NES waltzes

August 8, 2006 11:05 PM

Is there any famous old video game music in 3/4 time?

It recently occurred to me that the Super Mario Bros. underwater music and the main gameplay tune from Milon's Secret Castle were both in 3/4 time, and have begun to wonder if there are others I'm forgetting -- I'm mostly looking for SNES-era or earlier, reasonably well known, and not overtly "it was in a scene involving a waltz."

posted by DoctorFedora to sports, hobbies, & recreation (16 comments total)

Is some of the Tetris music in 3/4 time?
posted by sueinnyc at 11:19 PM on August 8, 2006

There are several well-known 3/4 pieces in Final Fantasy III (VI US), including Kids Run Through the City Corner (the main town theme), the music pieces that play in the phantom forest and aboard the train, and (of course) the Wedding Waltz during the opera.
posted by The Confessor at 11:19 PM on August 8, 2006

Super Mario Brothers World 2-2
posted by aubilenon at 12:07 AM on August 9, 2006

Damn how'd I miss the more-inside. I'm so embarassed!

Where's the link to delete my answer, my account, and all record or memory that I ever existed?
posted by aubilenon at 12:11 AM on August 9, 2006

There was a baseball game for the Commodore 64 around 1986 that had a rousing theme song in 3/4 time. Sounded a lot like Take Me Out To The Ball Game but different. Darn if I can remember the video game name.
posted by hodyoaten at 12:22 AM on August 9, 2006

Chrono Trigger's main city theme "Guardia Millenial Fair" can be a lively 3/4 or a really slow 4/4; "Manoria Cathedral" (I think either the 'beyond time' place or however you get to it, I've got the soundtrack but haven't played the game in years); "People Threw Away the Will to Live" (future area where everyone was hungry), "Epilogue ~ To Good Friends" (I honestly don't remember this song). The last one is certainly not well known but any Chrono Trigger fan worth his salt will at least recognize the first two. This game is from the same golden age of square games that brought us FFIII (VI in japan) and Nobuo Uematsu worked on both soundtracks.
posted by kaytwo at 1:38 AM on August 9, 2006

Isn't the Blue Danube a waltz? If so then the docking music in orgininal Elite is.
probably not what you wanted...
posted by prentiz at 2:14 AM on August 9, 2006

kaytwo: Uematsu only did about two tracks on the Chrono Trigger OST. It's mostly Yasunori Mitsuda's work. You may not recognize the last song because there were about fifty gazillion endings to the game. :P

To the OP: In Final Fantasy IV (II here in the US), "Into the Darkness" (the cave music), "Trojan Beauty" (the theme for the castle near the black chocobos), and "Dancing Calcobrena" (the dolls in the dwarf castle) are all 3/4 time. "Melody of Lute" (the song Edward plays) and "Illusionary World" (the land of summoned monsters) all have that funny may-be-3/4-may-be-4/4 quality. Gradius III has a song like that too, "Underground" (the second part of level 3).

You're gonna get a lot more submissions from the SNES era than the NES, where it's easier for people to go through soundtracks and find this stuff. :)
posted by brett at 5:28 AM on August 9, 2006

Oh, and in Final Fantasy V, there's "Home Sweet Home."
posted by brett at 5:30 AM on August 9, 2006

Kirby's Dream Land has a waltz, but I don't remember where. I better remember it as the music for the sky level in Kirby's Pinball Land.
posted by brett at 5:42 AM on August 9, 2006

"May-be-3/4-may-be-4/4" songs are probably in 12/8, which is equivalent to 3/8 ("a lively 3/4") repeated four times ("a really slow 4/4").
posted by Khalad at 6:48 AM on August 9, 2006

The shop music in Daggerfall.

(75% of you have blank expressions on your faces. The other 25% just cursed my very name.)

Actually that might have been 6/8. I'm out of practice on counting rhythms.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 7:18 AM on August 9, 2006

The shop music in the original Final Fantasy, as well (which has been drilled into my head permanently, thanks to the persistent need to buy 99 potions and the inability to do so more than one a a time...)
posted by wanderingmind at 10:55 AM on August 9, 2006

"May-be-3/4-may-be-4/4" songs are probably in 12/8, which is equivalent to 3/8 ("a lively 3/4") repeated four times ("a really slow 4/4").

Or:

3/4 = One and two and three and
12/8 = One two three two two three three two three four two three

Actually that might have been 6/8. I'm out of practice on counting rhythms.

What's the difference between 3/4 and 6/8?
posted by ludwig_van at 12:23 PM on August 9, 2006

Interestingly, I just finished listening to every music track in Super Street Fighter II Turbo about 20 times and I while I am not musically literate enough to tell you exactly what time signatures are employed therein, I can definitively say that there are some odd ones. I think it has to do with each character being from a different locale and the composers attempting to match their stage and ending music to their home country. I posted a couple tracks here:

http://www.antinomian.com/archives/000766.shtml

But those were more just interesting for their general bizarro-ness. But let me see if I can dig up one of ones with the screwiest tempos...

Ok, here:

Example 1

Example 2
posted by idontlikewords at 2:15 PM on August 9, 2006

Also, the mention of the 3/4 "Take me out to the Ball Game"-esque music in the C64 game reminded me of a strange version of that song that I heard on Bob Dylan's radio show where the lyrics are sung a beat ahead of where they should be. Exceedingly odd. Here's the MP3:

The Skeletons - Take Me Out to the Ball Game

You'll have to fast-forward through about a minute of Bob's introduction (including acapella rendition of the song!) to get to the part in question.
posted by idontlikewords at 2:27 PM on August 9, 2006