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33⅓ Main Series #106
Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack
Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. (1985) score redefined video game music. With under three minutes of music, Kondo put to rest an era of bleeps and bloops-the sterile products of a lab environment-replacing it with one in which game sounds constituted a legitimate form of artistic expression. Andrew Schartmann takes us through the various external factors (e.g., the video game crash of 1983, Nintendo's marketing tactics) that coalesced into a ripe environment in which Kondo's musical experiments could thrive. He then delves into the music itself, searching for reasons why our hearts still dance to the “primitive” 8-bit tunes of a bygone era.
What musical features are responsible for Kondo's distinct “Mario sound”? How do the different themes underscore the vastness of Princess Peach's Mushroom Kingdom? And in what ways do the game's sound effects resonate with our physical experience of the world? These and other questions are explored within, through the lens of Kondo's compositional philosophy-one that would influence an entire generation of video game composers. As Kondo himself stated, “we [at Nintendo] were trying to do something that had never been done before.” In this book, Schartmann shows his readers how Kondo and his team not just succeeded, but heralded in a new era of video games.
What musical features are responsible for Kondo's distinct “Mario sound”? How do the different themes underscore the vastness of Princess Peach's Mushroom Kingdom? And in what ways do the game's sound effects resonate with our physical experience of the world? These and other questions are explored within, through the lens of Kondo's compositional philosophy-one that would influence an entire generation of video game composers. As Kondo himself stated, “we [at Nintendo] were trying to do something that had never been done before.” In this book, Schartmann shows his readers how Kondo and his team not just succeeded, but heralded in a new era of video games.
168 pages, Paperback
First published May 21, 2015
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April 4, 2015
The 33 ⅓ series are small paperbacks, usually between 100 and 200 pages long, looking at important albums of 20th century music. I’ve read the ones about bands I love like The Beatles, The Pixies, Nirvana, and Elliott Smith, but occasionally they put out some more abstract books, like Carl Wilson’s on Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love. It wasn’t so much about the album as it was about critical taste in general and explored why so many people, himself included, have a negative reaction to Dion’s music even though most of us will only have heard one of her songs (you know the one) if any.
So it goes with Andrew Schartmann’s book which takes a look at Koji Kondo’s Super Mario Bros. soundtrack as a viable, and important, “album” of the 20th century. It’s a curious choice not least because it’s music for a computer game and was created in tandem with, and to reflect, the game, but because - repetition removed - the whole thing, start to finish, is under three minutes. Some pedants might argue that this discounts it as an album as they probably have their own specific idea of what an album is, but then they wouldn’t be pedants if they didn’t.
The first 20% of the book is context and history and is definitely the most interesting part of the book. Schartmann relays a brief history of Nintendo, which was founded in 1889 making card games, then became a toymaker before branching out to video games in order to make toys off of them. They developed Donkey Kong where we first met Mario, then known as Jump Man, which became a massive arcade hit, before branching out into the home console market, creating the Famicom console for Japanese consumers (it was rebranded the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES for Western markets).
After Atari burned down the home console market by releasing one shoddy game after another, culminating in the notorious ET game that became the company’s death knell, Nintendo succeeded where Atari failed by ensuring quality. When the Famicom proved to have a glitch, Nintendo ordered a recall, regardless of expense, and lost a lot of money. They started putting “Nintendo Quality” stickers on their products to build up customer trust and their president demanded staff work on projects that were different from what was on the market, not building on pre-existing products. It was this ethos of high standards and innovation that became central to the games they produced which is why they created such wonderful games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, which still hold up today.
Continuing the progressive-thinking, Nintendo hired Koji Kondo who was the first full-time video game music composer. While most composers are brought in after the game has been completed, Kondo was present as the game was being developed and shaped the music around the look and feel of the game. It was revolutionary because all of the sound was written not just with the game in mind but with how the player experiences it. Music was no longer background beeps but part of the overall effect.
The old adage - “art through adversity” - is applicable here as the NES had a limited five channel sound generator, one of which was white noise, and yet Kondo was able to produce so many memorable and catchy tunes through it (including the awesome original Zelda game’s music). It’s a testament to his talent as much as anything, the legacy of which meant that games would become more artistic going forward.
As informative as the first 20% of the book is, once Schartmann gets into the meat of the music, it becomes very dull and monotonous. Schartmann is a music theorist who can talk extensively in the jargon of his field so most of the book is full of paragraphs like this:
“Remember the fanfare that plays each time Mario takes down Bowser’s flag at the end of a level? Let’s take a look (Example 8). The basic chord progression underlying this fanfare consists of just four major chords: C, A-flat, B-flat, and C. If you play the last three chords on a keyboard, you may notice that the fanfare is built on the exact same progression as the salient passage from the ‘Overworld’ theme’s B-section. In fact, the sound of chords ascending in stepwise parallel motion is relatively common in the Super Mario Bros. album as a whole. Whenever Mario crosses a bridge and casts a Bowser imposter into a pit of boiling lava, the ‘Castle Fanfare’ (Example 9) sounds the following series of major triads: C, D-flat, E-flat, F and G. Remember the music that plays to warn Mario that time is running out? It’s a series of ascending parallel chords (this time diminished-seventh chords).”
I can play guitar but can’t read sheet music - write the chords above the lyrics and I can play a song passably well - and I also have no knowledge of music theory whatsoever. So reading stuff like that - and it takes up most of the book - is extremely dull to me.
But the thinness of the material gets really stretched by the end when he starts examining the individual sounds, like of Mario hitting a wall he can’t break or jumping. That’s when it becomes very dire and I just wanted the book to end.
Part of the appeal of the 33 ⅓ series, for me, is learning about the artist as much as it is about discussing the art. So Steve Matteo’s book on Let It Be was interesting because he showed us how The Beatles were disintegrating, taking us into their personal lives, as well as looking at the tracks. It is gossipy and shallow but Kondo’s life isn’t at all dramatic. He was a young guy straight out of university who had talent and began working at a games company. He succeeded and began an illustrious career. That’s it.
There doesn’t have to be a lot about the artist necessarily, but when the writing about the music itself is utterly tedious, I was hoping a different aspect to the book would offset the boredom, and it didn’t. The history behind the game is fine, but the lengthy examination of the music and its creator is, like many academic books, far too dry and much too full of technical detail for my taste.
Super Mario Bros. remains a fond memory from my childhood and the music will remain embedded in my head ‘til I get the Game Over screen on my own life. I appreciate that 33 ⅓ tried something different, and it sounded like a fun read, however the experience was anything but.
