Yoshi's Island athletic theme, sight-read by Tom Brier & Co.

You can view the sheet music they are reading here:
http://www.keeper1st.com/music/yoshia... or from my page http://www.keeper1st.com/music/vgm.html

Thanks to YouTubers Quietschquatsch and Raphy013 for the music suggestion a few days ago!

Not only did Tom find this a fun tune to play, but, as you'll see, flautist Julia Riley and tubaist (tubist?) Mark Meeker decided to join in as well!

After Tom's first sight-read, you hear Julia mention another Nintendo videogame tune that she liked. That was K.K. Ragtime. A short time later, Tom and Julia played it from memory! I'll have to post the video of that moment at a later date. It was fully evolved into a fleshed-out rag arrangement, much like the second run through this tune from Super Mario World 2 in this video.

This tune was composed by Koji Kondo (近藤浩治). It is also known as "Hop! Hop! Donut Lifts" by some people, but in a concert video of Nintendo video game music at which the composer was in attendance, the title that appears clearly reads (if you read Japanese, anyway) simply "Yosshii Island Athletic Theme".

You can purchase Tom's latest album here: http://cdbaby.com/cd/tombrier

• Category

  Gaming

[luismidelta]

a question that intrigues me, video or record your or recorded by someone else?

[Keeper1st]

It my video. You should be able to recognize my voice in it from many of my other videos. These older videos were shot with a still camera's low-quality video recording mode.

[darktangent10]

What does Tom do for a living? I have to assume its piano related, but does he give concerts, or does he own a piano store or something?

[Keeper1st]

He's a computer programmer for city government.

[Nickles Sinth]

Please next time do not stand next to the bass end of the piano, it gives off bad reverberation and messes with the sound quality, it is an amazing video and this man has some serious talent, don't ruin it by standing where the sound will be bad :)

[Keeper1st]

With that old camera, the sound was going to be bad wherever I stood!

[Keeper1st]

This piece, as well as "K.K. Ragtime" from Animal Crossing, became part of the band's regular repertoire.

[Keeper1st]

Home videogame consoles have been around almost 40 years now (I had a Magnavox Odyssey in the '70s). It's not unreasonable to expect someone who was old enough to get into electronics and gaming back then would have kept abreast of it. George later pointed out that Yoshi was voiced by music director Kazumi Totaka, so he knew his stuff.

[WolfiePasta]

Kill yourself.

[FulldialFrequency]

I don't guess I could convince you to do some studio recordings. I can't tell you how often I listen to these and which I didn't hear all that chit chat in the background to hear this master at work.

[Alejandro Javier Asenjo]

What a waste...

[0scaru]

My goodness, what an impressive piece! Makes me want to learn to play the piano real well and learn to sightread. What an enjoyable tune.

[DrButler]

Those dinosaurs and their ragtime need to get off my lawn before I call the cops.

[Monkey D Luffy]

When you search for the atheltic theme this is the first video you get. Amazing! And i gotta be honest here, i actually prefer this over the original simply bequase of the piano.

[Adan Lozoya]

Amazing!

[jamminkeys]

the ultimate nintendo ragtime tune <3

[Crispy Creme]

I'm still trying to learn a simpler version of this after about 3 months. I plan to upload a video with sheet music in a bit, so check it out if you want! :D