Maestro Mario
How Nintendo Transformed Videogame Music into an Art
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Narrated by:
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Kaleo Griffith
About this listen
"Pa-dum-pum-pa-dum-pum - PUM!" Super Mario Bros. for the NES contains some of the most recognizable tunes in popular culture, and yet it’s safe to say that only a handful of people have thought beyond the music’s entertaining surface. After all, what could possibly be art-worthy about an early Mario score? Or any early game sound for that matter?
In search of answers to these questions, Andrew Schartmann takes us on a journey from the primitive "pongs" of arcade machines to the complex musical fabrics woven by composers of the NES era. Where does that distinctly Nintendo-flavored sound come from? What sets NES music apart from its predecessors? And how has that iconic ‘80s videogame sound "invaded" popular culture?
©2013 Andrew Schartmann (P)2014 Audible Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Naked at the Albert Hall
- The Inside Story of Singing
- By: Tracey Thorn
- Narrated by: Tracey Thorn
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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In her bestselling autobiography, Bedsit Disco Queen, Tracey Thorn recalled the highs and lows of a 30-year career in pop music. But with the touring, recording and extraordinary anecdotes, there wasn't time for an in-depth look at what she actually did for all those years: sing. She sang with warmth and emotional honesty, sometimes while battling acute stage fright.
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Fascinating
- By Jane Sheedy on 01-11-17
By: Tracey Thorn
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The Art Instinct
- Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution
- By: Denis Dutton
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The Art Instinct combines two of the most fascinating and contentious disciplines, art and evolutionary science, in a provocative new work that will revolutionize the way art itself is perceived. Aesthetic taste, argues Denis Dutton, is an evolutionary trait, and is shaped by natural selection. It's not, as almost all contemporary art criticism and academic theory would have it, "socially constructed".
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A breath of fresh air!
- By Michael on 02-19-14
By: Denis Dutton
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The Secret Life of the American Musical
- How Broadway Shows Are Built
- By: Jack Viertel
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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For almost a century, Americans have been losing their hearts and losing their minds in an insatiable love affair with the American musical. It often begins in actors and reaches its passionate zenith when it comes time for love, marriage, and children, who will start the cycle all over again. Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical?
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Great review lacked music
- By joseph f mcgovern on 10-14-18
By: Jack Viertel
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The Immortal Game
- A History of Chess
- By: David Shenk
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Why has one game, alone among the thousands of games invented and played throughout human history, not only survived but thrived within every culture it has touched? What is it about its 32 figurative pieces, moving about its 64 black and white squares according to very simple rules, that has captivated people for nearly 1,500 years? Why has it driven some of its greatest players into paranoia and madness, and yet is hailed as a remarkably powerful intellectual tool?
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Buy in print
- By Ivy Reisner on 08-30-11
By: David Shenk
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Dig If You Will the Picture
- Funk, Sex, God and Genius in the Music of Prince
- By: Ben Greenman
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Ben Greenman, New York Times best-selling author, contributing writer to The New Yorker, and owner of thousands of recordings of Prince and Prince-related songs, knows intimately that there has never been a rock star as vibrant, mercurial, willfully contrary, experimental, or prolific as Prince. Uniting a diverse audience while remaining singularly himself, Prince was a tireless artist, a musical virtuoso and chameleon, and a pop-culture prophet.
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Reads like a indepth career review & analysis
- By herb on 05-18-17
By: Ben Greenman
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Little Bets
- How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries
- By: Peter Sims
- Narrated by: John Allen Nelson
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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What do Apple CEO Steve Jobs, comedian Chris Rock, prize-winning architect Frank Gehry, the story developers at Pixar films, and the Army Chief of Strategic Plans all have in common? Best-selling author Peter Sims found that all of them have achieved breakthrough results by methodically taking small, experimental steps in order to discover and develop new ideas.
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Useful approach, not for everyone
- By Tad Davis on 08-15-11
By: Peter Sims
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A Most Elegant Equation
- Euler’s Formula and the Beauty of Mathematics
- By: David Stipp
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Bertrand Russell wrote that mathematics can exalt "as surely as poetry". This is especially true of one equation: ei(pi) + 1 = 0, the brainchild of Leonhard Euler, the Mozart of mathematics. More than two centuries after Euler's death, it is still regarded as a conceptual diamond of unsurpassed beauty. Called Euler's identity, or God's equation, it includes just five numbers but represents an astonishing revelation of hidden connections.