So it goes with Andrew Schartmann’s book which takes a look at Koji Kondo’s Super Mario Bros. soundtrack as a viable, and important, “album” of the 20th century. It’s a curious choice not least because it’s music for a computer game and was created in tandem with, and to reflect, the game, but because - repetition removed - the whole thing, start to finish, is under three minutes. Some pedants might argue that this discounts it as an album as they probably have their own specific idea of what an album is, but then they wouldn’t be pedants if they didn’t.
The first 20% of the book is context and history and is definitely the most interesting part of the book. Schartmann relays a brief history of Nintendo, which was founded in 1889 making card games, then became a toymaker before branching out to video games in order to make toys off of them. They developed Donkey Kong where we first met Mario, then known as Jump Man, which became a massive arcade hit, before branching out into the home console market, creating the Famicom console for Japanese consumers (it was rebranded the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES for Western markets).
After Atari burned down the home console market by releasing one shoddy game after another, culminating in the notorious ET game that became the company’s death knell, Nintendo succeeded where Atari failed by ensuring quality. When the Famicom proved to have a glitch, Nintendo ordered a recall, regardless of expense, and lost a lot of money. They started putting “Nintendo Quality” stickers on their products to build up customer trust and their president demanded staff work on projects that were different from what was on the market, not building on pre-existing products. It was this ethos of high standards and innovation that became central to the games they produced which is why they created such wonderful games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, which still hold up today.
Continuing the progressive-thinking, Nintendo hired Koji Kondo who was the first full-time video game music composer. While most composers are brought in after the game has been completed, Kondo was present as the game was being developed and shaped the music around the look and feel of the game. It was revolutionary because all of the sound was written not just with the game in mind but with how the player experiences it. Music was no longer background beeps but part of the overall effect.
The old adage - “art through adversity” - is applicable here as the NES had a limited five channel sound generator, one of which was white noise, and yet Kondo was able to produce so many memorable and catchy tunes through it (including the awesome original Zelda game’s music). It’s a testament to his talent as much as anything, the legacy of which meant that games would become more artistic going forward.
As informative as the first 20% of the book is, once Schartmann gets into the meat of the music, it becomes very dull and monotonous. Schartmann is a music theorist who can talk extensively in the jargon of his field so most of the book is full of paragraphs like this:
“Remember the fanfare that plays each time Mario takes down Bowser’s flag at the end of a level? Let’s take a look (Example 8). The basic chord progression underlying this fanfare consists of just four major chords: C, A-flat, B-flat, and C. If you play the last three chords on a keyboard, you may notice that the fanfare is built on the exact same progression as the salient passage from the ‘Overworld’ theme’s B-section. In fact, the sound of chords ascending in stepwise parallel motion is relatively common in the Super Mario Bros. album as a whole. Whenever Mario crosses a bridge and casts a Bowser imposter into a pit of boiling lava, the ‘Castle Fanfare’ (Example 9) sounds the following series of major triads: C, D-flat, E-flat, F and G. Remember the music that plays to warn Mario that time is running out? It’s a series of ascending parallel chords (this time diminished-seventh chords).”
I can play guitar but can’t read sheet music - write the chords above the lyrics and I can play a song passably well - and I also have no knowledge of music theory whatsoever. So reading stuff like that - and it takes up most of the book - is extremely dull to me.
But the thinness of the material gets really stretched by the end when he starts examining the individual sounds, like of Mario hitting a wall he can’t break or jumping. That’s when it becomes very dire and I just wanted the book to end.
Part of the appeal of the 33 ⅓ series, for me, is learning about the artist as much as it is about discussing the art. So Steve Matteo’s book on Let It Be was interesting because he showed us how The Beatles were disintegrating, taking us into their personal lives, as well as looking at the tracks. It is gossipy and shallow but Kondo’s life isn’t at all dramatic. He was a young guy straight out of university who had talent and began working at a games company. He succeeded and began an illustrious career. That’s it.
There doesn’t have to be a lot about the artist necessarily, but when the writing about the music itself is utterly tedious, I was hoping a different aspect to the book would offset the boredom, and it didn’t. The history behind the game is fine, but the lengthy examination of the music and its creator is, like many academic books, far too dry and much too full of technical detail for my taste.
Super Mario Bros. remains a fond memory from my childhood and the music will remain embedded in my head ‘til I get the Game Over screen on my own life. I appreciate that 33 ⅓ tried something different, and it sounded like a fun read, however the experience was anything but.
January 9, 2024
This book was exactly what I wanted it to be; an in-depth and technical look at Koji Kondo’s iconic video game soundtrack. Schartmann’s analysis of the three minutes of music that gives life to Mario’s adventure doesn’t shy away from concepts like time signatures, chord voicings, dissonance, and syncopation. This might be a turn off to those unfamiliar with these concepts, but for the music theory geeks out there, I’m sure they’ll be in music nerd heaven just as I was.
Schartmann provides wonderful historical background when it comes to the different styles the soundtrack utilizes. I was pleasantly surprised by the bits of information about waltzes and ragtime that I didn’t expect this book to contain.
As for downsides, the writing can be a bit verbose at times. There are a few points where I felt as if Schartmann was including superfluous pieces of information in order to lengthen the book.
My other MAJOR gripe was the repeated error of Mario’s squid enemies called Bloopers being called “Bloobers”. The Nintendo nerd in me couldn’t handle that! (I’m mostly joking)
Nitpicks aside, this is an excellent read for anyone interested in 8-bit music, music theory, Nintendo, or all of the above.
Schartmann provides wonderful historical background when it comes to the different styles the soundtrack utilizes. I was pleasantly surprised by the bits of information about waltzes and ragtime that I didn’t expect this book to contain.
As for downsides, the writing can be a bit verbose at times. There are a few points where I felt as if Schartmann was including superfluous pieces of information in order to lengthen the book.
My other MAJOR gripe was the repeated error of Mario’s squid enemies called Bloopers being called “Bloobers”. The Nintendo nerd in me couldn’t handle that! (I’m mostly joking)
Nitpicks aside, this is an excellent read for anyone interested in 8-bit music, music theory, Nintendo, or all of the above.
March 19, 2016
I found this fascinating, though it's probably written for somebody with a lot more musical knowledge than I have. I kind of skimmed through all of the technical details, but I loved reading about how the early 8-bit sound pioneers were able to create insanely memorable music using very limited means.
January 19, 2018
Generally the best 33 1/3 volumes are the ones that approach the concept of an album differently and in this case, the album consists of three minutes of the video game music that soundtracks The Super Mario Bros video game. Unfortunately this does not work as well as I thought it would.
The first part focuses on the video game industry in the 80's and the develop of the Super Mario Bros game. This section makes for first class reading.
Then Schartmann delves into Koji Kondo's life and that is pretty good too. However when when get into the technical compositions of the music i.e which notes were used for what, the book drags a bit, only picking up when there's some discussion about the sound affects.
