Super Mario Bros. 2 / 夢工場ドキドキパニック/ sight-read by Tom Brier

Tom has not seen or heard the music before playing this. He's a terrific sight-reader, and loves to be given new bits of ragtime, or oddball ragtime like these tunes from video games that I created scores for.

This is the Overworld Theme from a game that started life in Japan as 夢工場ドキドキパニック (literally "Dream Factory Heartbeat Panic"). Its real story, however, begins when the sequel to Super Mario Bros. was a flop in Japan.

Given that there also was demand in the U.S. for a sequel to Super Mario Bros., and that the one they made was a flop in Japan, Nintendo decided instead to take this other game, which wasn't released in the U.S., and replace the character sprites with the Mario Bros. characters. That odd combination was released in the U.S. as Super Mario Bros. 2, and was a huge success. Many elements from the game have become staples of the Mario franchise.

The game was such a hit that Nintendo actually released it in Japan as Super Mario Bros. USA, even though the game was exactly the same as 夢工場ドキドキパニック apart from the character graphics.

Anyway, it was YouTuber "yukimatsuri" who showed me a transcription he had edited from one that was available online. I downloaded both, and found each to have some obvious errors (mainly that the chords were not changing on the syncopations like they should), and in need of clean-up, so I made my own score, but I still credit the arrangement to yukimatsuri. The tune was composed by Koji Kondo. You can download the score that Tom is sight-reading here: http://www.keeper1st.com/music/overworld.pdf

Category:

Music

Tags:

• mario
• nintendo
• ragtime
• piano
• sightread
• sight-read

[chemmerling]

Needs to be faster!

[Keeper1st]

@chemmerling That's my fault. As I'm also not familiar with the tunes -- just made the scores -- my assumption was that it should be played slowly, so I told him to take it at a leisurely tempo. Frankly I still think it sounds better like this than at a fast tempo.

[calebthellama]

do you still record his videos?

[Keeper1st]

@calebthellama Yes. Myself and "verybigrifle" in particular record a lot of Tom's performances. "sutterchip" does from time to time too.

[crabalockerfishwife6]

I could just imagine Mario and Luigi dancing to this in tuxedos and top hats

[Keeper1st]

@crabalockerfishwife6 Not just dancing, but tap-dancing!

[pierre45a]

Awesome playing. +1 for the beard.

[Keeper1st]

@zhengjdc Tom had the benefit of being taught to read music right from the very start at five years of age, so an ability to read and understand music (understanding is key) developed just like normal language skills. So in that sense, it is kind of innate. You'll notice that he doesn't play exactly all the notes that are written, but rather reads and understands what's on the page, then plays within that understood framework (which often means playing MORE than what's on the page!).

[omegasignas]

this particular version, reminds me of two episodes from the mario bros cartoon series, where mario and luigi were in a western themed or desert, and another where they were down south for a river boat race

[Aaronjin]

that man, is a legend

[roxorsoxor]

i love people who can sight read like that, i'm sure it is amazing seeing them play in person

[jceggbert5]

@Keeper1st Once I read that, (about the tap-dancing), I started imagining that I heard tapdancing in the background for the rest of the song... That would be cool! lol

[aBrutalHipster]

4 people lost a fist fight at the saloon..

[DMonk124s]

That's really Chuck Norris in disguise