I should point out, the time signature of 6/4 isn't what Kondo actually wrote. In a 2014 IGN interview, he actually talked about how the original SMB1 Underground theme alternated between 3/4 and 4/4. Basically, it starts in 3/4, and then right when right when the quarter notes start (the fifth measure in your transcription), he switches to 4/4. Then there are two empty 3/4 measures right before the loop (in yours, it's just one 6/4 measure).
@@mrrandomperson3106 Kondo himself said it’s in 3/4, and then alternates into 4/4. Even the official piano sheet music that Nintendo released with Alfred respects Kondo’s original intention.
So it's four bars of 3/4 + two bars of 4/4, right? BUT: doesn't the repeat come a _tiny_ bit later though? Or is there something wrong with my inner pulse?
“But there just aren’t enough notes for us to get a clear picture into the tonality…” Perfect for an underground place that may not have enough light to get a clear picture of the surroundings.
The SMB3 version always felt definitive to me. The song leveled up with the addition of the drum track. It's a call-and-response that, IMO, makes it feel even more cavernous. The drums are like the ambiance of the cave environment (rock noises, water drops) while the melody is Mario's exploration.
Fun fact: The concept of adding a drum track to the SMB1 underground theme originated in SMB2 dev process. There's a beta of Mario 2 (USA) with a track like the SMB3 version but with even heavier drums and a sped up section. It's very interesting
@@MaxOakland You're right. I can see why it got cut (the drums are kinda muddy, really does sound like Kondo's first stab at the PCM channel. It definitely got refined in SMB3. But the main melody has this sort of clavinet vibe, which would sound pretty good if you leaned into the funk arrangement like SMB3 has.
Oh man! I wish you went a little bit into how this theme has been used outside of underground levels. Like the Delfino Airstrip in Mario Sunshine. The theme has gradually become the go-to theme for problems, discomfort, and uncertainty for Mario.
I came here to leave the same comment. Davis' track was released in 74 but may have been recorded sometime between 70 - 74. The record is called Get Up With It and is great if you're into long-form abstract jazz.
It's always exciting to see videos like this, where you provide your input on songs basically every viewer would know. It gets me thinking about these songs in ways I never have before!
I've always found the unusual time signature of the original to be the best part of it. Losing that aspect over time is honestly disappointing, which is probably why my favorite reimagining of it is the editor version in Mario Maker
The first time I ever really thought about this tune was in secondary school and the best explanation I could come up with was a jazz bassist and guitarist just noodling in tandem for the sake of noodling in tandem. 😆
Can you do some videos on how to write a theme for specific reasons using examples from different games? like how to write a villain theme and then use a few different examples from different games, I know I'm not a Patreon member but I think this would be a good idea
Woah! That chord progression at 7:25 bears striking similarities to both the Super Mario Bros. 3 World 8 overworld music, and the Bowser boss fight in Super Mario World. Those little tie-ins and callbacks really give the series a cohesiveness that makes it feel so polished. Even the mushroom power up is just the level-complete theme sped up to sound-effect. (Although, that's just as likely a clever space-saving reuse of music data already in the ROM.)
For what it's worth, I hear the 3-note motif being centered around the last note. Not enough info to say it's F->B-flat versus just a "re-ti-do" turn, but the 3rd pitch feels like where it's "landing."
Great video. Koji Kondo has some incredibly iconic music that defined a generation. It's great to see him continue the tradition of fantastic musicians being inspired by other fantastic musicians. One of my big oh wow moments was when I first listened to the Deep Purple song April and found that one section that very much inspired the end of the Zelda 1 Labyrinth loop. I did not know about this one though.
perfect video! underground theme was always memorable, but it always felt as a very weird piece of music - now with a little bit of music theory knowledge, i can see and understand why! the blues form segment was very pleasant!
Thanks for this video, I think one of my favourites of yours so far. I always wonered how Koji made that end section sound so out there without it sounding like a big atonal mess. Love how even the Caug -> Abm movement is again him just doing semitone steps down
This was not the Mario analysis I was expecting given some recent releases. Great job nonetheless! iirc, there is a Konji Kondo interview floating around that he is/was aware that his video game compositions sound too familiar to the music he was enjoying listening to. He had to force himself to make some changes (I think he was referring to the Overworld theme of Super Mario Bros).
I think this was addressing music that he himself wrote. Many have come to him saying that some of his music sounds similar, even when they’re unrelated, and he usually has to force himself to change it. The Super Mario Bros. 3 Water Land theme and Zelda’s Great Fairy/File Select music, for example, is an example often cited. The interviewer even brought this one up and Kondo seemed to be unaware of the similarities until this was brought up.
