Yoshi's Story - Ending

The classic original soundtrack from Yoshi's Story made by Nintendo . Composed by Kazumi Totaka, the score is presented in piano, music visualization form alongside a discussion of the music theory and analysis of video game music and ost.

Music Analysis in comments.

This is a music theory analysis and piano cover visualization project recreated with the original instrument tracks meant for the game. Extracted with a specialized audio software, we can now dig inside the scores and ost for the first time, offering us a glimpse for how each instrument contributes to the whole.

Video game essays.

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[visualizermusictracks]

Musical Analysis:

Unlike Mario who is cool, as composer Koji Kondo proclaims, Yoshi is actually undisputably cute, cuteness that allowed him alongside his fellow herd to star on their own spin off series way before that other green fella from Mario’s life. Yet It was not only cuteness that which gained Yoshi his specific child-like, infantile connotations but the fact that he had to babysit a newborn Mario across his very first adventure against Bowser—who probably targeted the baby versions of the Mario brothers after some kind of prophecy from Koopa sorcerer Kamek. The developers just wanted a change of pace from the Mario parkour action so they decided he should be riding Yoshi at all times. And the story solution they came up with for this functionality was to make Mario a helpless baby. It is not like they wanted to explore the origin story of their mascot character or anything— which in any case is all over the place since before Yoshi’s Island Mario supposedly came from Brooklyn…but turns out that it was not New York but New Donk City and yep… this was never intended not make any sense, just check out the synopsis of Yoshi’s Story which would be the first in the Super Mario series timeline: here, an also Baby Bowser becomes envious of the happiness of the Yoshis and casts a spell to transform the island into a pop-up storybook. He steals the mythical Super Happy Tree, further weakening the yoshis and making them fall to gloom; the tree is the source of happiness in the cosmos or whatever.

So baby Mario and the cute appearance of horse-like dinosaur Yoshi end up influencing the presentation of this offspring series that will be characterized by its colorful child-like settings and idiosyncratic level design based around storybook artstyles and other handcrafted materials like cardboard, stitches and cotton. Having said that, the music does share similar features with the parent Mario series, like the reliance in Latin-jazz rhythms and styles but with more domestic or easy to find instruments crafting an hybrid between jazz and the children music that tends to sound cutesy. This is specially the case for Yoshi’s Story, a game that proved that Nintendo had not forgotten about 2D platforming, bringing some innovative ideas into the genre like no stage exits to reach or different level paths for each campaign, albeit a short one since the games are sketched towards a younger audience just like the presentation.

Yoshi’s Story was all about Kawaii as is known for the Japanese, just a pure flow of good, warm feelings that contrast with some of the bizarre levels and enemies. The yoshis never really die, they are just captured. And the game follows the template of the game featuring a baby Mario which has a child-like quality through and through—even though the music from the previous game had a bigger influence from jazzy genres like ragtime. The music for this new entry was written by famed in-house composer Kazumi Totaka, which is infamous for always sneaking the same piece of music into all of the games that he works on; the Tokata's Song is a short piece that is very difficult to find inside the games, with players always chasing the way to unlock it as an easter Yoshi egg. For example, in Yoshi's Story, Totaka has hidden his 19-note signature playful melody on the Trial Mode course select screen, heard after the background music has looped eight times. Kazumi Tokata also provided the endearing voices of the Yoshis, which feature 60 samples of all kinds of charming expressions thanks to pitching up his own voice; this is likely what it sounded like originally:


The game anthropormized Yoshi even more, giving it voice and a less horse like body. The recorded samples from Totaka have since been constituting the official voice for Yoshi, making a second appearance in the 1999 game Super Smash Bros., to further be recycled in succeeding games that Yoshi appeared in. This trend was eventually interrupted in 2009 with the release of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which used the original Yoshi cry from Super Mario World in homage to that game

The soundtrack of Yoshi’s Story features an interactive score, where the music will change dynamically. For example, if Yoshi is harmed to the point where the Smile Meter has no remaining petals, the music will sweep down to a lower pitch and tempo, reflecting his dreary mood. But if Yoshi eats a Heart Fruit and becomes Super Happy, the music will instantly switch to a rock version of the currently playing theme. It also follows on the footsteps established in Super Mario World, where a main theme is arranged for the different environments, at least for the first half of the adventure. There are also some interesting experiments with vocal samples and some rap music.

