#Diegetic music

[the-iron-shoulder]

Thesis: in the Mario universe, the characters can hear the background music

I firmly believe that the background music in the Mario games is diegetic, meaning that the characters can hear it. Here are four examples that support this.

EXAMPLE THE FIRST: in Mario x Rabbids Kingdom Battle, when you’re on the overworld as opposed to the tactical encounters, there are various musical things scattered around the world that appear to be playing the music. If you interact with them, you can turn them off and make them stop playing the music… and this causes the music heard by the player to be quieter.

EXAMPLE THE SECOND: in the New Super Mario Bros series, the Koopa Troopas, Goombas, and similar enemies famously dance, jump, or otherwise react to the little “ba-baaah!” musical cues, strongly implying that they can hear it. (And since this affects how they move, a player who doesn’t take this into account will misjudge where the enemies will be at any given moment, possibly causing Mario to get hurt or killed, and that’s somehow hilarious to me.)

EXAMPLE THE THIRD: this one is my favorite. In Super Mario RPG, in the special suite at the Marrymore inn, Mario can go into the bathroom and take a shower. While he does this, he loudly whistles the ground theme from Super Mario Bros. Now I ask you, reader, where could he have heard that song before? Exactly. It’s diegetic, I tell you.

EXAMPLE THE FOURTH: much like the third example, in Luigi’s Mansion, Luigi nervously hums along with the main theme. Where’d he learn the song? Why is he so on-beat? The music being audible in-universe is the simplest explanation.

This simply makes me happy in a geeky way.

[twosides--samecoin]

also, unsure if you ever read pokemon fic, but if you appreciate music informing the reader of a character's personality and diegetic music, you may enjoy "make you suffer" by girllikesubstance on ao3. i certainly did! it's written like an action movie but with solid characterization; i literally cannot recommend the author's work enough.

Oh, I have not, thank you for the recommendation!

"Diegetic music", for anyone who's never heard of it, refers to any in-universe music or lyric that is interacted with or acknowledged by the characters. The musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is entirely diegetic music, performed by the characters; however the intro theme of that show is not.

I consider music a main character in the fic. It started with choosing song titles for chapters and the fic title, then it snowballed into, "How do I indicate to the reader Music Is Happening in a natural way that doesn't always need me introducing, like, 'a guitar rang out/a solemn voice sang', etc?" How do you solve the characters hearing what the reader can only, well, read? Sure, I have some playlists on Spotify to follow along, but as Marshall McLuhan said, "the medium is the message". It must be clear in the writing that music is playing. A new voice has entered the room.

One of my favourite novels is Ulysses by James Joyce. He had a masterful talent for cacophony and onomatopoeia. Several threads of conversations and voices and thoughts all happening at you on one page. And he just goes for it.

I chose to solve the problem by having my own style guide. Lyrics just happen as though they're a person speaking, they're just italicized to indicate it's a recording. Here's an excerpt of one of the most successful examples of diegetic music I have written in the fic, from the chapter Thunder Road.

The radio DJ’s voice interrupted the silence. “Hi, it’s Delia, we got the weather monitor fixed. It’s only a few degrees below freezing tonight and I’m not in a sour mood anymore, so.. Here’s a favorite, for my favorite. Here’s Thunder Road.”  Olivia’s eyes widened as harmonica and piano played together. She turned towards the radio. “Are you serious right now?”  “What?” RJ asked.  "..The screen door slams, Mary's dress sways. Like a vision, she dances across the porch as the radio plays.." Jack smiled. He knew what this song was about and wondered just how well she knew it. He caught Olivia’s eye as she turned away from the radio. RJ saw Jack’s shit-eating grin and knew it meant he figured something out with her. A smile that could mean he was having fun, or he could checkmate you.  The same glance Olivia and Jack shared about him earlier. "..Roy Orbison singing for the lonely, 'Hey that's me and I want you only,' Don't turn me home again, I just can't face myself alone again.." “I- what, why are you looking at me like that-”  “Good song, huh?” he responded, smiling at her. "..Don't run back inside, darling, you know just what I'm here for.." RJ didn’t quite understand what Jack was getting at. The radio was low enough that he could hear the music, but the lyrics were harder to hear from across the room.  “Bruce fan?” Jack asked her. “Yeah, um.. I like him.” Jack’s heart melted. “My wife, Nora, was a huge fan. We have the first seven albums on one holotape,”  “Wait, no way-”  "..So you're scared, and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore.." “Yeah, way. How many Bruce albums you got in this vault, huh?”  “I don’t,” Olivia told him, looking almost apologetic. “I only get to hear Bruce when he’s on the radio.” 

[jfk-blown-away-blog]

I was just thinking that if I ever made a video game, I would make all the music in it diegetic. That then made me think there has got to be at least a few games that have done that already.

