Inside The Score - Banjo-Kazooie - Mumbo's Mountain (Variations)

Eekom Bokan

The ground shakes, drums… drums in the deep
We cannot get out
They are coming

The natives are getting restless and that means big, deep, ominous, relentless drums pounding that capture the most primal instincts of mankind’s nature. These drums have become a codeword in media to depict the deepest jungle and the dangerous tribes that inhabit it, aboriginal people that will not think twice about shooting you an arrow, possibly preparing a ritual after abducting the damsel in distress and about to cook her and eat her or sacrifice her to the gods to placate the elements of nature. In any case, pay attention to the rhythms of their midnight drumming if you wanna know how perilous the situation truly is; the faster they are, the faster you must act…or perhaps they are just normal folks celebrating, communicating and dancing, which is how most actual natives used the characteristic drums made from materials found in their habitat.

In Banjo-Kazooie all this is more innocent though, with the leader of the village being a mostly cooperative friend to the bear and the bird, and perhaps the only cannibalistic victim being a jinjo found trapped in one of the huts of the village. Nonetheless, the instruments chosen for these arrangements of the Mumbo’s Mountain theme are pretty much self explanatory, aiming to capture the jungle and native environment by making the connection with those big wilderness drums.

Musical Analysis

Structure: { I – AA B A CC B A D }

Tempo: 95

Melodic and Harmonic Profiles: C Ionian/Major; F Ionian/Major

In typical Hollywood fashion, nothing beats the sound of the Japanese Taiko drums to stand in for any of the big drums one may (or may imagine) find in the deepest jungle when encountering native people. Similar settings in films use taiko drums or similar drums to represent the jungle; the soundtracks of the Jumanji franchise have featured these drums to reinforce that booming, full of danger environments from all across the world:

Similar to how the animal noises of the kookaburra became a stock sound for any jungle even though the creature only resides in Oceania

It also means that the music gets less sophisticated in melody, harmony and instrumentation, giving it a more primitive feeling when compared to the standard cue. After all, they haven’t been introduced to the cosmopolitan counterpoint rules of colonizers yet.

Grant Kirkhope uses only the pan flute, drums and samples of an actual African march to create the mood when Banjo and Kazooie reach the top of the mountain where a small village with a totem is located. The drums co opt the pattern of the original track but add a couple of extra strokes to better convey the mood of some kind of ritual; unlike the constant drum kit beat that serves as a backdrop for the normal version, this beat is the only thing more complex since it weaves itself with the melodic patterns to create a richer interplay with the melody. With so much less instruments to share sonic space with, it is easier to get creative in the drumming department.

The pan flute provides both the harmony and the melody, the song losing its orchestration and counterpoint based repetition, instead allowing to easily access a trance thanks to the constant sensorial assault of a single timbre throughout.

Unlike the original, the intro goes straight into the tritone based harmony that plagues the rest of the sections, harmony that all over consist only of intervals as opposed to three note chords, mostly fifths and fourths. The melody only retains the core notes, discarding the faster runs that sound more natural in mallets or light orchestral woodwinds; it still keeps the bluesy accidentals though. Since Grant, for the most part, sticks to chordal tones when constructing melodies, the wacky sense of harmony is still retained even when there is less harmonic information.

Section C is the only one where the melody receives a considerable overhaul. Perhaps the use of pan flute and the totem inspired Grant to come up with a more Native American sounding melody during this part.

For the variation heard on the Conga patch, the gorilla receives the full Donkey Kong treatment, with voices, name, red attire and clips taken from the character himself and a score that tries to match the energy of the main theme from this Rare series, the Jungle Hijinx track composed by David Wise for the original Donkey Kong Country. It uses similar instrumentation, adding an additional percussion layer with the big sounding tom drums, shakers and the saxophone that may be inspired by DK—or Grant just likes to use this instruments for large, heavy bosses due to its rash and muddy timbre. Conga’s theme dismisses all harmony whatsoever with only the sax carrying pitch information, making the character feel even more primitive (his speech shows that indeed he is).

Time to traverse this curious village and meet the mountain’s king who hopefully will use his voodoo to bring some good against the witchcraft of Grunty.

Samples used: AfricanMarch and Tribal Claps from Roland SR-JV80-05 World