The "Name That Tune" thread

On the creation of AY or Beeper music, including the packages used to do so.
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TMD2003
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The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by TMD2003 »

Possibly to be taken in conjunction with Rorthron's quest to discover classical music in Spectrum games, which ballooned into the addition of known music cues into ZXDB...

There are a few games which I think I recognise the music to, but can't place it, and I'll start with these three (with two tunes between them):

Oddi The Viking (2010)
[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3axo7wf3fU&t=46s[/media]
(There's 30 seconds of the opening tune from 0:14 to 0:44. If that isn't enough, grab the game and let it play longer.)

I don't know why, but something is telling me this is some kind of 1970s classic rock that I should recognise, but don't.


Worm (1998) and Flappy Bird ZX (2014)
[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASh-Md_DsUo[/media]

Look in the comments under the Flappy Bird RZX Archive video, and I'm not the only one wondering about this. What I do know is that the AY tune was used before on Worm by Master Home Computers Group (.TRD only, obviously). Given that game's Russian origins, was the tune taken from a Soviet-era children's TV programme or something similar? (I'd put a ruble or two on it being Nu, Pogodi!)
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by Ralf »

Flappy Bird Zx is my job :)

But music is not mine. I took an existing tune for it without checking its origin much.
Here's the original:
https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/s/simon/ka ... id:184527/

The title is "Kalambur" and after some search it seems it comes from a Russian film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3202EhSRkY
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by TMD2003 »

And I lose two rubles! Although I claim one ruble back for knowing it'd be Russian.

A bit of extra searching shows that Kalambur is the name of the TV programme, it ran from 1996-2001, and Derevnya Durakov was one of its sketches - the bit of music I was looking for being its theme tune, or one of its theme tunes, or at least associated with it. This clip has it featured prominently, although I found a fair few others that didn't.

It's been converted for the Game Boy as well.

Cheers for your investigation, Ralf! Well mown, you've earned yourself a sopocka sandwich with extra Winiary majonez.
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by cmal »

Aliquid Simplex by David Aspinall (Your Computer Type-in, 1984) has 4 or 5 tunes just in the one game! They sound really good for Speccy music. Does anyone know any of the tunes? I recognize them but I would be interested to know what they are.
- There are two opening screen tunes.
- There's a different tune when you complete a level
- There's yet another tune when the game is over
- Did I miss any?

Not bad for a type-in!

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/1 ... id_Simplex

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYMpBOY9M0Y
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by TMD2003 »

cmal wrote: Thu Oct 08, 2020 4:21 am - There are two opening screen tunes.
Couldn't work those out.
cmal wrote: Thu Oct 08, 2020 4:21 am - There's a different tune when you complete a level
3:50-3:57 - L. van Beethoven, Ode to Joy - a.k.a. the "national anthem" (cough!) of the EU. Evidence: https://youtu.be/-kcOpyM9cBg?t=170.
cmal wrote: Thu Oct 08, 2020 4:21 am - There's yet another tune when the game is over
...which is a slightly extended version of the "lose a life" tune. Still, I don't know this one.

Any classically-trained musicians know those I don't?
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by Rorthron »

The Oddi the Viking tune is familiar. I can't place it, though.
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by TMD2003 »

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDU-en1RMmg[/media]

When Daren uploaded the RZX I'd made of Corona Capers, he told me it had a copyright claim on it so he couldn't monetise it - not that the RZX Archive is monetised, anyway - but still it told me that YouTube's Automated Thought Police is now accurate enough to recognise a series of PLAY statements as a cut-down version of Iron Maiden's not-exactly-a-big-hit, "Virus".

So I thought I'd put the Thought Police to good use, and four minutes of the Oddi The Viking opening theme might trigger something in the algorithms. So far there's nothing, but there may be one day...
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by bluespikey »

For a type-in thats pretty good. I've have paid £1.99 for that as an Atlantis game back in the day.

The death tune almost breaks into the second movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo5Vqeb ... TheInvoker
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by TMD2003 »

It seems that I forgot to include Tetris 2 - the Fuxoft version, rather than any other Tetris sequels out there - in my musical round-up. However, there are a couple of cues that I can't identify so easily because I am WESTERN SPY who can't squat properly, doesn't wear Adidas tracksuits and doesn't eat onions as if they were apples. Although my mum drove a Lada for a few years, if that counts for anything.

Can anyone with SLAV POWER fill in the blanks?

2:26 - Katyushka
2:47 - Kalinka
2:57 - BLANK 1
3:18 - BLANK 2 (which may be the same as BLANK 1, but I have no idea if it is or not)
3:38 - BLANK 3
(then it loops around and plays all these again)
5:41 - the Internationale
(and then it loops back to the beginning).

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqbQUnFkM4Y[/media]


And then, back to WESTERN SPY territory, there's Jeff Minter's Headbangers' Heaven, which I RZXed a while ago. I recognise the notes that it beeps out at the beginning, and it must be something semi-famous because I've also found the same tune in... either a type-in or a CSSCGC game I've investigated recently, though I forgot to note which one. (I checked this year's site thinking it might have been Guitar Weirdo, but it wasn't.)

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gormuf5LtQE[/media]
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by TMD2003 »

Time to revive the tune-naming for a mo...
TMD2003 wrote: Sat Oct 31, 2020 11:40 am ...there's Jeff Minter's Headbangers' Heaven, which I RZXed a while ago. I recognise the notes that it beeps out at the beginning, and it must be something semi-famous because I've also found the same tune in... either a type-in or a CSSCGC game I've investigated recently, though I forgot to note which one. (I checked this year's site thinking it might have been Guitar Weirdo, but it wasn't.)