Interesting, but I think people more interested in video game music will prefer this volume.
The first part focuses on the video game industry in the 80's and the develop of the Super Mario Bros game. This section makes for first class reading.
Then Schartmann delves into Koji Kondo's life and that is pretty good too. However when when get into the technical compositions of the music i.e which notes were used for what, the book drags a bit, only picking up when there's some discussion about the sound affects.
Interesting, but I think people more interested in video game music will prefer this volume.
September 29, 2020
I feel the need to preface this review by emphasizing that I am not the target audience for this series of books. I don't know who is, but a brief skim of the 144 titles issued under this imprint so far tells me enough to know it isn't me.
And I'm opening with that because the gap between what interests me about Koji Kondo's original Super Mario NES score and what is included here -- as well as my reaction to Schartmann's writing style -- might very well be down to the fact that I didn't need to be convinced to take Kondo's work seriously.
All that in mind... ;)
A careful journey through the original Super Mario Bros composition offers an opportunity to really grasp some of the musical theory underlying Western music -- and the subconscious associations drawn out in the audience when a composer chooses a given forms, meter, mode. Tritones, resolution, dissonance, major and minor keys, strong downbeat, strong syncopation, muddied downbeat, repetition, variation, etc. Length of a piece as an expressive device. Embodied cognition.
(I would, however, recommend using a piano to play from the provided illustrations instead of listening to those 8-bit albums available on Apple Music. Oh, my aching head!)
The headache brings me to another aspect of Kondo's magnum opus ;) which, particularly as discussed briefly in Schartmann's conclusion, is of a more philosophical lens: how severe constraints often result in creative, and beautiful, solutions.
My biggest... gripe? ... with this book is Schartmann's tendency to overexplain and overfill things which don't need that detail, while skipping a deeper exploration of musical theory / cultural inheritance reflected in Kondo's work. I'd have been very happy with fewer "On the one hand" and "At the risk of being redundant" and "To restate" -- plus a total omission of "I doubt they intended" -- in favor of Schartmann's further thoughts on what, exactly, Kondo's score leveraged in our collective subconscious. There are steps along these paths, but almost inevitably he stops before wandering far down them. It was frustrating.
But, as I said at the beginning, I am almost certainly not the target audience for this book. I would quite enjoy a six week course using Super Mario Bros for a survey of musical theory, a sister art form to opera and film composition. /shrug
Those of you interested in Kondo as an individual, or Nintendo as a case study of Japanese culture / business / collaboration practices, will want to look elsewhere. The text has only a few lines of this sort, and if you don't already have context you'll miss them completely.
And I'm opening with that because the gap between what interests me about Koji Kondo's original Super Mario NES score and what is included here -- as well as my reaction to Schartmann's writing style -- might very well be down to the fact that I didn't need to be convinced to take Kondo's work seriously.
All that in mind... ;)
A careful journey through the original Super Mario Bros composition offers an opportunity to really grasp some of the musical theory underlying Western music -- and the subconscious associations drawn out in the audience when a composer chooses a given forms, meter, mode. Tritones, resolution, dissonance, major and minor keys, strong downbeat, strong syncopation, muddied downbeat, repetition, variation, etc. Length of a piece as an expressive device. Embodied cognition.
(I would, however, recommend using a piano to play from the provided illustrations instead of listening to those 8-bit albums available on Apple Music. Oh, my aching head!)
The headache brings me to another aspect of Kondo's magnum opus ;) which, particularly as discussed briefly in Schartmann's conclusion, is of a more philosophical lens: how severe constraints often result in creative, and beautiful, solutions.
My biggest... gripe? ... with this book is Schartmann's tendency to overexplain and overfill things which don't need that detail, while skipping a deeper exploration of musical theory / cultural inheritance reflected in Kondo's work. I'd have been very happy with fewer "On the one hand" and "At the risk of being redundant" and "To restate" -- plus a total omission of "I doubt they intended" -- in favor of Schartmann's further thoughts on what, exactly, Kondo's score leveraged in our collective subconscious. There are steps along these paths, but almost inevitably he stops before wandering far down them. It was frustrating.
But, as I said at the beginning, I am almost certainly not the target audience for this book. I would quite enjoy a six week course using Super Mario Bros for a survey of musical theory, a sister art form to opera and film composition. /shrug
Those of you interested in Kondo as an individual, or Nintendo as a case study of Japanese culture / business / collaboration practices, will want to look elsewhere. The text has only a few lines of this sort, and if you don't already have context you'll miss them completely.
July 13, 2015
“Haydn. Mozart. Beethoven. Kondo.” Andrew Schartmann’s entry in the 33 1/3 series is a bit controversial.
Some call into question Super Mario’s placement amongst the most noteworthy albums of all time, or “The Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack” being called an album at all. Schartmann acknowledges the unorthodox position he is writing from, sure, he says, it’s not an album like at the record shop. And sure, a big piece of why we are still enamored with NES music 30 years later is nostalgia. But, says the book, there’s that and more. It’s not just nostalgia. It is an album. Let’s dig deeper and talk about it. Nintendo inarguably holds a place in music history. “How did Kondo add to it,” asks Schartmann, “rather than simply lean on it?”
The first half of the book (Worlds 1-1 through 1-4) are on the world Super Mario Bros. was released into.
The book opens with the infamous E.T. mass grave. This crazy, literal burial of a drastically sub-par game wasn’t some random act. Nintendo swept the American market after the wheels on the home video game market fell off. There was no one left to compete. Atari’s downward trajectory ends with dumping games and being dumped by the parent company, but the E.T. incident came about because the end was nigh and they weren’t doing anything about it. Atari, Colecovision, Magnavox Odyssey et al. folded because they flooded the market with ugly games that were no fun to play. Disenthused gamers gave up, no one wants to be stuck with a system with a crappy little pool of crappy little games, so no one bought any of them and everyone failed. A decade of making money had turned the revolution that captured the whole of America’s attention into an industry that bored them all to death.
In 1985, Nintendo’s goal was simple: revolutionize everything. Nintendo wanted to be the Lumières to Atari’s Edison. Take the black box of the golden age arcade screen and turn it into a dynamic, seemingly endless world of color. Hide extra things everywhere so the player has reason to explore as well as advance. The playadigm shifted, and the point of a video game was not just to rack up the highest score but to do something.
Rewriting the book meant bringing an actual composer in to write music that matched the brightness of the Mushroom Kingdom. Kondo’s job was to compose music that engaged the listener to the gameplay. The success of playing a video game (or sport of any type) hinges on being able to get into the zone. To align your rhythm to the pace of the game. Kondo wrote from and for the zone.
The musician’s discretion is what makes D-G-A into punk rock. Kondo had no player to infuse expression into his compositions, so he had to program in the illusion of a musician.
