Details of Monkey Island

[Huz]

You guys can pretend to be cultured all you like - we all know what you're really thinking.

 

 

[Thrik]

Ah, I see. The blasted thing is a generic folk/rhyme tune, like the one used for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, etc. 🥲

[Lagomorph01]

I actually know it as this song:

(Please don’t comment on the imagery in this clip, the discussion has been fueled enough over here.)

It’s been a traditional dutch “Sinterklaas” song for as long as I know. Sinterklaas is the dutch Santa Claus, (in fact Santa is derived from this tradition.)

[ATMcashpoint]

3 hours ago, Thrik said:

Ah, I see. The blasted thing is a generic folk/rhyme tune, like the one used for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, etc. 🥲

 

Apparently the same tune is used for Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and Mary Had a Little Lamb Baa, Baa, Black Sheep. I never realized that. Mind blown.

Edited June 24, 2022 by ATMcashpoint

[ThunderPeel2001]

3 hours ago, Huz said:

You guys can pretend to be cultured all you like - we all know what you're really thinking.

 

 

 

Arranged by Mozart. Perfected by The Simpsons. 

[Thrik]

7 hours ago, ATMcashpoint said:

 

Apparently the same tune is used for Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and Mary Had a Little Lamb Baa, Baa, Black Sheep. I never realized that. Mind blown.

Haha. Also, the ‘ABC’ song. It freaked me out when I first discovered this.

 

Another one of these generics I know is Johnny Is Coming Home:

 

 

This made its way into the ‘Ants Go Marching’ and ‘Noah’s Ark’ nursery rhymes. 😅

[Thrik]

Going back to O du lieber Augustin, it looks like there are loads of variations of this tune, according to the song’s Wikipedia page (see under ‘Use in other musical works’):

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_du_lieber_Augustin

[KestrelPi]

Yeah it's definitely that tune. That must have been what I was thinking of. I've no memory if where I'd heard this tune before but I must have done. It starts a bit different but it's clearly the same, it's just that the 3/4 melody has been changed to 4/4 and the first note gets repeated a couple of times to fill up the space. It even has the same B section. It's basically identical if you change the wharf music so that the first 3 notes are one long continuous note and imagine it in 3/4

[madmardi]

16 hours ago, Remi said:

 

Two against one, you lose. ;

 

Yea, I have to agree - they don't sound similar at all! 😆

[KestrelPi]

I dunno what to tell you, they're objectively the same melody but with MI2's version modified a bit to make it fit more easily into a 4/4 time signature. And I already knew it was based on an existing tune, I just couldn't remember where I'd heard it before. And we know all 3 composers were both pretty fond of incorporating trad tunes into their pieces, and it was a well known enough tune in the US to make it into The Simpsons, so it's not even a stretch as far as I'm concerned. This sounds much more deliberate to me than the idea that the LeChuck theme was based on that tune from Dr. Doolittle, which starts the same and then goes off somewhere else. Or the Moleman being a bit like that Poirot music because they both use a 5 note chromatic descending melody.

 

This is the same melody right up to and including the B section (it's an AABA structure melody - there's a tune, then it's repeated, then it does something else, then the A melody comes back again and both the A melody and the B melody at the same here)

Edited June 25, 2022 by KestrelPi

[Thrik]

I’m glad you did some analysis on this. I was almost going to get some sheet music out or record each using the same instrument to show the damn things are the same. 😅

 

I think with things like this it’s easy to get thrown off by the stylistic differences, but for sure that is the same melody. 

[madmardi]

IMHO there's more similarities between "Oh Why" and "Shape Of You"...

 

and that doesn't necessarily mean that one ripped off the other.

 

Edited June 26, 2022 by madmardi

[madmardi]

11 hours ago, Thrik said:

I’m glad you did some analysis on this. I was almost going to get some sheet music out or record each using the same instrument to show the damn things are the same. 😅

 

Actually, I'd enjoy that! 😅

[Jake]

11 hours ago, Thrik said:

I’m glad you did some analysis on this. I was almost going to get some sheet music out or record each using the same instrument to show the damn things are the same. 😅

 

I think with things like this it’s easy to get thrown off by the stylistic differences, but for sure that is the same melody. 

Agreed 100%. Like @KestrelPi said, there’s a little hiccup each measure to move it from 3/4 to 4/4 time, but if you add that to the original song it basically  lines up perfectly. 

[Serge]

On 6/26/2022 at 6:54 AM, Jake said:

Agreed 100%. Like @KestrelPi said, there’s a little hiccup each measure to move it from 3/4 to 4/4 time, but if you add that to the original song it basically  lines up perfectly. 

 

Just to demonstrate that (only usable on desktop, and Firefox likely won't like it, since Firefox doesn't like WebMIDI)

 

Here are the two versions after each other - very small notes, even on a large screen (because I never finished adding ways for it to "wrap lines"). You can remove the first or second line in the text field to see either of them a bit larger. 🙂

 

https://music.jither.net/?share=Gs2WvmuS1j0nnnTKfVz3

 

And here they are on top of each other - the original transposed up an octave, but other than that, just added a few pauses to line it up with the MI2 version.

 

https://music.jither.net/?share=8ZQZHIxDilTxhIBBrpQ4

(Note: The first measure is an anacrusis/"pickup measure" of 3 beats rather than a full 4 beat measure, just because I found a bug in my player that wouldn't play back if multiple staffs start with a pause).