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gormuf5LtQE[/media]
I have not rediscovered which CSSCGC entry from the recent-ish past contains the same tune as Headbangers' Heaven... but I have found another one: b1n4ry, from the 2020 Bytemaniacos contest:

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayhe6jsPhGY[/media]

So it must be famous, and written by someone who I've definitely heard of but don't pay much attention to (like The Beatles or The Rolling Stones or... insert a whole mountain of bands from the 1960s and 1970s). It certainly can't be any later than 1983, given its use in Headbangers' Heaven.

WHAT IS IT...?!
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by Joefish »

I've not played either of those games, but I'm sure I've heard a shorter version of those beeps in another game.
Maybe Chuckie Egg? I can't be sure.
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by TMD2003 »

Given that Headbangers' Heaven is the earliest example of a game I know that uses this tune, and Jeff Minter wrote it - on the Spectrum, then converted to the VIC-20, when it would usually be the other way round - I figured it had to be a 1960s hippy band of some sort. The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane... or Pink Floyd?

I think I'm getting closer... Jeff wrote an article about the game, complete with a playthrough of the VIC-20 version, which used some kind of "Pink Floyd hammers" logo, resemblingan upside-down Polandball...

Time to dig down the rabbit hole that ended with a Ferrari Enzo or two.
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by Alessandro »

TMD2003 wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 9:55 am Given that Headbangers' Heaven is the earliest example of a game I know that uses this tune, and Jeff Minter wrote it - on the Spectrum, then converted to the VIC-20, when it would usually be the other way round - I figured it had to be a 1960s hippy band of some sort. The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane... or Pink Floyd?
Not at all. It's a romance for guitar in E minor by an unknown author. Printed editions of it date as early as 1913, but it was made famous by Narciso Yepes when he recorded it for the soundtrack to René Clement's Forbidden Games (1952).

And as [mention]Joefish[/mention] remembered, it's briefly played in Chuckie Egg when you lose a life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuMuP83I6Mw
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by Stefan »

More background on Wikipedia.
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by TMD2003 »

Well, that's not what I was expecting... but cheers for solving that mystery! Alessandro - you've earned yourself a pastrami ciabatta with extra olive oil and a triple espresso. Jason - corned beef sandwich, HP Sauce, builder's tea. Decide amongst yourselves whether this represents a repeat of the Euros or a reversal.

Strangely, I did see a comment elsewhere that mentioned the Forbidden Games / Jeux Interdits / Spielen Verboten etc. and found a cover version on FaceTube, but it had been "interpreted" so much that it didn't match what I heard in Headbangers' Heaven, so I overlooked it...

EDIT: and cheers to dm_boozefreak on t'other forum for pointing out somewhere else that the same tune can be found: Jet Set Willy 2... on the Bread Bin.
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by Lee Bee »

When you start the game in Paperboy, this brief melody plays. I remember it's from a song that was in the charts in the mid 80s but don't know what it's called?

https://youtube.com/clip/UgwJC0XMZ3zKQg0zjX14AaABCQ
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by StooB »

Lee Bee wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:08 am When you start the game in Paperboy, this brief melody plays. I remember it's from a song that was in the charts in the mid 80s but don't know what it's called?

https://youtube.com/clip/UgwJC0XMZ3zKQg0zjX14AaABCQ
Zambezi by The Piranhas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdB4M3hEZBs
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by p13z »

StooB wrote: Sun Aug 29, 2021 4:28 pm Zambezi by The Piranhas
It is actually an old track (1950's) by Nico Carstens.
I was unaware of the Piranhas cover - but it became something of a "standard" tune, presumably making it safe enough to rip off for games and pop tracks.

[media]https://youtu.be/k0HUkU1O9vk[/media]
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by Lee Bee »

Ah! Thank you both! :-) So glad I asked.

The Piranhas version is the one I remember personally. I was only little at the time but now I love this act, so much fun! It's Amazing how music lodges in your brain! I probably only ever heard this once 40 years ago, and it's precisely as I remember. (Well, in my memory, the rhythm was slightly more Latin, with more 'swing' in the trumpet part, more like Dance the Night Away by Mavericks.)

Incidentally, I did remember the "Zambezi" lyric but had no idea what they were saying. I think I must have googled "Sam Beasly" at one point LOL

Cheers, chaps!
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Re: The "Name That Tune" thread

Post by Lee P »

Alessandro wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 2:16 pm
TMD2003 wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 9:55 am Given that Headbangers' Heaven is the earliest example of a game I know that uses this tune, and Jeff Minter wrote it - on the Spectrum, then converted to the VIC-20, when it would usually be the other way round - I figured it had to be a 1960s hippy band of some sort. The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane... or Pink Floyd?
Not at all. It's a romance for guitar in E minor by an unknown author. Printed editions of it date as early as 1913, but it was made famous by Narciso Yepes when he recorded it for the soundtrack to René Clement's Forbidden Games (1952).

And as @Joefish remembered, it's briefly played in Chuckie Egg when you lose a life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuMuP83I6Mw
I'm very late to this thread, but the same tune pops up in Pheenix (released 1983, so later than Headbangers' Heaven, but probably just ahead of Chuckie Egg)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16gSbQ_RCe0
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