This episode was written & produced by Casey Emmerling.

From the springy jump sound to the iconic Overworld Theme, the sound of Super Mario Bros. is instantly recognizable. With just five lo-fi audio channels and 40 kilobytes of space, composer Koji Kondo created a soundscape full of unforgettable melodies. In this episode, we explore how Kondo’s playful instincts, rhythmic trickery, and love of jazz fusion defined the sound of Mario. Featuring Kirk Hamilton of Strong Songs and Thomas of Thomas Game Docs.

MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

Rocker Jr. - Shake [B]IT
DJARTMUSIC - 8 Bit Console from My Childhood
moodmode - Game 8-Bit On
XtremeFreddy - Bit Beats 1
moodmode - Level VII
Wesley Slover - Analog Jam 1103
Space_Cat - Light It Up
moodmode - Level VI
William Benckert - Dance of the Pixel Birds

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View Transcript ▶︎

[20K Sonic Logo]

[sfx: 1-1 Intro, Jump, Coin]

[music in: Rocker Jr. - Shake [B]IT]

At this point, Mario is so ingrained in pop culture that it’s hard to imagine a world without him. There are now more than two hundred games with Mario in the title. With over nine hundred million sales, he’s the world’s best selling video game character. More recently, he was the star of a one point three billion dollar movie.

It’s pretty wild to think that all of that success can be traced back to a couple of games from the nineteen 80s. First, there was an arcade game called Mario Bros. It was moderately successful, but wasn’t a smash hit like Donkey Kong or Pac-Man. Then in 1985, Nintendo dropped an eight bit power house on the Nintendo Entertainment System, also known as the NES.

The game was called Super Mario Bros, and it was innovative in so many ways. It wasn’t the first platforming game, but its smooth side-scrolling gameplay was leagues ahead of other early platformers. It encouraged you to explore, with hidden blocks and secret warp zones.

Even the color scheme was unique. Whereas most 80s video games had plain black backgrounds, Mario had pastel blue skies and fluffy white clouds. Every element added to this sense of playfulness… especially the sounds and music, which were created by the legendary Koji Kondo.

Kirk: Koji Kondo is arguably the most important composer in the world of video games.

That's Kirk Hamilton, a musician, writer and host of the music podcast Strong Songs.

Kirk: Because of that, he's maybe also arguably one of the most important composers of the 20th century. He is kind of one of masters of the minimalist style of video game composing. I mean, he came up with some of the most indelible video game themes of all time, despite working with a pretty limited tool set on the original Nintendo Entertainment System.

[music out]

Koji Kondo crafted the music and sounds for all of the early Mario games...

[clip: Mario Bros 3 - Overworld]

As well as the early Zelda games...

[clip: Zelda Overworld]

Along with many others.

Thomas: Especially in the kind of NES/SNES/N64 era, a shocking amount of games had their soundtracks written by Koji Kondo. So he's a very versatile composer.

That's Thomas, who hosts a Youtube channel all about video game history called Thomas Game Docs.

Thomas: He's written music in a huge variety of genres, like ragtime...

[clip: SMW - Athletic Theme]

Thomas: And more jazzy sounding things...

[clip: Mario 64 Main Theme]

He's done takes on bluegrass...

[clip: Mario 64 - Slider Theme]

As well as calypso…

[clip: Mario Sunshine - Gelato Beach]

And flamenco.

[clip: Ocarina of Time - Gerudo Valley]

Thomas: But also very kind of spacey, atmospheric music in Zelda games, for instance.

[clip: Ocarina of Time - Shadow Temple]

As Nintendo's consoles got more sophisticated, it expanded the palette of sounds that Kondo could work with. But back in the NES days, that palette was very limited. The system could only generate a few different sounds.

One was a triangle wave, which was typically used for bass lines.

[SMB 3 - World 1 Map - Bass Stem]

It could play two pulse waves, for a melody and harmony.

[SMB 3 - World 1 Map - Pulse Stems]

It could play white noise... [sfx]

…which could be chopped up, and used for a rhythm.

[SMB 3 - World 1 Map - White Noise Stem]

Finally, it could play small prerecorded samples, which came out sounding very lo-fi. Here's some laughter from the boxing game Punch Out.

