The 7 Weirdest Super Mario Bros.Theme Song Performances

Who needs traditional instruments?! These seven performances of the Mario Bros. Theme make beautiful music with bizarre instruments.

The main theme from Super Mario Bros. is iconic. Any gamer with an inkling of musical talent has learned to play the song on their instrument of choice. When the chosen instrument is completely bizarre, the results are the 7 Weirdest Mario Theme Performances.

7- Two Guitars

If the invention of the double guitar has taught us anything, it's that man yearns to play as many guitars as his hands will allow. Once such man is Zack Kim, a guitar virtuoso who has taken to playing music on two guitars at the same time. He has a wide range of covers and originals on his YouTube page, but his performance of the Mario theme is our favorite, with Kim performing the song with more accuracy than most single-instrument guitarists.

6- A Ruler

There are days when you could be doing work, and there are days when you could be annoying everyone in the room with the sound of the nearest available instrument: a plastic ruler. Of all of the make-shift instruments to use for playing a classic 8-bit musical theme, this guy has mastered the art of playing the ruler. Although the frequency and pitch has not been perfected, we have to give this guy some credit for the copious amount of free time that he must have spent doing this over and over again. Could this ruler-twanging Mario Brothers enthusiast simply be a gifted person with creative musical inclinations or is this the result of just plain boredom and procrasination?

5- Hand Farts

And here we thought the concept of hand farts as a percussive instrument had died with Weird Al's career. While most of us struggle to make hand farts sound like anything but helium-aided gas expulsions, a few people have managed to make music out of it. We have to "hand" it to this guy--who not only manages to cover the first stage, but also the underground and underwater stages in what seems like one take--we may not be able to smell it, but this man and his hands have dealt it--it being a masterful performance.

4- Wii Remotes

At this year's E3 press conference, famed Nintendo developer Shigeru Miyamoto performed the theme from his most famous game to a crowd of thousands of gamers, only to completely fail. Why was the performance such a dud? For one this, this guy was involved. And then there was the fact that half of the instruments involve putting the Wii Remote up to your mouth only to press buttons. If both of those elements combined into a professional-sounding performance, then perhaps the demo wouldn't have been deemed a joke, but the song sounded as bad as the performance looked. But it was weird, which is what we're looking for. Unlike every other entry however, this one took no skill to perform.

3- Theremin

Haven't heard of the theremin? Don't worry, the rest of the world's population hasn't either. The theremin was one of the first electric instruments ever devised, and it was probably discarded by the time the next electric instrument was created. This instrument, which consists of two metal antennae, produces sound according to the location of the performer's hands within the device, with the hands never actually touching any part of the theremin. If that weren't weird enough, the sound it produces, which could be compared (in a good way) to a cat trapped at the bottom of a well, makes this one of the oddest-sounding--and looking Mario Bros. Theme performances ever.

2- Tesla Coils

You don't need an artistic license to create music, but you do need to be somewhat of an engineer to come up with the science behind playing the theme from Super Mario Brothers on a pair of telsa coils. What you see here are electrical sparks controlled by digital circuitry to create an audible sound for the average range of human hearing (which is between 20 Hz to 20 kHz). The electrical current of the Solid State Musical Tesla Coil (the device, not the Metal Gear Solid enemy) is turned on and off from a high voltage burst of 41 KHz to a lower Hertz, making the sounds that the lightning bolt makes audible for the human ear. Thus, by controlling the bursts of light, you can control the that sound it makes. That concept may make our brain hurt, but the music pleases our ears.

1- RC Car and Glass Bottles

This must have taken hours, if not days, to perfect. It's as if someone took the idea of using Mario Paint to compose music except in Real Life(tm)! Between gathering hundreds of bottles, spacing each apart and filling them to the appropriate pitch of every note from the theme of Super Mario Brothers, and driving an RC car at the exact right speed in a perfect straight line, you can be sure that this amazing performance took a bit of practice. It was worth it, though, as it's by far the most interesting thing we've ever seen in a parking garage. Well, the most interesting "legal" thing at least.

Comments [21]

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NerdBone

the last three took way more time and dedication! i wonder how those people manage their time for that. . .i wish i had that much time

nayuan01

How is Zack Kim able to play both guitars just using one hand for each!! This kid is amazing.

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