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Good treatment of the subject
- By Kindle Customer on 04-09-18
By: David Stipp
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Louder Than Words
- Harness the Power of Your Authentic Voice
- By: Todd Henry
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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There has never been a better time to build an audience around your idea or product. But with so many people and companies clamoring for attention, it's also more challenging than ever to do work that deeply resonates with the marketplace and creates true and lasting impact.
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MISLEADING TITLE AND AUDIO SAMPLE
- By Jer on 05-19-16
By: Todd Henry
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Designers & Dragons: The '70s
- A History of the Roleplaying Game Industry
- By: Shannon Appelcline
- Narrated by: Colby Elliott
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Designers & Dragons: The ’70s is a comprehensive picture of the beginnings of the RPG industry. This second edition expands the original single book into a series of four, and we’ve added over 50,000 new words to this volume alone. Learn about the colorful history of TSR and the wave of D&D inspired games (and gaming companies) to follow, and dip your toes into war gaming trivia. Regardless of your gaming background, Shannon Appelcline’s meticulously researched history won’t disappoint.
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the forgotten realm of where RPGs arize
- By RAW-ATX on 01-02-22
What listeners say about Maestro Mario
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Livio David Reinoso
- 01-04-20
Great book & narration, missed opportunity on SFX
An awesome book with tons of info about the classic NES music and how it has defined the videogame music genre. However, it was a missed opportunity not adding the sound effects or fragments of songs as they were referred on the book; maybe it was due to copyright, but it seems like falling short on that way.
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4 people found this helpful
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- LightRoastYote
- 02-15-15
Interesting
I did learn a lot from Nintendo, and how they changed so much of the video game history, without Nintendo, we wouldn't have the music of now.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Shadow007
- 09-02-22
A history of video game music but WITHOUT music!
This short book is mostly about video music from the beginning of the 70s to around 2014. The things it talks about are good discussions such console sound limitation and player connection. But the massive massive downfall of this book is that despite being a audiobook about sound and music there is no actual sounds or music from the games mentioned or discussed. Like what?! If you haven’t played a game mentioned or don’t remember the music you pretty much have to make it up in your head or take the author’s word for it. This is the book’s biggest and most major letdown considering the modern technology required to bring you an audiobook compared to a physical book
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- Anonymous User
- 10-28-21
The music of a game
Great for a musician, and the narrator is calming and make it easy to understand. I am lucky to get to listen.
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- Stephen
- 02-25-15
This book is a missed opportunity
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
Granted, this is a short book at a low price point, but an audio format presented a prime opportunity to use clips of the tunes from the games being referenced to enhance the experience. The foreword even makes references to the transcription of certain scores, but those scores are not available in an audio format, despite the fact that the text (was altered to?) say "audio book" and not just "book".
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5 people found this helpful
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- Ryan
- 10-04-17
Great writing
Mr. Schartmann has some great insights into the music behind early video games and Nintendo. For more information, I would recommend his second book Koji Kondo’s Super Mario Bros. This book goes into much more detail about the music theory behind the NES games.
The performance by Kaleo Griffith does not do the book justice. Very disappointed in that.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Brandon
- 06-01-21
Very good but could be GREAT.
As a lifelong video game fan who has grown up with the entire history of video games, as well as being a musician, I found Maestro Mario to be a very entertaining and interesting listen. If this had been produced with audio examples to accompany the work, this could be an amazing listen. Without the examples and the narrators somewhat dry delivery, this felt somewhat clinical. I would still recommend for anyone into video game music, history, or culture.
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- Daniel Ugenti
- 04-13-21
way too brief and missed opportunities.
this is more of a seemingly connected essays than a real deep dive. the audiobook version feels very lacking without audio samples. while understandably that could have been a listening nightmare, it still feels incomplete- akin to listening to someone talk about a movie rather than experiencing it.
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- WASD
- 08-05-24
Like sitting through a work meeting
Could not wait for this to end. The completionist in me wouldn't just let me walk away.
Boring. Disjointed. The narrator could have just been reading random paragraphs from Wikipedia. Other than a small mention about the importance of Space Invadors I was just bored out of my mind.
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- Nur Arnaut
- 03-11-20
Very Musical and Relaxing, All in One
Being a huge fan into everything, Mario related, since I was a boy. I personally found all of this music to be very calming and relaxing.
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1 person found this helpful