you should totally do a castle themes episode or even a multiple part series. you could start off with comparing different mario castle themes then move on to another couple games like legend of zelda and castlevania and then finish it off with a general comparison of different games castle music
I would’ve given you the double points for the horse track theme at the end because it’s used as the horse track, diving minigame, and catching chickens - oot & gorman race, Goron race and I think beaver race - majora’s mask
The funny thing is… it's *not* that hard to do. Most pianists play all of the treble clef 16th notes as written with the right hand only, myself included, and I certainly don't consider myself a virtuoso.
The one at the beginning it's actually a classical piece ("A maiden's prayer" by T. Badarzewska), but it's been adapted for that specific use, soooo... 50/50?😅
@@thatpersonsmusic when i heard at first I was thinking “isn’t that just Für Elise?? What took them so long??” Then I realize I’ve mistaken it bc our trash truck played that instead lmao
It’s true that #1 is from Mario but the original music was written by a Polish composer Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska in 1856. It’s called Modlitwa dziewicy for those who are interested
I really love this little series of guessing video game music vs classical music. You guys should really consider doing a Castlevania vs. Classical music, because there's so much classical influences within the Castlevania series. I think that would be a very challenging one.
Let’s take a moment to appreciate the musical talent of video game music composers. Often we tend to ostracize artists away from conventional forms of media and belittle their ability for it, but I think this settles the debate that you don’t have to be signed to a billion dollar label or be a classical music artist to be musically gifted and genius. To Koji Kondo, Yoko Shimomura, Grant Kirkhope and many others, we owe you our undying respect.
Well, since classical music is not commercially mainstream as it was 300 years ago, film and game soundtracks carry the torch of that art. As you can see in this video, Kondo and Shimomura's canons are modern interpretations of classical and baroque conventions.
The parallel octaves in a contrapuntal context at the start of the 3rd measure of the Valentina theme give it away. edit: and Ultimate Bowser for the same reason. The last measure has parallel octaves with the bass and soprano voice.
I don't think I'd be able to NOT recognize any music from SMRPG and Paper Mario (64), since those were the first games that got me into liking Video Game music as a genre. First stuff I put in my "MP3 Player" device back then.
oh my god, it's so weird to see 8bit's face while he talks. in my mind, i just imagined his disembodied voice without a face lol other face reveals had a little of this effect, but i've never had one THIS strong edit: btw the video is nice tho
@@GizzyDillespee Yeah, I have definitely heard that Mario Mozart comparison before. As well as Final Fantasy and Beethoven being compared, that like Koji Kando is video game Mozart cause the Mario melodies are catchy like Mozart's melodies are and Nobuo Uematsu, the composer for the first 10 Final Fantasy games, is video game Beethoven because both Beethoven and Uematsu develop large themes from small motivic building blocks.
For #8, I could've sworn that was Grandma's Theme from Zelda: The Wind Waker. The melody and countermelody are so close. To be fair, there is plenty of crossover between Mario and Zelda music (as the ending of this video showed!)
I feel like Shimomura stuff made this a lot harder because even as someone who doesn't know music theory she's very distinct in her musical vocabulary from Koji Kondo, who did most of the well known Mario themes. I feel like she definitely feels more classical and uses more orchestration than Kondo, who I feel tends towards single instrument melodies that really stick out from the background vs. Shimomura more "shaping" the melody using several instruments.
Honestly that was tougher than I expected. I think I got a majority of them right though. I also immediately got the trick question at the end because that theme is what gave way to the Great Fairy theme in Zelda.
The Road Is Full Of Dangers sounds so much like the Russian Dance from The Nutcracker that I have to imagine that Shimomura used it knowingly as a framework for her song.
As a gamer/musician myself, I feel like all of these pieces could go either way, as far as being in a game or being from a classical piece! This was hard af! I like it!
I really want to see some musicians listen to the opening menu theme for paper Mario 2 ttyd, it’s gotta be one of if not my favorite songs from all of Nintendo, it’s really something else. Kind of has an up beat jazzy and yet orchestral but still very video-gamey sound to it. Not sure exactly how to describe it
This was actually really fun for me to decide whether to go with classical or mario. I didn't keep track of my score, but I know I did fairly good, probably better than you guys (at the name of the game anyway). But yeah, mario sweater also got me. I had never even heard of that game, and I know about quite a lot of obscure mario games.
