film and video game
composition it's called a light Motif a
light Motif is a musical gesture that
becomes associated with a particular
character or idea in a multimedia work
of art when this character or idea is
first introduced the like Motif is also
heard and the two are presented together
several times so the audience can form
an association between the concept and
the audio eventually a successful light
Motif will be able to make us think of a
previous character or idea even without
the visuals here is a pretty famous
example from
film you probably don't need me to tell
you this light Motif represents the
character Indiana Jones here's another
example you may
recognize while this was originally a
theme in the Ure to Peter ilich kovsky
symphonic poem based on Romeo and Juliet
many other sources have turned this into
a light motif of romance or love at
first sight light motifs are all around
us especially in films and even in video
games now do The Melodies we remember
from Mario count as light motifs some do
do some not so much the original themes
from the NES classic Super Mario
Brothers have stood the test of time
they are definitely light motifs one
mention of and you not only know the
franchise but you can picture the
character and possibly the scenery the
purpose of playing these themes in
various context across a lot of Mario
games is to get the players to associate
the music with Mario So eventually
someone could play the world 1-2 theme
and you would not only know that it's
from a Mario game it's under
exploring the green piping that strews
the Mushroom Kingdom and it works vice
versa if I asked someone to sing hum or
whistle a Mario theme on a whim the one
they'd come up with first would probably
be from Super Mario Bros for the NES the
music works together with the game to
spread the memory of how fun it was and
the idea of Mario as a character now the
reason I say some Mario themes are not
so light motify is because sometimes
it's unclear what a theme is portraying
listen to this theme from new superar
Mario Bros for the Nintendo
[Music]
DS if you've played the game you
probably recognize this music but if
it's a light Motif with what is it
supposed to be Associated Mario the
Mushroom Kingdom world 1-1 the forces of
good I don't know I don't think this
theme is going for anything specific it
might be representing Mario but since
most of us already have a light motif of
Mario going into this game this one
isn't going to replace it that's not
quite how light motifs work they're all
about First Impressions still this theme
is very memorable because it's catchy on
its own how do all these Mario made
Melodies maintain a momentous margin in
our memory H well this sounds like a job
for Sheet Music time to visualize some
compositional ideas that probably make
these themes more striking and easier to
remember for these examples I'll be
focusing on themes in the latest
canonical Mario game to introduce the
soundtrack's worth of new music Super
Mario 3D World personally I loved this
game soundtrack because it introduced a
live big band to record quite a few of
its tracks it's possible that not
everyone who watches this video will be
acquainted with the game but that's okay
you don't need to be to get these Tunes
stuck in your head for instance here is
part of the Overworld level Melody that
becomes the theme of the whole game
[Music]
this isn't the whole Melody but this is
the motif you're most bound to get stuck
in your head and here is Bowser's theme
which definitely becomes a light Motif
for his Antics within this
[Music]
game so let's break down what they do to
achieve catchiness firstly these
Melodies are both in common time
signature which means four beats are
distributed across each measure not too
surprisingly these motifs are
distributed across four measure phrases
so we don't feel like they're missing
any beats we can call these phrases
periods as a lot of Mario Melodies
follow a concept called periodicity in
periodicity constructing musical phrases
is like constructing with building
blocks you have one block that is a
musical statement like
this it's one statement because the lack
of motion and the rest at the end
separates this material from other
materials so you group this block of
music with other blocks to form a
complete period when do you have a
complete period well for starters when
you reach a multiple of four beats like
16 you also have a complete period when
you end on a clear Cadence this period
has a clear half Cadence because we
begin in F major and end on C major the
period after this would bring us back to
F major completing a tonal journey of
tension and release now if we pick apart
this period even more you may see that
two of these building blocks are very
similar down to a one notee
[Music]
difference repetition is very important
to ingraining a tune in someone's mind
but repetition with variation makes a
tune all the more interesting so let's
call this block a and then this block a
prime since it's clearly A variation on
the first block the third block that
moves for two measures we can call B
since it's not really related to the
first blocks material and has a
different function to get to the Cadence
another way to think of it is like a
sentence these two blocks are the
subjects of a sentence and this is the
predicate telling us where they go or
what they do since this phrase only half
cadences this sentence could end in a
question mark a cliffhanger and the next
phrase would answer this one ending
resolutely on a period That's
periodicity you'll notice this structure
a lot in Mario games main motifs because
it's such a satisfying smooth and
uniform way to construct
melodies the format dates back to the
classic era of Music in the early 18th
century when the newest trend of music
was Galant natural smooth and free of
technical complications but Mario isn't
in the classic era it's not like he's
following this Galant Chic absolutely
for instance in the original Super Mario
Bros Overworld medley we have musical
blocks that are exactly
repeated shouldn't this make the motifs
tedious rather than catchy well firstly
in the NES game this whole tune is on a
time limit so you don't spend a
prolonged amount of time hearing it but
it has other tricks to make it ear candy
for instance
syncopation you syncopate a group of
notes when you displace where they start
and end such that some notes that were
on strong beats now start on weak beats
and vice versa what are strong beats
well think of a ruler you see how a
standard ruler has large markings for
centimeters or inches smaller markings
for the midpoints and even smaller
markings for the increments in between
this is how a measure is split into beat
subdivisions down beats are at the
