Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by dlu
Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack by Andrew Schartmann
3.0
I wanted to like this book more, but ultimately found that its interests were not quiet aligned with mine. Unlike some of the others who reviewed this book, I found the technical music theory parts of it fascinating and the core of what I was looking for. Sadly, those just make up a small portion of the book. Some of the contextual information was worthwhile, but a decent portion of it seemed to just reinforce the "Video game music is similar to classical music therefore legitimate" thread.
Ultimately, this book left me wanting more. I felt it was stretching what it had to try to make it legitimate-book length, when there was plenty more to be mined. There's some sheet music in it, but it is oddly rotated 90 degrees, and often will just show up a measure or two on a single page, with nothing else on that page. The text mentions things like the overall structure of the Overworld theme being "Intro A B B C A D D C D". Its not the deepest insight, but I found it fascinating. After I read that I was eager to hear a discussion of each section...but none was found. In fact, it wasn't until after I finished and listened to an mp3 that I even remembered what the D section sounded like, since the book did nothing to help me appreciate that part.
Then there was the entire section on sound effects, which I felt missed the mark. I had previously read this fascinating article that decomposed several of the sounds from SMB. It contained the key insight how the PowerUp sound effect is almost the same as the Flagpole Fanfare. I was looking forward to a deeper discussion of that, and since the author was devoting an entire section to sound effects, I figured it had to be discussed. But instead I got academic postulating about "embodied cognition" which was mildly interesting but not really the musical insight I was hoping for.
In summation, there are some interesting points, but I wanted much more to justify the price tag.
Ultimately, this book left me wanting more. I felt it was stretching what it had to try to make it legitimate-book length, when there was plenty more to be mined. There's some sheet music in it, but it is oddly rotated 90 degrees, and often will just show up a measure or two on a single page, with nothing else on that page. The text mentions things like the overall structure of the Overworld theme being "Intro A B B C A D D C D". Its not the deepest insight, but I found it fascinating. After I read that I was eager to hear a discussion of each section...but none was found. In fact, it wasn't until after I finished and listened to an mp3 that I even remembered what the D section sounded like, since the book did nothing to help me appreciate that part.
Then there was the entire section on sound effects, which I felt missed the mark. I had previously read this fascinating article that decomposed several of the sounds from SMB. It contained the key insight how the PowerUp sound effect is almost the same as the Flagpole Fanfare. I was looking forward to a deeper discussion of that, and since the author was devoting an entire section to sound effects, I figured it had to be discussed. But instead I got academic postulating about "embodied cognition" which was mildly interesting but not really the musical insight I was hoping for.
In summation, there are some interesting points, but I wanted much more to justify the price tag.