It's so easy for a classical musician because there is some majors writings mistakes in the Mario's one that are totally impossible to be heard in classical music I mean, what classical music say they are mistakes. It's just rules
0:01 For some people, that's OST from Super Mario Sweater For others, thats a classical music called "A Maiden's Prayer" by Bądarzewska For me, thats the music which garbage truck blasts when on duty.
I thought it was that piece for a good bit while they were talking before having a realization that it couldn’t be the same because that song (first used in Galaxy) has the notes at the beginning spell D-E-A-D repeatedly and this wasn’t doing the same.
Knew I wasn't crazy !! I was so confused when they said it was from Mario, I was like nah this is a classical banger how do you guys not know it but then I couldn't find it 💀
I knew nr 3 was Mario because eventhough the cannonical figure threw me off at first, the counterpoint was full of dissonances that would've made Bach roll over in his grave. Also a parallel octave. Great video btw! I very much enjoyed it!
That last one in the bonus round was a trick, for sure. I recognize it from The Wind Waker. It's the Mother and Child Queen Fairy Island. Take a listen! I promise you it's only slightly different!
For number 5, the opening is definitely ambiguous (5-#4-4-3 is a really common line over a pedal point in classical music). But the chords over that final E-G-Bb-G#-A thing is the dead giveaway. You got parallel octaves in the outer voices G-Bb. Plus over the G# bass note you have an A major chord. Vmaj7 in 3rd inversion is WILD. In classical language, that should be like a vii⁰7/V
i was gonna say, the more exposure you have to playing classical music the more glaring it becomes when melodic or harmonic conventions are broken without structural justification.
Ooh this was really difficult So many of these sounded familiar to me but I couldn’t place it. There were a few that I knew right off the bat but a bunch I had no idea lol. Fun challenge! (Also liked the extra Zelda stuff at the end!)
Number 8 I emediatly got: Super Mario World Castle Theme. The other were really hard. But if you remember, Super Mario Glaxy has a very symphonic score.
I got 9 out of 10 on the main round! The only one I missed was the first one because that Mario Sweater game is so obscure that even I haven't heard of it. And I've played Mario for over a decade now! I knew all the other Mario songs pretty easily because I'm a video game music connoisseur. I've played those games for years and even listen to the OSTs all the time. Even nailed where all the games come from (except the Final Bowser one from Mario 64 and Still Ahead the Road is Full of Dangers, although I did guess Mario for both of them because they were familiar to me. The second of those two was on the tip of my tongue). Also, with the bonus round, I only failed the first question because I've never played Twilight Princess (but I want to, though). I more recently became a Zelda fan, but I nailed the rest of those songs (even being quick to point out the trick last one!).
super mario sweater was some game only in japan that was a sweater making game. Iirc you could actually get the sweaters you made in the game in real life if you paid some more money
I always remembered on baby park in double dash. I would sometimes be doing bad and get the chain chomp. Youre basically releasing a demon upon a bunch of people
10:05 I swear that was going to be Mario. I think it’s like, the Boo theme from Galaxy, but it’s a waltz and has a baseline. This was different but I figured it was a different/earlier iteration. Maybe the Nintendo composers actually took inspiration from the classical song.
The Gluck piece is SO similar to a theme used in Mario, literally the first five notes are the same and in the same key except the second note is dotted in the Mario one. Tripped me up big time!
This is a really cool concept, this proves what I've said for years to be true. Video game music is often lumped in with techno and EDM while I've always felt it had far more in common with classical music (yes, this applies to even the Atari era music) and I've felt that the similarities should be explored more. I'd love to see stuff like a classical composition that uses the Game Boy sound as one of the instruments for example. It'd be a little bit like the TransSiberian Orchestra but with chiptune instead of electric guitars.
Me and Ryan both had the same reaction when first hearing the bowsers castle Mario world theme 😂 I'm typing this before you guys even confirm it because that piece played such a pivotal role in my musical development while young.
I came to laugh at someone for not recognizing iconic music, I stayed for the challenge. I have never been so clickbaited, yet not clickbaited at all, and also happy to be clickbaited.
If I was uncertain of my guess by just listening, I'd pause and take a close look at the score. To make my pick that often helped me decide. Without spoiling which one, there was one piece that had an e flat in the solo line and d sharp played at the same time for the accompaniment. Big tip off there....