 

I also know this one from childhood - it's a recurring motif in a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. And I never considered that it would be anything but a reference to the German song - not least because the lyrics could describe the fate of someone with a gambling problem. 😂

Edited June 27, 2022 by Serge

[KestrelPi]

1 hour ago, Serge said:

 

Just to demonstrate that (only usable on desktop, and Firefox likely won't like it, since Firefox doesn't like WebMIDI)

 

Here are the two versions after each other - very small notes, even on a large screen (because I never finished adding ways for it to "wrap lines"). You can remove the first or second line in the text field to see either of them a bit larger. 🙂

 

https://music.jither.net/?share=Gs2WvmuS1j0nnnTKfVz3

 

And here they are on top of each other - the original transposed up an octave, but other than that, just added a few pauses to line it up with the MI2 version.

 

https://music.jither.net/?share=8ZQZHIxDilTxhIBBrpQ4

 

I also know this one from childhood - it's a recurring motif in a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. And I never considered that it would be anything but a reference to the German song - not least because the lyrics could describe the fate of someone with a gambling problem. 😂

Thanks, yes, that second link demonstrates it perfectly. The MI version is different only insofar as it adds some repeated notes to fill the gaps created by the move from 3/4 to 4/4

 

n.b. I suppose it also quirks up the harmony a bit - something the trio are also known for doing with trad melodies. (See Grim Fandango's version of Home Sweet Home, or MI2's version of Blow the Man Down, and Dem Bones, they're never quite harmonised straightforwardly), and adds a kind of improvistic kind of solo later on in the piece.

Edited June 27, 2022 by KestrelPi

[Serge]

34 minutes ago, KestrelPi said:

Thanks, yes, that second link demonstrates it perfectly. The MI version is different only insofar as it adds some repeated notes to fill the gaps created by the move from 3/4 to 4/4

 

n.b. I suppose it also quirks up the harmony a bit - something the trio are also known for doing with trad melodies. (See Grim Fandango's version of Home Sweet Home, or MI2's version of Blow the Man Down, and Dem Bones, they're never quite harmonised straightforwardly), and adds a kind of improvistic kind of solo later on in the piece.

 

Yeah, it does - but it's really hard to tell how, since the original publication in the 1800s had no indication of harmony - and various versions have used the simple "implicit" harmony, or something slightly more "spicy". So, other than the standards of the 1600s (when it was supposedly written, although we don't know if the melody is newer), the harmony in MI2 might be the correct "original" one, for all we know. 😂

[KestrelPi]

3 minutes ago, Serge said:

 

Yeah, it does - but it's really hard to tell how, since the original publication in the 1800s had no indication of harmony - and various versions have used the simple "implicit" harmony, or something slightly more "spicy". So, other than the standards of the 1600s (when it was supposedly written, although we don't know if the melody is newer), the harmony in MI2 might be the correct "original" one, for all we know. 😂

That's true, I suppose it would have been more accurate to say that it deviates somewhat from the most basic interpretation of the implied harmony of the melody. Don't have it in front of me to check but in my head it sounds like perhaps it uses a III chord sometimes where a I chord would be more obvious, say.

[BillyCheers]

To get a bit more on topic again: Regarding the music, while watching Jake and Marius' MI1/MI2 stream over the weekend, I was struck by how many variations there are of the different themes.

 

On one hand we have the different versions of the LeChuck theme: simple and fun in MI1, very dark and creepy in MI2, rather campy in CMI, etc. Also, the theme has been placed in other places in nice ways - e.g. in the Microgroggery in EMI or LeChuck’s fortress in MI2:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOSY-a2wZzM&t=9635s

 

 

And then, especially the Monkey Island main theme appears much more often than I remembered. A good example is the music from Dinky Island:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOSY-a2wZzM&t=10948s

 

 

This happens so elegantly (sometimes just a few notes) that you don't always notice it at first, but then you think "Wait a minute!...". I love this so much, because it kind of gives us “new” music with familiar melodies.

And I think that Monkey Island does that even better than movies like Star Wars or Indiana Jones, which do that very well already.

[Thrik]

I’ve always enjoyed the version of the House of Mojo music that plays after you do in Largo, which works the LeChuck theme into it (2:10 onwards):

 

 

[KestrelPi]

I always enjoyed the appearance of the LeChuck theme here. Not only is it quoted directly in parts like at 1:00 in the muted trombone but the clarinet seems to answer it at 1:08

 

[KestrelPi]

I was actually thinking about this a little when I was making my cover of the Monkey Island theme because you have this bit at the end of Monkey Island 2 with the lovely interplay between the Monkey Island and LeChuck Themes:

Then at 1:31 you get this slightly modified, elaborated version of the Monkey Island theme. Where the part in the original theme goes; F# G G A, but here we get F# G G B A E...

 

 

So when I was imagining how a Return to Monkey Island theme might start, with that mysterious chord, I though, 'well, if we want to echo back to the moment that everything changes, it's right there, so at 5 seconds in you hear that little melodic sequence.

 

[KestrelPi]

Did you ever notice that Monkey 2 also seems to share a motif with Fate of Atlantis (no, not the obvious one). Okay, not identical I think but VERY similar and it's such an unusual melody that I can't help but think this was deliberate.

 

Compare:

 

 

 

Edited June 28, 2022 by KestrelPi

[Marius]

(ReMI Trailer spoiler inside)
 

Spoiler

 

 

[Thrik]

I noticed while checking out music in another thread that it only seems to be the CD version of Monkey Island 1 that has an extended version of the LeChuck theme, where they mess around with the keys to riff off of the same underlying jig.

 

Here’s the original EGA music (with MT-32), where it just repeats the same tune.

 

 

But now listen to the CD version. The first time it plays the tune, it’s the same. But the second and third times are each different variations that have never been used again since to my knowledge.