The second half (2-1 through 2-4) is the world inside Super Mario Bros. World 1 was Contexts and World 2 is Music.
Kondo had to make something simple sophisticated. Rustic cooking in the video game world. Under three minutes of music. Three mono channels and a white noise channel. “Sparse,” according to Neil Baldwin, not simple. “Robust,” according to Kondo. And, as Schartmann points out, constraint fosters innovation. Kondo filled things out by writing in counterpoint as well as harmony. Syncopated rhythm. Not using a three note chord but three parts of a five note chord to create the illusion of greater space. Kondo tied his pieces together thematically, struck a balance between variety and self-reference. So, fun, fresh, but it holds together.
In a way, early NES music was similar to early recordings of folk music- the Smithsonian/Alan Lomax field recording period. Just a voice and a single instrument, maybe the tapping of a foot to keep time... but all the power of a full orchestra. Maximum resonance with minimum pieces. The flaw in this comparison is the life in folk music comes from playing it as it feels, while it is impossible for a loop to improvise on timing. But, by micro-managing arrangements down to each bar, Kondo gets the sound card to swing.
That syncopated gap is what Kondo found in the zone. Kondo’s melodies and rhythms outpace themselves and catch up again. That sweet hang time of the jazz drummer hitting it just enough behind the beat is the perfect analog for the state of titilated grace that the player has to be in for Mario or Luigi to run the obstacle course successfully.
8-bit jazz drums are only one of the aspects of Kondo’s surgical micro-composing that keeps the music on point. Kondo gets around the limitation of looped music by writing arrangements where the parts themselves can be resequenced. Structures that can be broken into pieces, rearranged, reconnected and still flow together. Loops without repetition. Kondo would reserve parts of these micro-loops for specific situations- variety to keep things fresh or make important moments more important. Or he would repeat structures in different Themes to create just that- themes. The Overworld theme, the level victory theme and the castle victory all share a little something, and that something is absent from the Underworld theme. Overworld and Underworld, two worlds, two styles. Kondo wrote music that emotionally fit what was happening onscreen. It was written to hang together as a soundtrack and not a sound track.
Though Kondo played a part in that, too. Not just busting bricks. Kondo made coins sound bright, 1-Ups sound like something gained, applied his skill as a creator of music to make the sound of jumping into something fun and pleasant that also brings about a feeling of physical movement. Beside innovation stood a respect for tradition. The BOOP sound of Mario throwing a fireball doesn’t correspond to a real world noise or create a spacial analogy like rising-sound-rising-motion, it is a straight up callback to the fact that, when a video game character shoots a pellet at their foes, it makes a BOOP sound.
All in all, quite a book. The first half felt a bit eerie to read, as I can see reflections of the video game industry’s 80s mistakes in a number of modern nerdly ventures who also depend on the sure seller instead of innovation. I couldn’t help but give franchise films the side-eye several times while reading about what happened to Colecovision. To say we geeks sit on another precipice similar to the one that birthed Mario is a jump, but it’s also quite optimistic, so I think I can get away with it. So any documentary that gives me food for thought outside of the subject it covers in my mind is well reported. Unfortunately, Schartmann’s writing throughout is awkwardly academic. Overly apologetic for spending half an essay on music discussing pop culture history, and also highly technical regarding both music theory and engineering. But you bear with it and it explains everything. Some of getting through the book was definitely slogging but it was more than justified by the wealth of ephemera. A book where I said “huh” aloud while reading with some frequency. You get the history side of the game, and the theory side of the game, and how Nintendo came to execute their ideas, but you also get relevant tangents like the history of the waltz and a broad take on embodied cognition. It’s not A Fistful of Quarters.
But that does not mean it is unapproachable. It just means you might learn some things that aren’t easy to understand. The book closes talking about how Kondo dealt with the sophomore slump- by succumbing to it- driving home yet again that the success of Super Mario Bros. truly was something special, “the hard fought result of a common vision between two giants- [Koji Kondo and Shigeru Miyamoto]- who would not settle for anything less than a revolution in gaming.” Though I did not know his name until very recently, Koji Kondo’s work has had a meteoric and lasting impact on my aesthetics- and my life. Mario Bros. is my Mickey Mouse. I am grateful to understand it a little more.
Some call into question Super Mario’s placement amongst the most noteworthy albums of all time, or “The Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack” being called an album at all. Schartmann acknowledges the unorthodox position he is writing from, sure, he says, it’s not an album like at the record shop. And sure, a big piece of why we are still enamored with NES music 30 years later is nostalgia. But, says the book, there’s that and more. It’s not just nostalgia. It is an album. Let’s dig deeper and talk about it. Nintendo inarguably holds a place in music history. “How did Kondo add to it,” asks Schartmann, “rather than simply lean on it?”
The first half of the book (Worlds 1-1 through 1-4) are on the world Super Mario Bros. was released into.
The book opens with the infamous E.T. mass grave. This crazy, literal burial of a drastically sub-par game wasn’t some random act. Nintendo swept the American market after the wheels on the home video game market fell off. There was no one left to compete. Atari’s downward trajectory ends with dumping games and being dumped by the parent company, but the E.T. incident came about because the end was nigh and they weren’t doing anything about it. Atari, Colecovision, Magnavox Odyssey et al. folded because they flooded the market with ugly games that were no fun to play. Disenthused gamers gave up, no one wants to be stuck with a system with a crappy little pool of crappy little games, so no one bought any of them and everyone failed. A decade of making money had turned the revolution that captured the whole of America’s attention into an industry that bored them all to death.
In 1985, Nintendo’s goal was simple: revolutionize everything. Nintendo wanted to be the Lumières to Atari’s Edison. Take the black box of the golden age arcade screen and turn it into a dynamic, seemingly endless world of color. Hide extra things everywhere so the player has reason to explore as well as advance. The playadigm shifted, and the point of a video game was not just to rack up the highest score but to do something.
Rewriting the book meant bringing an actual composer in to write music that matched the brightness of the Mushroom Kingdom. Kondo’s job was to compose music that engaged the listener to the gameplay. The success of playing a video game (or sport of any type) hinges on being able to get into the zone. To align your rhythm to the pace of the game. Kondo wrote from and for the zone.
The musician’s discretion is what makes D-G-A into punk rock. Kondo had no player to infuse expression into his compositions, so he had to program in the illusion of a musician.
The second half (2-1 through 2-4) is the world inside Super Mario Bros. World 1 was Contexts and World 2 is Music.
