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Inside The Score – Super Mario All-Stars – Underwater (SMB)

Floating in three steps

A waltz that today is not only a famous video game track but a piece of music worth of being cultural heritage of a classical repertoire even if it has a diminutive length. Because this tune is as recognizable in pop culture as other famous waltzes like the Blue Danube waltz of Johann Strauss or Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers. But don’t think for a second this is just a classical style waltz since with the vaudeville like intro we can see that original composer Koji Kondo also has his share of influences from ragtime waltzes, making this a piece that could also fit with the saloon style soundtrack of Doki Doki Panic also known as Super Mario Bros. 2—hence why it is its Title Track— and sounds similar to those non-classical waltzes like Sun Showers by Harold Ivers:

Long notes for those long strokes that keep you afloat

It serves as the characteristic title theme from many Mario games.

Musical Analysis

Showcasing than in Mario the movement is what needs to be captured as opposed to the environment, the calypso track which would have fitted a water theme is relegated to the overworld while this one was chosen as the Underwater BGM just because its 3/4 time signature follows the movements of not only the players pressing the buttons to put Mario floating but also the rest of the marine life from the Mushroom Kingdom (even the coins and the time score dance). It was so easy to relate the piece to the image that it came quickly to Kondo as the very first tune written for the Super Mario series; the game’s overworld in contrast was very difficult and took many iterations. This idea of synchronicity between enemies and music reached its natural conclusion on the New Super Mario Bros. games where enemies even stop on their tracks to dance to certain accents, bah-bah!

The chromatic harmony full of pivot notes is also more from that ragtime waltz tradition than the orchestral one. Like the rest of the soundtrack, it is based around C with some external notes that give the more jazzy flavour and it is the melodic counterpart of the overworld just like the castle and underground are the dissonant quota of this four main pieces soundtrack. Like the Ground Theme, it retains its intro as part of the loop, something that Mario pieces don’t do as often nowadays.

The revamped version for the SNES arranged y Soyo Oka is slower, losing slightly the connection with the movements of the creatures. Curiously the intro is now eliminated from the loop, making the piece even shorter. It also removes the percussion.

If you feel the 8-bit version sounds weird that is because it does not come with the volume dynamics Koji Kondo made for the original, in which the volume also moved in wavelike patterns. Here it is just the sequences.

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