The Super Mario Bros. theme song has got to be among the most covered melodies online. From guitars to ancient Chinese shengs, it’s hard for anyone to not want to knock out those opening notes: d-do do d-do DO do.
So with all the videos of people playing the song online, it’s hard to stand out. Hard unless you’re Teppei Okada (a.k.a. Teppei Sensei) of Fukuoka Prefecture. This guy not only does a subtly beautiful rendition of the classic platformer’s background music, but he recreates the sound effects of the game such as collecting coins and breaking blocks.
And Mario is only the tip of the video game iceberg for Teppei Sensei. His skills reach out to a variety of titles on generations of Nintendo consoles and beyond.
Here’s Teppei’s fist video released four years ago on his YouTube channel. Since then it has received over 2 million views.
His follow up was equally great playing alongside Dragon Quest III. He even takes it from the very top by playing the sounds of the character’s name getting slowly typed in on that Famicom controller. The annoying yet nostalgic sound of the character’s dialog getting printed out on the screen is also faithfully recreated while being much softer on the ears.
And then there’s The Legend of Zelda, complete with a disk loading error at the beginning. Game historians could tell you that the original version of the Legend of Zelda in Japan was first released on floppy disk which was prone to mysterious error messages.
Moving into the 16-bit realm with Super Mario World, Teppei Sensei seems to play with more verve, perhaps to better emulate the advancement in technology.
Teppei Sensei hit our website last year when he artfully mimicked the sound of police sirens on his violin. Here’s a slightly different version of him doing the sirens of the LAPD from the GTA series.
He’s still putting out new stuff from time to time on YouTube. His latest video was a short but sweet rendition of Spelunker.
If you like what you hear, be sure to check out more on Facebook, YouTube, Niconico, or his website all of which are linked below. We’ll leave you with one more video just to show that Teppei Sensei isn’t shy of the classics: Here’s a gorgeous recital from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.
Teppei Sensei
Official Website: Teppei Okada
Facebook Page: Okada Teppei
Twitter: @teppei_sensei
YouTube Channel: teppeikunviolin
Niconico: Teppei Sensei