Kondo had to make something simple sophisticated. Rustic cooking in the video game world. Under three minutes of music. Three mono channels and a white noise channel. “Sparse,” according to Neil Baldwin, not simple. “Robust,” according to Kondo. And, as Schartmann points out, constraint fosters innovation. Kondo filled things out by writing in counterpoint as well as harmony. Syncopated rhythm. Not using a three note chord but three parts of a five note chord to create the illusion of greater space. Kondo tied his pieces together thematically, struck a balance between variety and self-reference. So, fun, fresh, but it holds together.
In a way, early NES music was similar to early recordings of folk music- the Smithsonian/Alan Lomax field recording period. Just a voice and a single instrument, maybe the tapping of a foot to keep time... but all the power of a full orchestra. Maximum resonance with minimum pieces. The flaw in this comparison is the life in folk music comes from playing it as it feels, while it is impossible for a loop to improvise on timing. But, by micro-managing arrangements down to each bar, Kondo gets the sound card to swing.
That syncopated gap is what Kondo found in the zone. Kondo’s melodies and rhythms outpace themselves and catch up again. That sweet hang time of the jazz drummer hitting it just enough behind the beat is the perfect analog for the state of titilated grace that the player has to be in for Mario or Luigi to run the obstacle course successfully.
8-bit jazz drums are only one of the aspects of Kondo’s surgical micro-composing that keeps the music on point. Kondo gets around the limitation of looped music by writing arrangements where the parts themselves can be resequenced. Structures that can be broken into pieces, rearranged, reconnected and still flow together. Loops without repetition. Kondo would reserve parts of these micro-loops for specific situations- variety to keep things fresh or make important moments more important. Or he would repeat structures in different Themes to create just that- themes. The Overworld theme, the level victory theme and the castle victory all share a little something, and that something is absent from the Underworld theme. Overworld and Underworld, two worlds, two styles. Kondo wrote music that emotionally fit what was happening onscreen. It was written to hang together as a soundtrack and not a sound track.
Though Kondo played a part in that, too. Not just busting bricks. Kondo made coins sound bright, 1-Ups sound like something gained, applied his skill as a creator of music to make the sound of jumping into something fun and pleasant that also brings about a feeling of physical movement. Beside innovation stood a respect for tradition. The BOOP sound of Mario throwing a fireball doesn’t correspond to a real world noise or create a spacial analogy like rising-sound-rising-motion, it is a straight up callback to the fact that, when a video game character shoots a pellet at their foes, it makes a BOOP sound.
All in all, quite a book. The first half felt a bit eerie to read, as I can see reflections of the video game industry’s 80s mistakes in a number of modern nerdly ventures who also depend on the sure seller instead of innovation. I couldn’t help but give franchise films the side-eye several times while reading about what happened to Colecovision. To say we geeks sit on another precipice similar to the one that birthed Mario is a jump, but it’s also quite optimistic, so I think I can get away with it. So any documentary that gives me food for thought outside of the subject it covers in my mind is well reported. Unfortunately, Schartmann’s writing throughout is awkwardly academic. Overly apologetic for spending half an essay on music discussing pop culture history, and also highly technical regarding both music theory and engineering. But you bear with it and it explains everything. Some of getting through the book was definitely slogging but it was more than justified by the wealth of ephemera. A book where I said “huh” aloud while reading with some frequency. You get the history side of the game, and the theory side of the game, and how Nintendo came to execute their ideas, but you also get relevant tangents like the history of the waltz and a broad take on embodied cognition. It’s not A Fistful of Quarters.
But that does not mean it is unapproachable. It just means you might learn some things that aren’t easy to understand. The book closes talking about how Kondo dealt with the sophomore slump- by succumbing to it- driving home yet again that the success of Super Mario Bros. truly was something special, “the hard fought result of a common vision between two giants- [Koji Kondo and Shigeru Miyamoto]- who would not settle for anything less than a revolution in gaming.” Though I did not know his name until very recently, Koji Kondo’s work has had a meteoric and lasting impact on my aesthetics- and my life. Mario Bros. is my Mickey Mouse. I am grateful to understand it a little more.
November 7, 2021
Includes sheet music from original Mario Bros game score. Good analysis.
February 28, 2025
| 5 stars |
As a general fan of music, I’ve been wanting to read something from the 33 1/3 series for a while now. It’s very fitting for me that the first book I encounter from this series is about the original Mario Bros. soundtrack.
I very unexpectedly encountered the existence of this book while doing research on an article I’m writing about—you guessed it—Mario music. While I am writing for a publication, this article idea came out of personal interest in how music interacts with different kinds of media, and I’ve written a piece for this publication about a TV soundtrack prior to this current project. Obviously, my interest for this semester has been video games, and I wanted to start carving out a niche for writing about unconventional music topics and have pitched my current project as such.
Anyways, context aside, I was initially interested in Zelda music (can you tell I’m a big fan of Nintendo?) but felt that Mario perhaps had more cultural impact and would reach a wider audience. I wasn’t sure about what direction to take with my research and started doing a deep dive in the history of the Mario soundtracks and their composition. This led me here, to this book, and has exposed me to a whole lot of interesting information. I have not only learned about Mario’s massive impact on video game history from its music alone but also more about the mind behind its composition. Also, there was a fair bit of general video game history in the introduction of this book that I was absolutely delighted to learn about—if you’re even remotely interested in learning more about the downfall of Atari, the North American video game crash in 1983, the home console wars, or Nintendo’s ability to establish itself in a dying North American market, I encourage you to look into this book.
All in all, this book was delightfully informative in many matters. Even if you’re not interested in video game history, or Mario itself, there’s plenty about the technical elements of how to compose music on an NES console and plenty of music theory (with bars of notation demonstrating what the author is discussing) that may be enticing to some readers. Otherwise, it’s a solid read if you’re curious about just how impactful Mario and Nintendo have been in the video game industry, aside from the ~other~ mechanics of the game and its general nostalgic quality.
As a general fan of music, I’ve been wanting to read something from the 33 1/3 series for a while now. It’s very fitting for me that the first book I encounter from this series is about the original Mario Bros. soundtrack.
I very unexpectedly encountered the existence of this book while doing research on an article I’m writing about—you guessed it—Mario music. While I am writing for a publication, this article idea came out of personal interest in how music interacts with different kinds of media, and I’ve written a piece for this publication about a TV soundtrack prior to this current project. Obviously, my interest for this semester has been video games, and I wanted to start carving out a niche for writing about unconventional music topics and have pitched my current project as such.
Anyways, context aside, I was initially interested in Zelda music (can you tell I’m a big fan of Nintendo?) but felt that Mario perhaps had more cultural impact and would reach a wider audience. I wasn’t sure about what direction to take with my research and started doing a deep dive in the history of the Mario soundtracks and their composition. This led me here, to this book, and has exposed me to a whole lot of interesting information. I have not only learned about Mario’s massive impact on video game history from its music alone but also more about the mind behind its composition. Also, there was a fair bit of general video game history in the introduction of this book that I was absolutely delighted to learn about—if you’re even remotely interested in learning more about the downfall of Atari, the North American video game crash in 1983, the home console wars, or Nintendo’s ability to establish itself in a dying North American market, I encourage you to look into this book.
