Koji Kondo’s Super Mario Bros video game score and the story of his Game Over theme. Illustration by Slate.
Still by Slate. Photo of Kondo by Vincent Diamente/Flickr. Drawing by tulpahn / Shutterstock. Several passages in this article are adapted from Koji Kondo’s Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack, out now from Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series. This year marks the 30th anniversary of Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. But those 8-bit bleeps that fill the Mushroom Kingdom so memorably are more complicated than they sound. It’s easy to take Kondo’s work for granted, downplaying his talent as a mere knack for writing memorable tunes. Transcription courtesy Andrew Schartmann Kondo’s artistry, however, is only part of the story. In the spirit of a studio album, Kondo created a unified set of pieces without sacrificing the individual character of each. At the 2007 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Kondo outlined the basic tenets of his approach with three keywords: interactivity, rhythm, and balance.
Kondo’s take on rhythm is more complicated. Read an excerpt from the 33 1/3 on Super Mario Bros.'s music. Yesterday we counted down the 100 greatest video game soundtracks of all time and Koji Kondo’s score to Super Mario Bros. ranked unsurprisingly high.
Today we have an exclusive excerpt from 33 1/3‘s upcoming book about Kondo’s score by Andrew Schartmann. 1–3 Kondo’s Compositional Philosophy Over the years, countless interviewers have asked Kondo to single out the music of which he is most proud. His choice is always the same: the original Overworld themes from Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. Many of us would agree that these are the tunes we remember best, but it seems odd for a composer to locate his greatest achievements in the nascent years of his art.
Although Kondo’s more recent work is painted with lush orchestral colors, his philosophical approach to writing music remains constant. The first of these functions seems relatively straightforward: compose music that gives the player a general sense of the environment. Super Mario Bros.: A Music Trivia Tour with Nintendo's Koji Kondo. Almost anyone who’s ever played a Nintendo game can hum the themes of Super Mario Bros. or The Legend of Zelda.
Despite assembling some of the most memorable music themes in video game history, Koji Kondo is calm and collected whenever he talks about his career and the stuff he’s done at Nintendo. Kondo currently supervises the creation of music for Nintendo games, but he’s also the sound director and main composer for Mario Maker – a role he admits he hasn’t had in a long time. IGN caught up with Kondo before The Video Game Awards to discuss his early days at Nintendo, his favorite video game music, and more. IGN: How would you describe Nintendo’s approach to music these days? What’s the same and what’s different? Kondo: When I look at when I first started, the one thing that’s obviously changed is the number of staff assigned to a title. IGN: Looking back at that time, my understanding is the staff was just you, Hirokazu Tanaka, and Yukio Kaneoka.
My relationship with Mr. The Mario Maestro speaks: Koji Kondo on composing classics. Koji Kondo became an immutable part of the fabric of the game industry itself when Super Mario Bros. was released in 1985.
His tunes, which served as the unforgettable accompaniment to one of the most important games in history, are still cherished today. Kondo continued to be the sole composer for the Mario games through 1996's Super Mario 64, as well as the mainline Zelda franchise through Ocarina of Time. Gamasutra got a rare chance to interview the composer prior to his appearance this past weekend at The Game Awards, where he played classic Mario themes on piano and appeared alongside the band Imagine Dragons.
In this rare (and remarkably humble) interview, he looks back on his oeuvre (he's currently hard at work on 2015's 30th anniversary franchise title Mario Maker for the Wii U) and shares his advice to other game composers. History Lesson: Koji Kondo - the maestro who brought Mario's music to life - CVG US. "Koji Kondo is not the Mozart of videogame music.
Mozart was the Koji Kondo of classical music. " YouTube users are hardly known for understatement, but commenter KenobiM11 might just have a point. Hum any of your favourite Nintendo themes from the past quarter-century and there's a pretty good chance Kondo was at least partly responsible. In fact, it could easily be argued that Koji Kondo has played as influential a role in Nintendo's recent history as Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi. Were it not for Kondo, would we even have been celebrating Zelda's 25th anniversary in 2011, let alone marking it with a set of orchestral concerts? Kondo's signature theme became so famous that Paul McCartney was able to sing it back to him after they met at a concert. Zoom "Paul and his [ex] wife Linda responded by singing the melody to me...
Kondo's story begins at age five, when he started playing the electric organ. Mario Piano Sheet Music - Original Quality. Koji Kondo - "The Legend of Zelda (Theme)" The Legend of Zelda - NES Gameplay. Super Mario Bros. Gameplay Video. Koji Kondo Video Interview - Video Games Live. [NC UK] Koji Kondo Interview.