Mario Pianist

[Aaron Lee]

Has anyone seen this video? Basically some kid took about a dozen themes from various Mario Brothers games and composed them onto piano, but it's some really impressive stuff, especially towards the end.

You can view the video here:
http://gprime.net/video/blindfoldedmariopianist2.php

[Daniel_piano]

Has anyone seen this video? Basically some kid took about a dozen themes from various Mario Brothers games and composed them onto piano, but it's some really impressive stuff, especially towards the end.

You can view the video here:
http://gprime.net/video/blindfoldedmariopianist2.php

Yes, we know these videos and we have discussed these before
I remember people where ready to flame this kid and his playing
They were wrong
He's a friend a mine and a very kind, passionate and talentes boy
He is majoring piano and composition at Cleveland institute of music
He is playing pieces like Gaspard de la Nuit and giving several recitals from all over the US with a good repertoire of known and less known piece from Mozart to Rachmaninov, critics have acclaimed his musicality and technique in the classical reportoire
His idea of playing Mario Music is nothing puerile or naive, it's in fact the tentative to recoincile the world of popular musical listeners with the world of classical music listeners destrying that barrier of snobbery tipical of the modern accademical music
And its effort has been giving several good results so far
His trascription and harmonization of Mario pieces are simply fantastic
He is also a chess player and a very intelligent boy with very high grades at school so much that he earned a scholarship

Daniel

[Aaron Lee]

Yeah, I can definately see why some people may snub him for playing video game songs, but whether you recognize the themes or not, some of these songs sound beautiful and well composed.

I guess for me it's the merging of 2 of my loves that makes me appreciate it. The themes from the games of my youth, and piano compositions.

Hopefully this doesn't flame up more bashing ont his kid. I just thought others like me would appreciate what this kid has done. (Would it be wrong of me to admit that I have about 5 albums of Final Fantasy music composed on piano, and are some of the best piano pieces I have?)

[Brian Healey]

(Would it be wrong of me to admit that I have about 5 albums of Final Fantasy music composed on piano, and are some of the best piano pieces I have?)

Yes, it would be very wrong. How dare you?

Just kidding.

Yeah, the Mario kid has talent, there's no denying that. I'm not really into it, but oh well, I'm only one guy.

[cziffra]

The themes themselves are awesome, i've always loved the theme music for that game.  The problem is, he plays them wrong.  The first theme in particular is atrociously mis-played, the rhythm is totally out.  It is simply nothing like the original. 

[Daniel_piano]

The themes themselves are awesome, i've always loved the theme music for that game.  The problem is, he plays them wrong.  The first theme in particular is atrociously mis-played, the rhythm is totally out.  It is simply nothing like the original. 

I've Super Mario Bros on my console and I know the music well
I've noticed the differences from the original too, but they're not errors or mistakes but  a personal interpretation
He added several tempo rubato, embellishment, speed variations and rhythm variation to the pieces and I think they sound good that way
That what a pianist is supposed to do, never play the piece exactly but create a new personal interpretation for that piece

Daniel

[cziffra]

I'm all for a personal interpretation, (Gould is my favourite pianist, in fact) but for a tune like mario, i see no point in fracturing the rhythm.