[baroquepopcorn]

Anyone really like a song but it’s made up for a movie or something

I’m not talking about film scores or covers in a movie or songs from a musical

I’m talking about actual diegetic songs that were made for the story

Like “black sheep” from Scott pilgrim has been stuck in my head for the past week. It’s genuinely a good song

And aside from the fact that it’s a video game reference “The Clash At Demonhead” genuinely sounds like it’s the name of a band that exists, and it’s a really cool name

Like it’s sad that this isn’t really real because I would totally stan envy adams if she was a real musician

Also

There’s this shitty British Christmas movie called nativity 2: danger in the manger and in it there’s a Christmas song contest

And there’s some genuinely good ones in there

(Not the main kids’ though, they’re cringe and basic)

Like

Who the fuck is this kid — fucking iconic

Literally a great Christmas song, gorgeous

And the main villains’ number

Holy shit these kids are talented, this is like some classical Christmas song shit

And also

This fucking rankin bass song (I know it’s a musical song so I’m breaking my own rule but it’s so different it can stand out from the narrative and dammit this is MY post)

This makes me feel like an empowered career woman in the 1970s and I fucking love it

And don’t forget

MY JAM LMFAO

Also the video game we happy few made an entire album’s worth of songs by “the make believes”

Not my favorite but genuinely impressive

Anyway, if anyone else has any favourite diegetic songs I’d love to hear about them

[sudoscience]

So, has the Pokémon Center's music always been diegetic, or is that new in Generation IX? And since we know the Team Star theme is also diegetic, what about all the other songs in the game?

[b777-36n]

Are you a big fan of portal? What about video game music? How about an analysis of how the diegetic music of Portal 2 makes the painfully mechanical facilty feel alive? Well, boy have I written the piece for you!

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

It seemed as if the ominous music viewers heard in ‘The Inferiority Complex’ was just in the background,

until the Inspector tried to turn off the record player, which simply scratched and kept on playing.

[v0id-of-thought]

If I Loved You gets 10x funnier when you consider they haven’t left Beanies and Paul was standing there the whole time like

[andersdruv]

A couple of my favorites that play around with the line between diegetic and non-diegetic:

IZO by Takashi Miike, which has the musician in frame, but because of the nature of the movie it's uncertain whether the music is real to the characters. (CW: depictions of dead children)

Bloodbath at the House of Death, one of the all time classics:

[cursed-dreamers-dream]

The music- his face- his voice-

I’m going to need three to five business days to recover

[dandelionjack]

saw this on the forbidden app could not resist reposting because it’s true. “the one who waits is almost here” is lazy LAZY writing. stop dangling lore in front of our faces… make it SUBTLE. show not tell…

did russell go to the chibnall school of bad screenwriting before his return because these episodes do genuinely feel like they’ve been created by a different person entirely than the emotionally intelligent, thoughtful showrunner who gave us the first four series

[socialistexan]

[tactilegalaxies]

Among everything else that happened, let’s take a moment to give up for the sound design and scoring on this show. Severance always has great sound design, but the way it was used in this episode was just impeccable.

I don’t have the expertise to describe how, but like… the music during the sex/walking into the woods scene that starts ethereal but immediately becomes ominous… the weird fluttery crackle that turns out to be moths against the computer screen… the disconcerting background hums that underlay the voices and natural sounds throughout the episode… man. They really went all out, and the result was the most foreboding and unnerving episode we’ve had yet.

[infriga]

Gear 5 Luffy when he sees an enemy:

[twosides--samecoin]

Bruce Springsteen and a whole lot of music is canon in my fic. I wrote Long Time Running with the express intention to include music and aspects of culture that exist outside the realm of 50's atomic nostalgia and jazz. I found ways of writing in diegetic music so that it is clear that song lyrics are heard on the radio. I have Wu Tang Clan and Rush and AC/DC and The Tragically Hip in my fic. Alexisonfire and Title Fight and pieces from the Kill Bill OST and Chicago's original cast recording and Hole. I have in-universe radio stations that I created that have different music to reflect the fact that not all locations in North America post-war had the same recordings saved. Music is by all means a character in my fic, just not a person. And it is one of the proudest things I have done with the Fallout IP.

Why yes, I am going to to remind everyone talking about Fallout about TOOL being canon in Fallout 1 and 2 until Bethesda comes to my house and tells me to stop.

Y'all really need to chill on culture being stuck completely in the 1950's and realize that even in an alternate universe, COUNTER CULTURE EXISTS. THIS IS ALSO SUPPORTED IN FALLOUT NEW VEGAS.

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

It’s a good thing that the soundtrack to ‘Scoundrel’ was period appropriate,

rather than having modern-day pop songs played in a slightly old-fashioned manner, like a certain period drama that the episode takes its cues from.