[Punch Out laughter]

But despite these limitations, the soundtrack of Super Mario Bros. is incredibly musical and hooky... even the sound effects.

[sfx: Jump]

Thomas: It's funny to think about the jump sound as being kind of revolutionary or, or at least new and fresh. But Koji Kondo said in an interview that when he was told to make a sound effect for Mario jumping, he was like, "But people don't make noise when they jump!"

Thomas: So even though now, video game characters in platformers, this kind of ascending jump sound is pretty natural to hear...

[3 modern platformer jump sounds]

Thomas: …it wasn't necessarily an easy sound effect to come up with.

[sfx: Jump]

Kirk: So I love the jump sound in Mario. It's maybe the greatest video game sound effect of all time. And also, this is actually where I'll get out my guitar…

Kirk: On a Fender Stratocaster, in the second pickup position, there is a sound that's so close to the jump sound. You just hit an A and then slide up. [guitar jump] And I've seen a lot of guitar players have fun making Mario sounds on their instruments. [guitar jump]

Then, there's the coin sound. [sfx: Coin]

Kirk: It’s two notes [piano example] and I think in some ways he's channeling “cha-ching!” [sfx: cha-ching on top] Right? It’s just something we almost don't even think about. We just assume that if you pick up money, it makes a two notes sound, presumably because “cha-ching” is so ingrained in our subconscious. [sfx: Coin]

Then, there's a Power Up sound, which you hear when you get a Mushroom or a Fire Flower.

[sfx: Power Up]

Kirk: This one exceeds my synth expertise, but it just sounds like a really fast ascending tone that's almost bouncing back and forth, I think between two different voices, which gives it that shimmering effect.

[sfx: Power Up]

If you slow the sound way down, you can hear those ascending arpeggios clearly.

[sfx: Power Up Slowed Down]

That musical movement is very similar to the melody that plays when you complete a level.

[sfx: Level Complete]

Kirk: So this is just a C to an A flat to a B flat to a C. That's a pretty common like… [piano example] super dramatic resolution. A lot of rock songs do it. And Koji Kondo, of course, loved his dramatic rock chord progressions. And the way that he spreads it out and builds these big arpeggios through it, you really feel like you have won.

[sfx: Level Complete]

The level complete sound is triumphant. But it's not as epic as the Castle Complete sound.

[sfx: Castle Complete]

Kirk: So Castle Complete is cool because it starts in C… [piano example] And then it goes up to D flat, then to E flat, then to F, to a G major chord. And it actually ends in a new key. And it gives it a much more elaborate feeling of victory, which I suppose, is appropriate, because it's signaling a greater victory than just beating a level.

[sfx: Castle Complete]

Next up is the sound you hear when you lose a powerup.

[sfx: Power Down]

With a trio of descending tones, it feels like the inverse to the Power Up sound.

[sfx: Power Up + Power Down]

Kirk: Both of these are somewhat a-harmonic. They don't strike me as really in a given key, so they work better just as sound effects. But because they move so fast, they have that shimmering quality. They stand out from the background score.

The Power Down sound is also the same sound you hear when you travel through a warp pipe.

[sfx: Warp Pipe + music in: DJARTMUSIC - 8 Bit Console from My Childhood]

Thomas: There was a lot of reusing of various assets back on the NES.

You can often notice this in the visuals. Like how in Mario, the clouds in the sky are the exact same shape as the bushes on the ground... just in a different color. And in Metroid, you'll find the exact same room layout in multiple places across the map. This was all done to reduce the overall file size of the games.

Thomas: A lot of decisions were made in order to kind of cram games into their cartridges.

Super Mario Bros was only forty kilobytes in total... To put that in perspective, Super Mario Wonder from 2023 is over eighty seven thousand times bigger than that.

Thomas: Nowadays, we take for granted games that are like 70 gigabytes, 80 gigabytes, but back then it's like everything was tiny.

[music out]

Those tiny file sizes meant that Koji Kondo had to communicate a lot in just a few notes. Like the Extra Life sound.

[sfx: Extra Life]

Kirk: Oh man, it's such a classic. [piano example]

Kirk: This is just a spread out C major triad. There's not really anything harmonically or melodically special about it. But because it's so high, and just because of that sparkling sound of the synth, it's become iconic.

