Syncopation In The Super Mario Bros. Theme

[Kotaku proudly presents the following in-depth look — and listen — to the evolving music of Super Mario Bros. via gaming blog Cruise Elroy]

You know what? It’s been too long since we looked at any music around here.

Here’s an excerpt of the Super Mario Bros. theme, composed by Koji Kondo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEKDF_WbMlg

And here’s an excerpt of “Super Mario Bros.: Ground Theme,” a new arrangement from Kondo that appears on the Super Smash Bros. Brawl soundtrack:

Click to view

2 sound bite

As you can hear, there are plenty of noteworthy changes in the Brawl arrangement – reworked harmonies, a new key, a flashier arrangement, et cetera – but the one I want to concentrate on here is the rhythm.

Take a look at this snip from the original theme (and note that I’ve filled out the note durations in these transcriptions to bring out the rhythm; the actual performances are more staccato):

Click to view

3 sound bite

There are two notes here that conspicuously fall on offbeats: the one that’s tied over the bar line, and its immediate successor. (These are the sixth and seventh notes, if you’re following along with the audio sample.) This displacement is a form of syncopation, a rhythmic technique which appears in virtually all types of music. Essentially, a syncopated rhythm has accents in unusual or unexpected places.

By contrast, notice how the next-to-last note of the sample falls right on the third beat – you can even hear it match up with the snare-like sound in the percussion part. This note is not syncopated.

Now let’s look at the corresponding spot in the Brawl arrangement:

Click to view

4 sound bite

This sample is rhythmically identical to the first except for the last two notes, which have been shifted half a beat later. The upshot is that there are now three consecutive offbeat notes (the sixth, seventh and eighth), strengthening the original theme’s syncopated feel. Also notice how that next-to-last note, previously on the third beat, now falls between the third and fourth beats.

Let’s look at another sample from the original Super Mario Bros. theme, about 31 seconds into the audio clip at the top:

Click to view

5 sound bite

There is a lot of syncopation going on here already; the first measure has three notes in a row that fall on offbeats (the second, third, and fourth), and the second measure has two more (the seventh and eighth). However, the effect is masked because of a new percussion pattern: instead of landing at beats 2 and 4, the snare sound now lands on beat 1, between beats 2 and 3, and on beat 4. This mirrors the accents in the melody – but as ragtime fans know, the full effect of offbeat syncopation requires a simpler, unsyncopated part to provide contrast.

Let’s compare that to the Brawl sample for the same section:

Click to view

6 sound bite

There are two big rhythmic changes here. First, every note is now on an offbeat except for the downbeats in measures 1 and 3. Second, the bass and drums are accenting the beats instead of matching the melody, providing the contrast mentioned above. The result, as before, is more syncopation. The Brawl rhythm is literally and figuratively more upbeat than the original.

What I think is particularly interesting is that this new rhythm seems to be the one ingrained in Koji Kondo’s head. Check out his impromptu performance at GDC 2007, and we’ll listen for those two examples above.

Here’s the first:

Click to view

7 sound bite

If you compare it to the two clips above, you’ll hear that this matches the Brawl arrangement. In fact, Kondo uses this rhythm every time in this performance.

The second example is less clear. Here are the three places where he plays the riff in question:

In each of those clips, it almost sounds as though Kondo plays it “wrong” the first time – with the extra syncopation from the Brawl arrangement – and then tries to “correct” it to the original version the second time through.

Since he’s playing from memory and improvising on the spot, it’s impossible to say for sure how much of this is intentional. To my ear, though, it sounds like Kondo prefers the newer rhythm. What do you think?

Cruise Elroy is a blog about video games and video game music. Its most popular features have been analyses of the songs in Ocarina of Time and Mother 3