All in all, this book was delightfully informative in many matters. Even if you’re not interested in video game history, or Mario itself, there’s plenty about the technical elements of how to compose music on an NES console and plenty of music theory (with bars of notation demonstrating what the author is discussing) that may be enticing to some readers. Otherwise, it’s a solid read if you’re curious about just how impactful Mario and Nintendo have been in the video game industry, aside from the ~other~ mechanics of the game and its general nostalgic quality.
April 11, 2016
Sometimes the 33 1/3 books are really adventurous (Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste comes to mind) and at others they are heavily padded versions of journal articles or blog posts. Schartmann's text belongs in the latter category. He spends an inordinate amount of space on Atari's E.T. game and the mythology surrounding its burial in Alamogordo, NM. Given that this book is marketed to game music enthusiasts, I was never sure why he did this.
In terms of writing style, it's more academic than I was expecting, and not in a good way (I'm an academic). He cites other video game sound and music scholars (hey there, Karen Collins!), but the overall tone is off-putting which I think has to do with the author's emphasis in the Western Classical canon. His style is very oriented to a narrow band of music scholarship that cares more about Beethoven and Debussy than, say, jazz. Given the melodic and harmonic character of the music, the emphasis towards a legitimation project was surprising to me given that Kondo relied so heavily on syncopations in the main theme. I was also disappointed that the author didn't explain more about Japanese musical aesthetics in anime and games. He mentions it during an interview with another game composer (Neil Baldwin), but just lets the composer's attitude about Japanese tendencies sit there without elaboration. That was a strange choice given that this book will likely have a market among Nintendo fans outside the U.S, perhaps even in Japan.
The issue of tone aside, I read the whole thing – a sure indication that I found it worthwhile. His discussion of the underwater waltz theme is the strongest with the discussion of the underground theme coming in a close second. I was also happy that he provided so much music theory and managed to do so in a way that non scholars and musicians could understand – a clear sign that he's taught basic theory. I'm happy that I read the whole thing, and I will recommend it to my students and friends interested in video game music alongside much more fleshed out work by others.
In terms of writing style, it's more academic than I was expecting, and not in a good way (I'm an academic). He cites other video game sound and music scholars (hey there, Karen Collins!), but the overall tone is off-putting which I think has to do with the author's emphasis in the Western Classical canon. His style is very oriented to a narrow band of music scholarship that cares more about Beethoven and Debussy than, say, jazz. Given the melodic and harmonic character of the music, the emphasis towards a legitimation project was surprising to me given that Kondo relied so heavily on syncopations in the main theme. I was also disappointed that the author didn't explain more about Japanese musical aesthetics in anime and games. He mentions it during an interview with another game composer (Neil Baldwin), but just lets the composer's attitude about Japanese tendencies sit there without elaboration. That was a strange choice given that this book will likely have a market among Nintendo fans outside the U.S, perhaps even in Japan.
The issue of tone aside, I read the whole thing – a sure indication that I found it worthwhile. His discussion of the underwater waltz theme is the strongest with the discussion of the underground theme coming in a close second. I was also happy that he provided so much music theory and managed to do so in a way that non scholars and musicians could understand – a clear sign that he's taught basic theory. I'm happy that I read the whole thing, and I will recommend it to my students and friends interested in video game music alongside much more fleshed out work by others.
June 7, 2016
I enjoyed this book as a whole.
In particular, I liked the context and history and technological discussions about what videogame music was at the time, how it was made, and who Kondo approached his design to the Mario Soundtrack.
That being said, there are parts of this book that went WAY over my head. As the chapters progress and Schartmann delves into the music theory and historical context of Kondo's inspirations--he lost me. I consider myself a fairly intelligent and informed person, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty theory of why music works as it does and what Kondo did to achieve the equivalents with his limited tools, I often had no idea what the words I was reading meant.
And just because a person doesn't understand something, I realize that this is not a bad thing. That's part of why I love reading: finding new words, new ideas, new concepts that force me to do some research. But with what I've read--and have seen--of the 33 1/3 series is that they're fairly accessible to any and every music aficionado. But I don't think I'm alone in being lost here. (Granted, I DO want to learn music theory, and perhaps I'll enjoy this book even more after.)
In the end, this is a mixture of mostly good with some "over my head" stuff that weakened the book for me. Is this for everyone? No. But bare minimum, I think Schartmann has written a very convincing argument as to why we can--and should--look at such scores like the SUPER MARIO BROS. Soundtrack as complete and whole albums, cohesive and glorious in their simplicity.
In particular, I liked the context and history and technological discussions about what videogame music was at the time, how it was made, and who Kondo approached his design to the Mario Soundtrack.
That being said, there are parts of this book that went WAY over my head. As the chapters progress and Schartmann delves into the music theory and historical context of Kondo's inspirations--he lost me. I consider myself a fairly intelligent and informed person, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty theory of why music works as it does and what Kondo did to achieve the equivalents with his limited tools, I often had no idea what the words I was reading meant.
And just because a person doesn't understand something, I realize that this is not a bad thing. That's part of why I love reading: finding new words, new ideas, new concepts that force me to do some research. But with what I've read--and have seen--of the 33 1/3 series is that they're fairly accessible to any and every music aficionado. But I don't think I'm alone in being lost here. (Granted, I DO want to learn music theory, and perhaps I'll enjoy this book even more after.)
In the end, this is a mixture of mostly good with some "over my head" stuff that weakened the book for me. Is this for everyone? No. But bare minimum, I think Schartmann has written a very convincing argument as to why we can--and should--look at such scores like the SUPER MARIO BROS. Soundtrack as complete and whole albums, cohesive and glorious in their simplicity.
April 27, 2015
gave me a greater appreciation of something that appears to be so simple on the surface. I recommend this book for anyone who has an interest in video game history or music composition. Full review: http://www.puregeekery.net/2015/04/27...
Note: I received this book for free from NetGalley for review.
Note: I received this book for free from NetGalley for review.
April 15, 2015
Smart. Incisive. Well-researched. Packed with nerdy music theory, but accessible to people who love the music of Super Mario Bros. Great use of interviews from the composer and top brass at Nintendo. Great read.
March 16, 2022
While the content gets a bit over my head in terms of music notation (I don't fault the book for that, obviously), the book is successful. It explores something that's not often explored. Very interesting stuff.
