Last Thursday, the gang gathered together in Miss Q’s basement to do our usual weekly jam session night.  Miss Q’s basement is fully-furnished with a cool retro-see-through refrigerator (stocked with IZZE sparkling juice and Fuji spring water), an X-large comfy orange-color sofa big enough for an elephant to take a nap, and all-you-can-eat Miles Davis LP collection to go with a very nice pair of speakers from Cambridge SoundWorks.  In short, Miss Q’s basement is our own slice of heaven on Earth. A paradise for musicians with broken-hearts. A safe haven for wrong-notes. Or a dreamland for just being a plain, boring C major triad (if preferred).

But the night in our little paradise, prescribed with the fun “Super Mario Bros.” theme, was somewhat stormy (cue John Williams’ film music for Jaw, please).  Our lovely bassist was stolen from us for the night by her sweet-gooey boyfriend to ease his itches for graceful ballroom dancing.  Foxtrot, cha-cha-cha, and whatnot, leaving her Yamaha Silent Electric Upright Bass standing there, all alone, without a proper master to wield that mighty instrument.

“So…” Miss Q said, “What now?” banging some random Philip Glass on her baby grand piano. The gang then started staring at me with extreme intensity and illegally used their Jedi-power to force me to pick up my EWI.

“Our new bass player!” They said and I obeyed --- helpless --- beginning to feed them some horrible Bebop bass line with my EWI while Miss Q doing some fun Mario quotations.

I must admit that I usually don’t enjoy our “themed” jam session nights (after that fateful night themed with Anton Webern’s string quartets few years back…). But our Mario-themed jam session was a blast. Not to brag about our quirky playfulness, but we all agreed that we improvisationally saved that lovely Princess Peach at the end of the session.

Super Mario Bros., a 1985 classic platform video game by Nintendo, is filled with lots of musical goodies by composer Koji Kondo.  I went back to my place that night and, before turning into to a sleepy pumpkin, downloaded a happy copy of Super Mario Bros. from WiiWare, hoping to snip few more Mario-motives to boost my improvisations so to impress Miss Q in our next jam session.  After few hours of hopping around with a cool mustache and conversing with various magical mushrooms, I got stuck in the Underground level with a gluey segment of Koji Kondo’s theme musically hugging me like there’s-no-tomorrow (Example 1).

Example 1. A segment of Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. "Underground" theme.

Before summoning some fun patterns (Pattern A & B) from Koji Kondo's segment, I decided to first work on the direct quotation of the segment during my break (Example 2), gradually settling myself into Koji Kondo's fantastic world of video game music.  I tried my very best to be subdued, burying the quoted segment into my improvised line to reflect on that hush-hush & mysterious nature of the theme.

Example 2. The direct quotation of the Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. "Underground" segment in jazz improvisational line.

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Then, I turned my attention to that dissected Pattern A identified in Super Mario Bros. "Underground" theme.  To give myself a full-workout, I expanded the pattern into a full-fledged sequence derived from the chromatic descending tritone sequence with a minor modification (Example 3).  The notes on the second pair of the descending tritone are reserved to construct the four-note motive coinciding with the pattern found in Koji Kondo's "Underground" theme.  Obviously, we can certainly work on this pattern without the help from our beloved Super Mario Bros.  But, personally speaking, some extra-musical references are always welcomed, as they've got the magic to transform our practice routines into enjoyable and memorable music journeys.

Example 3.  The linear construction of Pattern A identified in Super Mario Bros. "Underground" theme.

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After getting cozy with this sequence, I began to incorporate it into the usual ii-V-I jazz line (Example 4).  As shown in the example, I mimicked the lead-in from Koji Kondo's segment before sliding into the sequential pattern.  The pattern is employed three times, with the last instance decorated with an inverted mordent.

Example 4. Incorporating Pattern A derived from Super Mario Bros. "Underground" theme into jazz line.

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I continued to play with this sequence by scooting over the starting point to create variations (Example 5).  This is probably one of my favorite processes when studying sequences.  While slowly examining the intervallic relationships and the rearrangements of this four-note pattern, I tried to hear some possible supporting harmonic syntaxes for each variation in my head.

Example 5. Variations of the sequence derived from the Pattern A found in Super Mario Bros. "Underground" theme.

This process helped me to facilitate some degree of improvisational flexibility when incorporating this sequential pattern.  After few more failed attempts at Super Mario Bros. "Underground" level & a big bowl of late-night blueberry yogurt later,  I went back to play with this sequence by adopting its variation forms with some rhythmic modifications (Example 6).

Example 6.  The variation form of the Pattern A sequence from Super Mario Bros. "Underground" theme in ii-V-I jazz line.

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The Pattern B identified in Super Mario Bros. "Underground" theme can be formatted  into a well-constructed sequence of Ditone Progression (equal division of one-octave into three parts), featuring tritone leaps, descending chromatic notes, and principle tones that are four-semitones apart (Example 7).  After messing around with this new sequence, I sat myself down to construct the sequence's descending form to expand its playability.  The new pattern now initiates with a descending tritone leap, followed by ascending chromatic notes to reach the next principle tone.  With my already sleepy fingers --- giant yawns --- I worked on the descending form of this sequence into ii-V-i jazz lines (Example 8).

Example 7.  The linear construction of the sequence constructed with the Pattern B from Super Mario Bros. "Underground" theme.

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Example 8.  Incorporating the descending form of the sequence constructed with the Pattern B from Super Mario Bros. "Underground" Theme.

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So, finally, it's our "themed" jam session night again.

Arming with quotations and patterns perfected during my secret study session of Super Mario Bros. "Underground" theme, I walked into Miss Q's basement, eager to show-off my new-found mastery of eccentric Mario lines.  I, with confidence, called for a B-flat blues and began to quote musical goodies from Super Mario Bros. "Underground" theme.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Miss Q interrupted my brave display of quirkiness with bangs of the Prometheus chord. "What are you doing?! Pokémon quotes only, please!"

Gee....a Pokémon night? I didn't get the memo...oh, well.