[music in: moodmode - Game 8-Bit On]

Kirk: It's a good example of how a lot of the most iconic little jingles like that are actually very simple. It isn't their complexity or something really distinct about them musically that makes them so iconic. It's just a combination of sound quality and deployment.

Thomas: It's very joyful and fits the moment in the game, when you're very happy that you got your hands on something that will make your life easier down the line.

[music out into sfx: Extra Life]

But along with these encouraging sounds, they also needed sounds for the tenser moments in the game... like the little Hurry Up sting that plays when the level’s time limit gets below a hundred.

[sfx: Hurry Up]

Thomas: Sends shivers down your spine hear.

Kirk: This one's cool. Koji Kondo loves the seventh chord. This is this like... [piano example] He's just doing chromatically ascending dominant seven chords there. And it gives you an unresolved feeling, because a dominant seven chord always wants to go somewhere. That's sort of its default mode. And so when you hear a bunch of chromatically ascending dominant seven chords like that, it feels like it really wants to resolve, and then it just kind of doesn't. And of course, you, the player, have to resolve that cadence.

[sfx: Hurry Up]

Then, there's the sound for when you die.

[sfx: Death]

Kirk: I like this one. It's funny 'cause it's just this like... [piano example] It's just a little jingle going from G to C, so we're resolving to one. It's nice and tidy. And yet it feels like failure.

Kirk: I think that's that third sound. Along with the two main tones, the bass line that ascends... [bass stem]

Kirk: And the treble part, that descends... [treble stem 1]

Kirk: There's this kind of laser gun falling sound [imitating sound] that goes along with it. [treble stem 2]

Kirk: I think that's kind of the key to this whole thing, because each one of those tones, “boom,” it kind of falls. And of course, you're watching Mario tumble off the screen at the same time. So I think It kind of evokes what you're seeing in a way that makes it feel like you've failed.

[sfx: Death]

Of course, if you die enough times, you'll get a Game Over.

[sfx: Game Over]

Kirk: This is harmonically kind of hip. Again, we're resolving to C, but he does a little sidestep and instead of going from G to C... [piano example] At the end there, he goes from D flat to C, which is what's known as a tritone substitution. And so you get that kind of.... [piano example] that resolution where you're a half step above the tonic, and then you go down to the C. [piano example] Which is just a nice sound. It's kind of lush, it's almost peaceful. It's a… a peaceful death maybe, this one.

[sfx: Game Over]

It makes sense that Koji Kondo wrote nearly all of these little stings in the key of C. That way, they'd fit in with the music you hear the most throughout the game.... which is also in C. In fact, if you listen to the first few notes of that Game Over melody, you might hear something familiar.

[sfx: Game Over - first 3 notes]

You know where I'm going with this.

[Overworld Theme in]

Thomas: I mean one of the most iconic pieces of video game music of all time, maybe the most iconic, it's very high up there.

Thomas: I think it's close to a perfect composition, in a way, for Mario. It's so playful and upbeat, but it also has this kind of rhythmic drive to it, and it really does suit the kind of action you're doing as the player, jumping and running and kind of dodging enemies and it works very well… which it kind of has to, 'cause you hear the song many times on loop as you're playing the game. So, you know, there's a lot of pressure to be, not only good to listen to once, but good to listen to 10 times, 20 times, a thousand times. I mean, how many times have any of us heard the Mario theme at this point? [music out]

But it turns out, that actually wasn't what Kondo originally wrote for Mario.

[music in: XtremeFreddy - Bit Beats 1]

Thomas: Koji Kondo started out by just seeing a visual of Mario running through a grassy field. So he tried writing a kind of relaxing, free sounding piece of music to accompany that.

Kondo's original Mario theme has never been released. But I'd like to imagine it sounded something like this.

But sadly...

Thomas: Everyone hated it.**

[music glitches out]

Thomas: Everyone on the team thought it was not the right fit at all for the game. So he had to start again. And so when writing the piece of music that we know as the Mario theme, he based it on the like rhythmic jumping that Mario does in the game.

To match that rhythmic jumping, Kondo wrote a swinging drum beat.

[rhythm channel in]

Kirk: The swing of the Mario theme is, I think, a big part of what makes it so groovy, and what makes it feel so welcoming. You're ready to have fun the minute that you hear it.