I just finished watching your FF6 videos when you uploaded this. I assumed youtube just recommended this to me because of that, so it took me a sec to realize that this was a brand new video.
I do believe that most songs if not all get inspiration from others. Most songs I hear remind me of some other song nowadays. Plus, it's probably the reason why so many music techniques are popular.
"I bet you could write this next paragraph of the video for me" alright, I'm in the kitchen dealing with food, but I'm up for a challenge, the least I can do is to try to predict what I'm about to hear "three notes moving from C to A" woah woah woah there, I don't know what names belong to which sounds, I can't write a paragraph like that
Great video as always! It always helps me to come back and watch the way you break down this stuff and try to take some notes for some of my own videos.
0:32 Let's NOT talk about it. I understand that reference man! The Friendship album it's one of the best album of Lee Ritenour and company in my opinion. Thanks for the video and keep it up!
If you haven’t already, please please please check out the version of this song that plays when you’re editing a stage in Super Mario Maker. It’d be called something like SMB Underground (Edit mode). It’s such a crazy take on it and I’d love to hear what you think
I was going to suggest the same thing. All of the edit versions of themes in SMM are really neat with what they do, but there's just something about this track in particular.
I’ve always seen the Mario Maker edit themes as sort of musical “frames” surrounding the original composition. I don’t know if Kondo himself was involved in the edit themes, but the fact they decided to build a jazz “frame” if you will around the Underground Theme really seems to make the idea of inspiration from Let’s Not Talk About It highly possible:
The first time I ever heard this was in Super Mario All-Stars for the SNES. The underground theme there was a lot different than in the original NES game.
The impressive thing about the SMB underground theme in its original form is how it manages to say so much with so little; it's short and lacks a backing part, yet manages to pack in the right blend of dread and mischief for its setting and give a clear sense of rhythm. Goombas gonna getcha. Goombas gonna getcha.
The Cm - Abm at the end is reminiscent of Vader’s theme. Perhaps he was influenced by John Williams? Just before that chord, I think you could look at it as Cm - F# - Abm, which is also cinematic. My video editor turned me on to your channel, and I love it! Keep up the great work!
@@thesparkspectre1237 Yeah, that goes all the way back to Mozart and probably even before, the use of chromatic mediants. Like Mozart using C major for a brief moment in between an A major theme and an E major theme in a string quartet, or Beethoven using the chromatic mediant E major in place of the dominant in his C major Waldstein Sonata. And it became all the rage with composers like Chopin, Liszt, and later Debussy to use chromatic mediants.
I'd argue it's in 3/2 time, not 6/4 time. It feels far more like | 1-e-and-a-2-and (rest) | 1-e-and-a-2-e (rest) | as opposed to being a compound meter.
@PianistTanooki yeah but is Kondo's 3/4 notated using 8th or 16th notes? (If 16ths, then it's identical to 3/2 with 8ths. If 8th, not a huge distinction between 3/4 vs 6/4...can't hear if that rest is as strong as the first notes or not, yeah?) 😉 All that said, I'm going to have to replay the game now and fire up my metronome app... I've "Mandela effected" myself into thinking the C in the 6th bar was a pickup and the following triplets started on the G-flat and B-flat. 😵💫
Issues of rhythmic 'feel' and the composer's original intentions aside, what's important to note is that in the video, bar 6 is notated incorrectly for the time signature of 6/4, as beat 4 (the second dotted minim beat) occurs in the middle of a triplet. Here, it is notated as if it was in 3/2 (i.e. in 3 groups of minim length).
reminds me a lot of the gnome from pictures at an exhibition, the disorienting fast chromatics, the repetition, the moving up a fourth, even the stepping figure in the last couple measures is similar to the one in the second half of the gnome!
7:00 I always heard that part as in 4/4 as a kid, because of the effect of the triplets speeding up and then slowing down creates an accent right when they slow down for the last six notes. Which always made the pause seem even more irregular!
That's because that part is in 4/4, as another comment pointed out, Kondo once said in an interview that the original Mario 1 version starts in 3/4 for the repeated phrases, then switches to 4/4 for that chromatic sequence, and then switches back to two measures of 3/4 for the pause afterward before the loop, or something like that.
OMG 😳 I’ve been playing this wrong for years! I mistakenly transcribed the Gb F E up a half step! 🤦♂️ Granted, it was over 20 years ago and I was pretty young. 😂 Looks like I’m gonna have to take down my Cave Dungeon cover. 😅
I think the Underground Theme has an interesting similarity to the start of Pat Metheny's "Finding and Beliving". Albeit with a different time signature (I think 7/8).
