Inside The Score - Banjo-Kazooie - Collect Jiggy

Three more pieces collected

Just like Super Mario 64 has its power stars, the bear and the bird have their own core collectibles in the figure of puzzle pieces known as jiggies. These are the mcguffin of the story, the plot coupons that will permit the player to advance in the game by opening new locations. Unlike Mario 64 where the power stars opened doors to paintings, In Banjo-Kazooie the concept goes one step further by using puzzle pieces to actually recreate the pictures inside the castle. Like any other success in-game, these golden jiggies, which are mystical objects dating at least 1000 years and implied to be sacred in the sequel, are musicalized with a success fanfare and a little animation to celebrate the occasion. Alongside the main jiggy jingle, we also have the successfully complete task cue and the magical tune that accompanies the apparition of a jiggy.

Musical Analysis

Structure: Section 1 / Section 2 / Section 3

Tempo: 120 (Section 1, 2); 190 (Section 3)

Melodic and Harmonic Profiles: C Ionian/major; C Lydian

The ‘successfully complete task’ cue is as standard as a celebratory fanfare can get. Although the equivalent to the Super Mario 64 discovery cue or the iconic ‘Puzzle Solution” sound from The legend of Zelda series, The Banjo-Kazooie discovery plays it straight, a short brass fanfare with enhancing orchestral percussion that fits perfectly the definition of a traditional medieval Europe fanfare: a musical announcement played on brass instruments before the arrival of an important person—or in this case, an event. There is no mystery or ambiguity here like on its Nintendo counterparts, just pure celebration and bliss. In fact, the melody may have come straight from real life and played to real royalty seeing how the cadence is straightforward.

There are just two chords that form an authentic cadence: C – G – C – G – C

Like other success cues, it has an upward contour.

The mystical side of the equation is reserved for the actual apparition of the jiggy, which has a more ethereal air and, alongside the golden color, gives the object its sacred aura (actual gold never tarnishes, rusts, or corrodes so it gained associations with the divine a long time ago). This little cue will serve as the basis for the music from the Jiggywiggy’s Temple in Banjo-Tooie, where it plays a slowed down version of the notes that originated here. The lifting sensation you are supposed to feel with any religious experience is provided here courtesy of the trusted Lydian tetrachord, which thanks to its augmented fourth makes the Ionian tetrachord lose its characteristic cadence. It feels like dreaming or floating. The same instruments used for gothic horror, are here deployed to contribute their delicate timbres towards magnifying the golden jiggy magic; the theremin is used once again as a polyphonic instrument, which is seldom used in real life compositions. The theremin sustains a C5 coupled with a wavering D3 to C3 on top. In reality, Grant Kirkhope used two celestas and two theremin to create a bigger reverb effect by slightly delaying the unison notes of the second set of instruments.

The version of the ‘jiggy appear’ cue heard here is closer to the one in the Xbox port of the game. Since on that game the particular vibrato effect that gives a more magical aura is also missing when compared to the N64 cartridge.

The last one is the jiggy theme in question. And it is a longer cue that returns to the bluegrass motif when related to the characters of the bear and the bird. It now gains a slightly bluesier edge thanks to its use of conventional riffs and endings of blues tunes; nonetheless it is still stepped in the bluegrass traditions—the more pure blues will be reserved for bad news cues due to the music connotations with a person going through bad times or “feeling kind of blue”. It uses most of the instruments of the bluegrass cues previously heard with the addition of the harmonica which, although a characteristic bluegrass instrument, it is played here—and throughout many other tracks from the game— as the other free reed cousin, the accordion. It plays the standard bass-chord accompaniment characteristic of the instrument—the harmonica would likely be a monophonic performance. It uses two banjos to create a fuller performance. Like other celebratory cues from the game, it consists of an authentic cadence in the key of C major.

C – G – C – G – C7

The blues facade beginning to materialize thanks to the chromatic notes from Kazooie, the swing rhythm and ending the piece with a dominant chord.

Here is a version of the underlying accompaniment of the track:

Old Banjo had a farm

As a curiosity, it appears that this piece had various iterations throughout development, with both a shorter and a longer version left unused in the final product. Maybe they were meant to be for other specific achievements or they were just building blocks towards the definitive version the developers settled in.

Here is the short version:

Played by the duo themselves

And the long version, which doubles down on its blues influences—perhaps they decided it was too similar to the ‘Game Over’ cue since both use the same trademarked blues ending:

Another classic coda from American music

Most likely, they choose the version that matched the beats of the animation of Banjo picking the jiggy, the small pause, and Kazooie eating the piece; perhaps the composer changing the tune as the developers settled on the final animation:

Presumably, this would have been the end product

A set of careful constructed levels wait full of those special jiggies. The bear and the bird must look for them in order to access the world inside Gruntilda’s Lair. There are other celebratory cues and moments of triumph. One of these is actually completing a puzzle and finally being able to enter a world that is teasing us with its music and environments.