[rhythm channel out]

In music theory, swing refers to how eighth notes are treated. But it's a bit easier to hear the difference than to explain it. A straight rhythm would sound like this...

Kirk: [Demonstrating]

[rhythm stem straight - quantize]

Kirk: As opposed to… [Demonstrating]

[rhythm section - swung]

Kirk: ...which has a swinging pulse to the eighth notes.

But oddly enough, Kondo chose not to apply that swinging pulse to the melody.

Kirk: If you listen to the melody though, the melody is playing it pretty straight. If you listen to the bridge, for example... [Overworld Theme Bridge]

Kirk: That's a pretty straight melody. If you swung it, it would sound like [Demonstrating].

Kirk: And you've kind of heard that version of the Mario theme at various points...

[clip: Mario Party - Playing the Game]

Kirk: There are a lot of really swinging Mario soundtracks where they'll play it that way. But the original one actually plays it pretty straight. So it's a neat contrast between the rhythm part that's swinging, and the melody that's playing pretty straight.

[Overworld Theme in]

Thomas: It creates this very interesting rhythmic juxtaposition between the percussion and the rest of the tune. You would think that it would totally clash, but it feels so natural to listen to. I think that helps to create this kind of offbeat rhythm that weirdly suits what you're doing in Super Mario Bros.

[music out]

The Overworld Theme was the perfect introduction into the bright, playful world of Mario. But when players completed that first level, they went down a warp pipe into a dark, underground cave, where they heard something very different.

[Cave Theme in]

Thomas: The Underground Theme is very odd. It's very strange. It's not in four four rhythmic time. It's very much in this strange time that makes it hard to hum along to. And I think the music definitely carries that offbeat sense of like, "What am I doing here? Why am I underground?"

[music out]

Kirk: Because there's no beat, it's immediately a little bit disorienting. You just hear "Booba dooba dooba!" And then you're like, “Okay, well wait, where's the beat?"

Kirk: I remember for the longest time when I was a kid, I thought that this had odd meter counting in it, just because I would always get thrown off by the second half of it.
[demonstrating]

In a twenty fourteen interview, Koji Kondo said quote, “In the original Underground Theme, some measures were in four four, while others were in three four. This was done on purpose, to make it arrhythmic and difficult to count, and create that creepy feeling we wanted players to have when they went into an underground section.”

If you ever want to count along, the way it works is that the A section is in three four, and the B section is in four four. Just make sure to switch back to threes right after the funky melody ends.

One two three, one two three, one two three, one two three, one two three, one two three, one two three, one two three.

One two three four, one two three four, one two three four.

One two three, one two three, one two three, one two three, one two three, one two three.

[Underground Theme with Counting]

[SMB3 - Underground Theme in]

But within just a few years, the weirdness of this music got toned down a bit. When Super Mario Bros 3 came out in 1988, the Underground Theme was now completely in four four time, and included a predictable beat.

[NSMB Underground Theme + Odyssey Underground Theme]

Thomas: When the track's been brought back and remixed in future Mario games, it's almost always put into four four time to make it easier to work with.

[music out]

But while the Underground Theme might make players a little disoriented, the Star Theme makes you wanna get up and groove.

[Star Theme in]

In Mario, a star makes you invincible, but only briefly. And the music reflects that.

Kirk: It's really just a D going to a C, so it's just two going to one. But I think that it, by moving back and forth from two to one to two to one, it has this kind of cycling, spiraling, skipping quality. And I think that's perfect for what's happening. It's this limited-time power up. You're moving really, really quickly probably because you're trying to get as far in the level as you can, and it just feels like a stone skipping across the water.

[Star Theme out into music in: moodmode - Level VII]

When Super Mario Bros was released, its sounds and music were unlike any game before it. But of course, no art exists in a vacuum, and every piece of music was influenced by something else. Over the years, Nintendo fans have tracked down a few key songs that might have provided the creative seed for some of these classic melodies.

[designed cut to clip: T-Square - Sister Marian up, then under]

That's coming up, after the break.

[music up, then fade out]

MIDROLL

[Mario Theme Sting]

As famous as the music of Mario is, the man behind that music is much less well known. Koji Kondo doesn't often speak publicly about himself. But in interviews over the years, he's dropped various tidbits about his background, and his musical influences.