The ending theme for this storybook exemplifies the mixture of complex jazz reharmonization with timbres and melodies from children media (except for the jazzy vibraphone, a mallet instrument that has resonators that give it its namesake vibrato effect—technically a tremolo but nobody minds). The most harmonically complex song in the score ends up being an amalgam of a folky children tune with jazz, as if the Yoshis at the end of their adventure decided to hang around a campfire singing and playing some basic instruments while K. K Slider from Animal Crossing, character which is based around Totaka himself, plays his acoustic guitar flexing his jazz reharmonization skills, which is when you take a standard tune and harmony and substitute it for weird chords. The melodic phrases themselves are in long format (not in the typical kid-friendy question-answer format) but adhering to the simple E major key. The bittersweet sound found here is what granted Kazumi Totaka license to become K.K Sider and lead composer for the Animal Crossing series, were the folk acoustic guitar shines. His abilities with lounge like, easy listening jazz is also what got Totaka the gig to score the console music for the Wii, its channels and games.

The ending theme begins with a pre intro on the acoustic guitar and vibraphone playing unison. There is a nylon guitar used to reinforce the bass notes of the fingerpicking folk pattern. The harmony for this part could be considered something like:

Eadd11 - Dadd11

Amaj7 - E - Dmaj7(#11) - Aadd9

Using tempo manipulation to make the track feel more organic, as if the acoustic guitar was just picked and he is checking that it is in tune. the Yoshis are also experimenting with their percussion instruments at this point.

The fingerpicking pattern begins playing in full force alongside the long form melody played by the recorder, which is an instrument known for being all over music initiation schools; the sound is very simple and clear, appropriate for a baby Yoshi.

The harmony for this A part would be:

Intro:
E
E major being the most natural key for the guitar since it is what sounds when playing the open strings

A Section:

E - Amaj7 - G#m7 - Badd9 - C#m7

F#m7 - B7 - G#m7 - Badd9 - C#m7

F#m7 - B7 - G#b7 - C#m7 - Bbm7/b5 - Eb7(b9) - G#m7 - Badd9 - Bmadd9

F#m7 - Aadd9 -

Interlude:

E - F#m7/11 - G#m7 - F#m7/11

E - F#m7/11 - G#m7 - F#m7/11

Yep, this Totaka fella definitively went to music college. It would be more proper in guitar lingo to refer to these chords as just slash chords where you just put the bass note after the slash and call it a day.

The A section repeats but after the E chord of the interlude it changes to a Dadd9 in order to transition to a taste of the singalong B section played with the recorder, then a variation of the A Section melody played by the harmonica this time not in long form but in question-answer format. And finally the Yoshi choir that also opens the game join their voices around the Super Happy Tree. The endearing touch is that the voices of the Yoshis are not all entirely in tune or with perfect timing, creating a realistically sloppy performance for the baby dinosaurs (they are probably subliminally saying ‘Nintendo’ and brainwashing kids into buying more games).

The full harmony for the final part:

A - Am - Eadd9 - Badd9 - C#7(b9) - F#m7 - Aadd9 - Adim9 -

E - Dadd9



Ending:
E - F#m7/11 - G#m7 - F#m7/11

E - F#m7/11 - G#m7 - F#m7/11



E - Amaj7 - G#m7 - C#7(b9) - F#m7 - Aadd9 - Esus4 - E
There is also a countermelody played by a fiddle with a lot of MIDI wizardry to make it sound legato

This coda is what the Nanana part is to the song Hey Jude. The theme slows down for the final notes where the literal closing is the reprise of the Title Theme melody that also opened this storybook. And the yoshis lived happily ever after.

The End

Anyway, here is Totaka playing his trusted acoustic guitar alongside his doppelgänger K.K Slider right after the yoshis had their bedtime:





♫ Media files, requests and support for future interactive tools (Patreon):


Or join as a member.