October 24, 2017
Almost all of 33 1/3 books I've read are all about music I adore and want to read my love for the music transcribed into book form. I want to learn as much about the albums I love and hear a breakdown of what makes them great. The Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack 33 1/3 is the first book in the series based around music without an album, but instead around basically four songs in one of the most popular video games of all time. The music is instantly recognizable and well-known to anyone who has played a video game in the last 30 years and of course it deserves a book dedicated to its immensely catchy music.
Author Andrew Schartmann is an interesting choice, as he has a background in classical music that instantly elevates this into more than just a series of bleeps and bloops worth dissecting. His experience with centuries of music is a great counterbalance to this music that could be seen as disposable by some, but in explaining the music, he overestimates the reader's musical knowledge and leaves them somewhat in the dust. I'm sure there are some that can appreciate explaining the various keys of music these songs are in, or just placing sheet music within the book for reference sake, but this in depth detail only leaves me wondering what I'm missing.
There are often times where I also didn't feel like Schartmann knew what he was taking about in terms of the game. There are elements he mentions that I'm 99% sure didn't occur in this game, but treats them like obvious aspects of Super Mario Bros. Also, when Schartmann delves into the history of video games, it's compelling at times, but also doesn't come off all that necessary. He goes off on tangents about the video game crash and Atari's burying of E.T. cartridges in the desert - all of which any reader of this book will already know - but expands on it for too long when simply a page or two of explanation would suffice.
In the end, Schartmann's take on the music is a unique one for sure, but also ends up feeling very much like a term paper on why video game music should be taken seriously. I would've much preferred a more layman's take on the music, and not have an expectation that I would understand musical notation to appreciate the book. There's definitely nuggets of greatness in this 33 1/3, but it also leaves a lot to be desired.
Author Andrew Schartmann is an interesting choice, as he has a background in classical music that instantly elevates this into more than just a series of bleeps and bloops worth dissecting. His experience with centuries of music is a great counterbalance to this music that could be seen as disposable by some, but in explaining the music, he overestimates the reader's musical knowledge and leaves them somewhat in the dust. I'm sure there are some that can appreciate explaining the various keys of music these songs are in, or just placing sheet music within the book for reference sake, but this in depth detail only leaves me wondering what I'm missing.
There are often times where I also didn't feel like Schartmann knew what he was taking about in terms of the game. There are elements he mentions that I'm 99% sure didn't occur in this game, but treats them like obvious aspects of Super Mario Bros. Also, when Schartmann delves into the history of video games, it's compelling at times, but also doesn't come off all that necessary. He goes off on tangents about the video game crash and Atari's burying of E.T. cartridges in the desert - all of which any reader of this book will already know - but expands on it for too long when simply a page or two of explanation would suffice.
In the end, Schartmann's take on the music is a unique one for sure, but also ends up feeling very much like a term paper on why video game music should be taken seriously. I would've much preferred a more layman's take on the music, and not have an expectation that I would understand musical notation to appreciate the book. There's definitely nuggets of greatness in this 33 1/3, but it also leaves a lot to be desired.
February 4, 2020
Although it’s easy to see how integrated and important art is on games currently whether it be the illustrative beauty of a game like "Gris" , or the generative music programming helped by machine learning in a game like "Ape Out", it’s more difficult to see that just as much thought and art went into scoring the original "Super Mario Bros".
This book showcases how Nintendo differentiated themselves from their declining competitors by bringing things to a more serious place. This was accomplished by doing things that had not been done before, such as bringing on a dedicated composer that worked hand in hand with the development team throughout the development process. The book details the limitations and constraints of producing sound and music with such a limited number of voices and processing power and how they rose above those constraints to create the most memorable piece of music from some of our childhoods. It dives into the kinesthetic powers the sound effects have in bringing the player into this world that reverberated throughout gaming afterwards. It goes into some music theory that was above my understanding, but many examples only take a base level understanding of it. For example, how fish step in time to a waltz soundtrack in underwater worlds mimicking the gameplay with the dance structure of a waltz. This book is part of a series of books titled 33 1/3 that showcase books about exceptional albums. I have to admit I picked it up out of curiosity of how someone managed to write a 120 page book about 90 seconds of music, but man they did it, and although it doesn’t explicitly show how impactful that 90 seconds was, it is easily inferred because of the depths they go in contextualizing what was new and different about the development of these 90 seconds of music.
This book showcases how Nintendo differentiated themselves from their declining competitors by bringing things to a more serious place. This was accomplished by doing things that had not been done before, such as bringing on a dedicated composer that worked hand in hand with the development team throughout the development process. The book details the limitations and constraints of producing sound and music with such a limited number of voices and processing power and how they rose above those constraints to create the most memorable piece of music from some of our childhoods. It dives into the kinesthetic powers the sound effects have in bringing the player into this world that reverberated throughout gaming afterwards. It goes into some music theory that was above my understanding, but many examples only take a base level understanding of it. For example, how fish step in time to a waltz soundtrack in underwater worlds mimicking the gameplay with the dance structure of a waltz. This book is part of a series of books titled 33 1/3 that showcase books about exceptional albums. I have to admit I picked it up out of curiosity of how someone managed to write a 120 page book about 90 seconds of music, but man they did it, and although it doesn’t explicitly show how impactful that 90 seconds was, it is easily inferred because of the depths they go in contextualizing what was new and different about the development of these 90 seconds of music.
May 31, 2018
Personal rating: three out of five stars. A difficult task, to be sure: there's reportedly only about 90 seconds of true music in Super Mario Bros., and despite its effect on everything that came after (and the technical wonder of making it sound so great on such an early console), you've got to really stretch out the words to fill a book's worth of discussion on a video game soundtrack from the 80s.
If you are into music theory and the technical aspect of chiptune, you might find a ton of great stuff in this. For me, it was a nice look into the early world of video game soundtracks, a touch on the importance of sound and music within the video game experience, and a nice discussion of how limitations forced that 90 seconds of song (and a handful of sound effects) to be so similar, yet so different.
I could have done with a blog post of this, because I am a simple reader. Others might find this totally fascinating and wonderful. Then again, I always used the warp points to beat the game, so maybe that's a look into things.
If you are into music theory and the technical aspect of chiptune, you might find a ton of great stuff in this. For me, it was a nice look into the early world of video game soundtracks, a touch on the importance of sound and music within the video game experience, and a nice discussion of how limitations forced that 90 seconds of song (and a handful of sound effects) to be so similar, yet so different.
I could have done with a blog post of this, because I am a simple reader. Others might find this totally fascinating and wonderful. Then again, I always used the warp points to beat the game, so maybe that's a look into things.
April 15, 2019
Picked this up on a whim (who doesn't love the Super Mario Bros. theme song?) and damned if this isn't the most scholarly, erudite and technical book in the entire 33 1/3 series (certainly of all the ones I've read).