[music in: Wesley Slover - Analog Jam 1103]

Kondo was born in 1961, in Nagoya, the fourth largest city in Japan. In kindergarten, he started taking Yamaha music lessons, and learning to play the organ.

Thomas: Koji Kondo was given a synthesizer by his parents in high school, and started making a lot of experimental synthesized sounds back then, which equipped him well for his time at Nintendo, which is very synthesized, obviously.

[music out]

Around this time, Kondo started getting into jazz fusion, which was especially popular in Japan. Broadly speaking, it's a blend of jazz with other genres, like rock, funk, and R&B.

Thomas: In university, he joined a jazz fusion cover band where he played keyboard. And they covered songs by a variety of popular jazz fusion groups in Japan, like Casiopea...

[Cassiopeia - Take Me]

Thomas: And Naniwa Express...

[clip: Naniwa Express - Seven Taste Cigar]

During his senior year, Kondo went and looked at the school's job posting board. There, he saw a listing for a position as a music composer and sound programmer for Nintendo. It was the only job he applied to, and luckily, he got it.

One of his first assignments was on the boxing game Punch Out.

[clip: Punch Out Title 2]

He was also one of two composers on a game called Devil World.

[clip: Devil World]

But within just a year, Kondo was working on Super Mario Bros. And it's there that his jazz fusion influences could really shine through.

[music sneaks in: T-Square - Sister Marian]

Thomas: One of the sources of inspiration he took was the jazz fusion group T-Square, who the previous year, had put out an album called Adventures, with a song on it called “Sister Marian.” And this song probably provided the kind of melodic seed that Koji Kondo built the whole Super Mario Bros. Ground Theme from.

[music up, then under]

Thomas: Koji Kondo did say in an interview quote, "The Overworld Theme in Mario might show some influence from the Japanese fusion band T-Square." So that's as confirmed as you're gonna get.

[3 notes in Sister Marian, Overworld Theme, piano]

Kirk: Yeah, we're even in the same key. I mean yeah, I would say I can't read Koji Kondo's mind, but he also said that they inspired it. So there you go.

[music sneaks in: Friendship - Let's Not Talk About It]

Then, there's a 1979 song called "Let's Not Talk About It," by an American fusion group named Friendship.

[music up, then under]

The resemblance to the Underground Theme is pretty striking, including the key, the chord change, and the approximate tempo.

[music up + Underground Theme]

[music fades under]

But unlike the T-Square example, we can't say for sure if Koji Kondo was even aware of Friendship, who were pretty obscure.

Another one that people have pointed to is a 1983 song called Summer Breeze, by the Japanese group Piper.

[music in: Piper - Summer Breeze]

Like the Mario Star Theme, it's in the key of C, and alternates back and forth between a D and C chord.

[music up, then transition to Star Theme]

Now, coming from a funky Japanese artist in 1983, this does seem like something Kondo might have heard around the time he wrote the music for Mario. But the song itself isn't super unique.

Kirk: I would say that's such a common chord progression, and such a common type of vampy groove that I don't know that I would necessarily say that that piece inspired the Star music. But at the same time, it is in the same key, same kind of general vibe. So it definitely could have.

[music in: Space_Cat - Light It Up]

Now, Koji Kondo has written hundreds of tracks. And as far as I can tell, there’s only a handful that have this direct connection to a specific song. And even they have significant differences.

Kirk: Each of his pieces is dramatically different than whatever may have inspired it, whether or not those pieces did. But it is fun to just hear the little germ of an idea that grew into something that we all know so well.

When it comes down to it, this is how art has always worked.

Kirk: We all create art based on the world around us. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with hearing a melody, and having it bounce around in your head for a little while, and then turning it into something new. That is how music has been composed since music first started existing.

Kirk: So yeah, I think that that's a perfectly natural way to write music, and it doesn't diminish or detract from his work in any way.

[music out]

There's one last example that I find especially interesting. This melody goes all the way back to Kondo's childhood, in the 1960s. It starts with a song called “Green Green.”

[music sneaks in: New Christie Minstrels - Green Green]

Thomas: “Green Green” is this folk song that was released in 1963 by a group called The New Christie Minstrels.

[music up, then under]

The lyrics are basically about not settling down, and heading to the far side of the hill, where the grass is greener.