3:30 yea I accidentally wrote a few riffs when I was learning guitar that were either exactly or really close to black Sabbath. The lower the melodic fruit, the more likely it is to be independently written multiple times I reckon
I was hoping that the Mario Maker version of this when you're editing levels in the Mario 1 style got a mention here, given how it not only keeps the 3/4 signature but also harkens back to the jazz inspirations of the original theme. It's also easily my favorite of that game's level editor renditions.
I have a somewhat alternate analysis: The first motif encircles a Bb. The second motif encircles an Eb. It ends on Abm. This forms a 2-5-1 in Abm. For chromaticism, there is a 1-2-5-1 figure in C inserted before the end.
DUUDE!!! I actually discovered Sister Marian by The Square on Spotify and it’s been one of my favorite jazzy songs for a long while. I always thought that one part sounded uncannily like the super mario theme. It’s crazy to see that brought up 😂 that song is unironically a bop though. If anyone’s reading this comment and you like that nostalgic feel-good jazzy sound, check it out.
an old friend played me a bass riff he said he made up, and we wrote a whole song around it. only for me to hear the damn beautifull riff on the radio in Led Zeppelin's How Many More Times and me shaking me head lol
well i'm sure you know that many Led Zeppelin songs are about that "original" themselves, not to speak of the amazing performances of the band members themselves
The "great twisted chromatic line" actually contains an echo of the first three tones that repeated four times but the arrangement shifts it around. It rhymes. It's been 37 years I wonder if Kondo or anybody is ever going to add more tones to this piece and not just remix it.
One of my favourite versions of this tune is the one found in _Super Mario All-Stars_ on the SNES. It sounds like a natural evolution of the tune and suits 16-bit Super Mario.
As for Let's Not Talk About It, it could just be independent invention. Those three notes are funky, sure, but they're only three notes. Octaves on the bass are a common way to funk things up, also well known from disco. And moving down a fifth isn't patented either. We'll never know, but it's always worth keeping mind the theory that if one person stumbled on it and thought it sounded good, a second person could too.
I love the Super Mario Oddysey one. It's also the last up to now of a series of remixes that shares a pattern. Since Super Mario Galaxy's version, the tempo is lower and the main section repeats 4 times, adding also countermelodies and embellishments. Super Mario 3D Land took that new structure and gave it a goofier sound. Super Mario 3D World remixed that with more instruments and different synths. But the Super Mario Oddysey one is what sounds the best to me.
Very enjoyable video! I love how you made sense of that ending line. I finally feel like I understand what's happenig there, haha. Btw, I don't think you put the right hashtags on this video? Edit: It's fixed now, great!
youtube recommending me this can't be coincidence i've only recently begin seeing the conspiracy of the underground theme being in literally every mario game, even in games where the overworld theme is changed there's a conspiracy here tell me the secrets, music man
3:50 Honestly, I think that’s the most likely explanation. There have been so many times where I’ve written something and only later noticed how much it sounded like a piece I’ve heard. Also, it’s kind of impossible to write a conventional piece of music that doesn’t sound like something else these days.
If there's two things i hate when people adapt this, it's either they don't do the octave-hopping, or they do like the mario 3 version and add longer pause. But it's not right that way. That's why the original feels so tense and hurries you along.
I wonder if the sunsequent versions departed from the 6/4 time signature because they wanted to avoid comparison with the jazz piece? I bet some people noticed the similarity even back then. I do love the weird time signature better as well so I hope they'd use it again some day!
I think the first chord is Bb major wtih the C and the A being neighbouring notes. The second chord is Eb major being the subdominant. That's what it sounds like to me.
This and Gruntilda’s theme took me like over a decade to figure out by myself, it’s the weird intervals. 1:18, there it is! I think I finally figured it out when I played along to the N64 version.
This is random, but Gruntilda's Lair from Banjo Kazooie sounds a lot like the theme for the Harry Potter movies which is interesting since Gruntilda is a witch.
He’s done a video “4 tips for writing ambient chord progressions” which centres around the DKC soundtrack. Stickerbush Symphony is featured init among others.
There's this ancient viral video of a japanese dude with teased out blond hair shreading and sweep picking this melody on guitar. When I tried to learn it back in my youth the chromatic phrase blew my mind. I'd never played out of key notes on purpose before then. It actually made mad that you could just break the "rules" of music theory. I just didn't have enough experience then. I hadn't played enough music and was stuck in my little blues/rock/metal/punk bubble.