beginnings of measures these are the
strongest they would get the biggest
markings on a musical ruler since we're
splitting our measures into four beats
the Beats themselves would be the next
strongest with the Midway beat beat
three slightly stronger than beats 2 and
four and in between those we have
smaller subdivisions of the beat that
are weaker and weaker but these weak
subdivisions can give Melodies rhythmic
appeal let's take just a snippet of
Super Mario 3D world's tune and measure
it on our musical
ruler
it's very slight but the last two notes
are syncopated and that makes a world of
difference I'll try playing the melody
only on the strongest
beats something about it it it just
loses its Soul it feels more like a
machine is producing it not to say it
couldn't work but the syncopation allows
it to be much more memorable
plus this ruler doesn't account for the
fact that this tune has a swing Rhythm
which in this case means all the weak
16th note subdivisions are hesitated to
create a looser more easygoing swinging
feel same thing same swing happens with
Bowser's
[Music]
Melody and the Super Mario Bros Melody
it ooes syncopation check this
out like every other note is displaced
on a weaker beat plus this figure is a
triplet in which the notes are following
a three-fold division of the beat rather
than two-fold and while this melody is
going straight to the beat the drums are
swinging this whole tune is playing with
rhythm to make what would be an
extremely complex pattern easy to
remember
it's my theory that these two facets
periodicity and syncopation account for
a great deal of the catchiness in these
Melodies generally this amounts to
meeting the brain's expectations on a
large scale but surprising it on a small
scale not only is that memorable that
also feels good I also recognize these
facets are based more on structure and
Rhythm than on actual pitch this is
because for humans rhythm is more
internalized than pitch but Rhythm by
itself is easier to remember M than a
group of arhythmic pitches by itself but
there are some details of the pitches
used in these 3D World motifs that I'd
like to detail I said before that light
motifs are all about first impressions
well sometimes that comes down to the
first couple of pitches chosen to make
this easier to understand I'm going to
call this light Motif the good theme and
this light Motif the evil theme so what
about the Contour of the good theme
helps us understand it as good besides
being associated with Mario the colorful
layout of super Bell Hill and the fun of
Super Mario 3D World it begins on C but
sort of jumps up to D and F to get to G
which is the strong note on the down
beat this approach helps make sense of
what key we're in F major by using the
notes in the F major scale now while G
is in the F major scale it's not
actually part of F major which is made
up of three notes F A and C we can thus
call G A non- chord tone a a non- chord
tone on a downbeat it's pretty strange
from a classical music theory
perspective but from a jazz perspective
perfectly acceptable and what's more
this whole approach to G outlines a
special scale of its own called the
pentatonic scale it's pentatonic because
it contains five notes in this case c d
f g and a this intro gesture covers four
of the five notes and then we get our
fifth note a at the end of the second
block of Melody why is this scale so
important well some of the oldest
musical instruments we've discovered
bone flutes dating back tens of
thousands of years create a pentatonic
scale when played the scale has been
with humankind longer than the major
scale and just listen to it it sounds so
nice and relaxing now I'm not so sure
the composers of this theme were
thinking of the profound history of the
pentatonic scale when they came up with
this this is more of a subconscious
indication that Mario is on the good
side compare that to the evil sides
theme which has a much different
beginning I'm much more confident that
this was intentional too say hello to B
flat in the key of E minor now E minor
is composed of e g and B not only is B
flat not in that chord but it's also a
trione distance from E that means it's
as far away from e as you can get it
splits the octave from E to e in half
the trone has a history of dissonance
back before and even during the
Renaissance the trone was associated
with the devil because it sounded so
harsh and here it is today showing off
Bowser with no fancy introduction to
give it any context like Mario had
technically it's an approach to the next
note B which is an E minor but that B
flat gets all the attention listen to
this
[Music]
version that's a trumpet with a plunger
mute that they're opening up and a
flutter tongue an instruction to Trill
your tongue into the trumpet
mouthpiece like that bottom line this
tune is doing everything in its power to
make that beef flat as defiant and funky
as possible and it works we may not
think of it while playing the game but
subconsciously we might just nod that
this trone indicates Bowser is an evil
dissonant character on the surface we
just think he has a great taste in evil
music so that's an analysis on the
catchiness of Mario's Greatest Hits if
you someday want to create a catchy
Melody for an up and cominging video
game just remember you don't have to
follow any of this in order to make a
theme catchy or evocative you don't have
to follow precise periodic structure or
syncopation or pitch systems this is
just what works for the Mario franchise
creating modular tonal Melodies that fit
our expectations of tension and release
but throw in a couple of surprises with
syncopation and note choices that's kind
of how Mario's dramatic structure works
little surprises here and there but
overall a satisfying art of good
conquering evil in this way Mario and
really any video game is what Richard
Vagner called a Gant kber a work of art
in which many forms of Art in this case
digital art sculpting music and a bit of
drama work together to create a unified
hole but you don't have to follow Mario
to make a Gaz kber with some effort and
experimentation there are many ways to
create something expressive and
memorable even catchy but it's still a
good idea to listen to Mario music
especially what I imagine will be an
incredible soundtrack to Super Mario
Odyssey coming to the Nintendo switch
later this year now before I end the
video I'd like to give a shout out and
kudos to my friend Kevin cheek a fellow
musician and composer Who provided the
alto saxophone in this video you can
check out his SoundCloud page in the
description or right here and with that
here's looking forward to a future of
fantastic Mario music I'm scruffy and
thank you very much for
[Music]
watching