Thomas: But in the late sixties, this children's author in Japan called Hikaru Kataoka heard this song. And he was working at the time for the biggest broadcaster in Japan, NHK, which is like a public broadcaster, kind of like the UK's BBC.

NHK has a program called Songs for Everyone that's still around today, where they introduce new music. At the time, the program had a children's segment called Merry Go Round of Song, and Kataoka was in charge of the show's production, translation, and songwriting. In 1967, he decided to adapt Green Green for it.

Thomas: He wrote a new set of lyrics, in Japanese that didn't have anything to do with the original English lyrics.

Like the original, Kataoka's version talks about natural beauty and green wildlife. But his lyrics also have a melancholy component, about a father who leaves on a faraway journey, and won't be coming back.

For the recording, they got a children's choir to sing the choruses, though they left out some of these heavier lyrics.

[clip: Suginami Children's Choir - Green Green]

Now this program was watched by millions of kids each week, and Green Green was a pretty big hit. It eventually became a kind of cultural touchstone ... something that many Japanese kids learn in elementary school. Here it is in a more modern Japanese children's show.

[clip: Japanese Kids Show - Green Green]

It was even used as one of Japan's train station jingles, at Ushiku Station.

[clip: Ushiku Station - Green Green]

Thomas: So Koji Kondo was born in 1961, and if "Green Green" was becoming quite a well-known song in schools and on children's television by kind of the early 1970s, then I think it's very likely that he at least would've heard the song.

Then, a couple decades later, Kondo was writing a new Mario theme. This time, it was for Super Mario World, on the Super Nintendo. The song would be that game's overworld theme, and would play as Mario hopped around and rode Yoshi through these grassy green levels. And the melody he came up with sounded like this.

[clip: SMW Overworld Theme]

Thomas: I think if you hear the melodies just on a piano or something like that, and put them back to back especially, the similarity of them is pretty striking.

Here's Green Green, in the key of F...

[Green Green on piano]

And here's the Overworld Theme from Super Mario World.

[SMW Overworld on piano]

Again, these melodies are similar, but you can hear the differences, too.

[music sneaks back in: SMW Overworld Theme]

Thomas: The Super Mario World theme has like a B section and he certainly didn't just use it verbatim. You know, he went a lot of interesting places with the song. But I think that it's certainly not improbable that he, whether consciously or subconsciously, would've drawn upon inspiration from this classic kids song from Japan.

[music up, then under]

[music in: moodmode - Level VI]

The sound of Super Mario Bros. has a surprising amount of depth to it, especially when you consider the hardware limitations that Koji Kondo was working with. But the real genius of this music isn't how flashy or unusual it is, it's how punchy and distilled it is.

Kirk: It is a great example of doing a lot with a little. It's so economical in what it does harmonically and even rhythmically. It's always very clearly tied to what's happening on screen, and it even represents it. It's brilliant.

Thomas: If you can get it across with less notes rather than more, then he usually goes for less. And a melody that is simple to listen to is not necessarily simple to compose.

Koji Kondo took the constraints of the NES and made them into an asset, crafting short, instantly recognizable melodies that could be remixed and revamped endlessly throughout the Mario series... even if he didn't realize it at the time.

Thomas: You know, when Koji Kondo was writing them, he was just like, "Okay, this sounds like a good sound." He never would've guessed that many, many years later, these are still staples of the Mario series.

[3 later 1-Up Sounds]

[music out]

[music in: William Benckert - Dance of the Pixel Birds]

Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of my sound agency, Defecto Sound. Hear more by following Defacto Sound on Instagram, or by visiting Defacto Sound dot com.

Other Voices: This episode was written and produced by Casey Emmerling, with help from Grace East. It was sound designed and mixed by Jade Dickey and Colin DeVarney.

Thanks to our guests, Thomas and Kirk. Subscribe to Thomas' Youtube channel, Thomas Game Docs, for fascinating videos about video game history. And follow Kirk's podcast Strong Songs for deep dives into iconic songs and what makes them work.

Finally, subscribe to my Youtube channel Dallas Taylor dot mp3 for video exclusives, including my behind the scenes trips to some of the most amazing audio locations. There are links to all of these in the show notes.

I'm Dallas Taylor. Thanks for listening.

[music out]