Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack (33 1/3)

I enjoyed this book as a whole.In particular, I liked the context and history and technological discussions about what videogame music was at the time, how it was made, and who Kondo approached his design to the Mario Soundtrack.That being said, there are parts of this book that went WAY over my head. As the chapters progress and Schartmann delves into the music theory and historical context of Kondo's inspirations--he lost me. I consider myself a fairly intelligent and informed person, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty theory of why music works as it does and what Kondo did to achieve the equivalents with his limited tools, I often had no idea what the words I was reading meant.And just because a person doesn't understand something, I realize that this is not a bad thing. That's part of why I love reading: finding new words, new ideas, new concepts that force me to do some research. But with what I've read--and have seen--of the 33 1/3 series is that they're fairly accessible to any and every music aficionado. But I don't think I'm alone in being lost here. (Granted, I DO want to learn music theory, and perhaps I'll enjoy this book even more after.)In the end, this is a mixture of mostly good with some "over my head" stuff that weakened the book for me. Is this for everyone? No. But bare minimum, I think Schartmann has written a very convincing argument as to why we can--and should--look at such scores like the SUPER MARIO BROS. Soundtrack as complete and whole albums, cohesive and glorious in their simplicity.

One of the better 33 1/3 books I've read. It gives some really nice context with the state of video game music at the time and the influence of the Super Mario Bros. tunes.It goes a little bit more into music theory/composition elements than most books, not too deep. Having taken a harmony 101 class would be helpful but i'm pretty sure you'd be fine without it. I could see a non-musician getting a bit lost when he gets into the details and the written sheet music examples though. Having said that, the fact there is only 3 minutes or so of unique music to discuss does allow the author to be thorough and the result makes an engaging and interesting read. I think during the section on sound effects he harps a bit too much on the obvious "notes going up = good, notes going down = bad" thing, but the rest is great.

Daughter loved receiving this little book in her stocking. I had caught a one-sentence reference to the book in a magazine article and knew it would be of interest to my music and video game loving adult daughter.

Fun neat insight on the Mario soundtrack. Does a good job of fleshing out, why the songs were written the way they were, and what led to such a memorable soundtrack. I'd love to see something similar for the 1st Zelda game next!

Got this for my 30s-something son at his request, a fan of most all-things-Mario-Bros. Of course, he loved it!

Was a pretty interesting (but dense) read. Certainly an important document for ludomusicology research.

This was a somewhat interesting read, but way too long and padded. You could have cut the book down to 1/4th of its size and it would've made for a very interesting article. I get the significance of Koji's work on the game, and how revolutionary it was for video games, but there's plenty of full-length albums that deserve the 33 1/3 treatment instead of 3 minutes of video game music.

Great.

Got this for someone’s birthday they real liked it 😊 was not expensive, came in good time

A book about the genius thst is koji kondo and trying to un pick why the mario themes are so clever and instantly recognisable. I'm familiar with sheet music and some theory but some of the analysis is quite complex to follow. Not a criticism just a fact.

Llego muchísimo antes de lo que esperaba!

Well written and omnicomprehensive. A little short but actually full of stories and accurate analysis about the best videogame soundtrack ever.

Great book. Wish the author was a bit more familiar with the NES hardware with which the music was created.