It wades into some pretty deep waters. Several things struck me as interesting. I love the idea of the rhythm of the music matching the rhythm of gameplay and the idea of music being the element that forges a bond between player and avatar. I think there's something to that, as this is the game that took Mario to icon status
As a layman in the fields of both music theory and computer programming, most of the discussion was over my head (the author has a Ph.D in music theory from Yale and is fond of footnotes), but it's an interesting way into those concepts. Plus, it gave me a clearer picture of just how hard it was to create video game music back in the day and what a technical and artistic (not to mention cultural) achievement these catchy tunes were.
It wades into some pretty deep waters. Several things struck me as interesting. I love the idea of the rhythm of the music matching the rhythm of gameplay and the idea of music being the element that forges a bond between player and avatar. I think there's something to that, as this is the game that took Mario to icon status
As a layman in the fields of both music theory and computer programming, most of the discussion was over my head (the author has a Ph.D in music theory from Yale and is fond of footnotes), but it's an interesting way into those concepts. Plus, it gave me a clearer picture of just how hard it was to create video game music back in the day and what a technical and artistic (not to mention cultural) achievement these catchy tunes were.
February 19, 2018
Speaking as someone who has had the "underwater waltz" theme from Super Mario Brothers stuck in my head for days at a time, I was intrigued to read about the story and design behind the music of this classic game. In a very short book (not much bigger than an NES cartridge), the author gives a brief history of video game music and the NES console, describes the limitations of NES music (and various approaches to overcoming them), and analyzes the approach that the composer Koji Kondo took towards matching the game music and sounds to the gameplay experience. The book gets a little less readable when the author breaks out the musical notation... but even then, he describes some of the key principles, such as repeated themes and variations in speed and tone, in such detail that the less musically-inclined reader like myself can follow.
August 28, 2020
Schartmann's decision to approach this text from a music theory background actually worked for me, it's where he's most comfortable and the most informative. Much of the first half is an abridged history of the video game history and the NES, written in a sometimes aggravating "Dear Reader" voice that belies a discomfort with writing for a broad audience. But the book truly reaches its own when he's able to break down Kondo's instrumentation and composition. There's a quick aside into the history of the Waltz genre that I found fascinating (plus an unexpected Eyes Wide Shut reference) and his breakdown of the main Overworld theme is phenomenal. It's overly technical, but I find it far more interesting and enriching than the wasted pages once again regaling the time Atari dumped its trash in a landfill.
September 7, 2018
I agree with the author about the importance of this "album" and the care with which it was composed, but I found the analysis itself a bit lacking. (YouTuber 8bitMusicTheory's Mario analyses were much more revealing.)
It feels like a lot of the text is overexcited recounting of well-known videogame or classical music anecdotes, or hagiographic gushing about the composer. There's also a precarious balance between giving us some satisfying musical analysis and trying to make sure that musically-illiterate readers aren't left behind, which I don't think worked out.
But at least the book is short, and the transcriptions, including of some sound effects, are neat.
It feels like a lot of the text is overexcited recounting of well-known videogame or classical music anecdotes, or hagiographic gushing about the composer. There's also a precarious balance between giving us some satisfying musical analysis and trying to make sure that musically-illiterate readers aren't left behind, which I don't think worked out.
But at least the book is short, and the transcriptions, including of some sound effects, are neat.
October 11, 2023
I picked this up as a curiosity; how would those melodies that still play out in the back of my head be addressed in the 33 1/3 music investigation series?
Best part of the series seems to be the variability in content and this book was a great example of how you could approach something not traditionally musical. Focus in this volume is on both the contextual importance of the Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack to the larger world and the technical music theory aspects which exploited a very limited technological space provided by the NES console for the compositions.
I enjoyed it more than I expected I might, nostalgia 1UP!
Best part of the series seems to be the variability in content and this book was a great example of how you could approach something not traditionally musical. Focus in this volume is on both the contextual importance of the Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack to the larger world and the technical music theory aspects which exploited a very limited technological space provided by the NES console for the compositions.
I enjoyed it more than I expected I might, nostalgia 1UP!
April 9, 2019
A fun, short read, into the making of quite possibly the most memorable video game music ever made. Although I would warn potential readers that the authors does go into a lot of music theory. I'm a self-taught musician and I found certain passage hard to follow. There is a lot sheet music examples and talk surrounding chord progressions, etc. This is the main reason I didn't give this book 4 stars. Otherwise the history of video game music, the discussions about the limitations the original NES console had, etc were very interesting.
October 6, 2018
Good book. Would make a good introductory music theory book for those who have grown up with hearing Koji Kondo’s music. This book is not for those with zero theory knowledge but if you have read a preview of the book, you would know that anyways. The 33 1/3 series runs the gamut from books needing no theory knowledge to almost dissertation like analysis of music. This one was worth my time and will sit on my shelf.
January 23, 2022
This book was a lot of fun! I wanted to give it 4.5 stars; I didn't give it 5 because at times it got fairly technical musically at times (as these 33 1/3 books often do), which isn't a bad thing, but during those moments I would drift away a little bit. But overall this book was fascinating, and it demonstrates why the work that Koji Kondo (and Shigeru Miyamoto) did to create Super Mario Brothers was truly genius.
December 30, 2017
Meh. Definitely an easy read, though I just can't say I agree with the point on the Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack being worthy of discussion as a musical album. This does provide some slight insight into the time period/circumstances surrounding the release of the NES...but overall, the musical discussion lacked focus.
February 8, 2018
Really enjoyed this little volume. I learned a lot about the extreme limitations Kondo was working under, and how impressive and complex his work actually is. I re-listened to some of the music from Super Mario Bros. and, indeed, had a whole new appreciation for it. Definitely want to read more from this series!
February 9, 2022
This book was one of the more interesting entries into the series as there is no official soundtrack and over all there is less than five minutes of original music. Yet it’s an interesting read going into the history of video games and the creation of Super Mario Bros. It dwells on the themes created and also the sound effects.
December 14, 2024
I totally don't care that the average GoodReads review is in the 3/5 stars range. Written by a classical music scholar, this book was a JOY and the perfect kind of overlap of highbrow lowbrow. Please, give me more writers who can juxtapose Nintendo with Strauss and Camus and also "Eyes Wide Shut." Chef's kiss
November 12, 2025
a little too divorced from contemporary music in Japan at the time and uncurious in other events happening after the fact, a tad too short, but tremendously interesting and rigorous with the pieces provided, it was a great idea to let a classical music scholar work on one of the best known instrumental pieces of all time.
July 21, 2018
This book is about literally less than three minutes of music. Considering that, it is pretty good and interesting, although the subject matter demands that it be stretched quite thin. If you like video game music, Nintendo, or 33 1/3 books, this is good for a read.
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