Super Mario World Ending Theme sight-read by Tom Brier
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters recommend it as a showcase of remarkable sight-reading and a favorite when sight-reading or notation comes up.
What it is
Pianist Tom Brier sight-reads a piano arrangement of the Super Mario World ending theme, working from a first-draft score by Keeper1st. He takes some liberties with the score as he plays.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2017 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec smoldesu · 2023-08 · on “Super Mario theme played “blind” by Tom Brier (2008) [video]”
An amazing morning to rediscover this amazing artist. I remember watching his videos when I was in school, enjoying his interpolation of popular video game ragtime. The last thing I remember hearing is that he was left comatose after a car crash, with poor outlook for his future. Turns out he's still alive and fairly well, which is a huge relief: [LINK] If you haven't; treat yourself, and just listen through a mix of his sight-read performances on the internet. He's a rare gem and a treat to the ears. [LINK] [this video] [LINK] [LINK]
Recommends airstrike · 2023-09 · on “Show HN: Learn piano without sheet music”
This reminds me of this excellent video: [this video] Can we get this guy to play the Super Mario World ending theme with the notation from TFA?
Cites bane · 2017-10 · on “A History of Music Notation”
Piano roll style notation systems can be useful, but they're very hard to use for human playback for basically all the reasons jcranmer states. They're originally intended for automatic playback in mechanical systems, and they work well for that, but for humans they waste lots of space on things that aren't terribly useful. They're about 1 level of sophistication above the "Square Notation" on the chart. They've become very popular on digital systems were lots of the expressiveness of the notes doesn't really need to be encoded and the playback is automated. Another popular and very similar system are tracker interfaces [1] which are at a slightly higher level of sophistication than many of
Cites xibe · 2025-03 · on “Show HN: My iOS app to practice sight reading (10 years in the App Store)”
Akshually... According to Wikipédia FR, the French equivalent of Sight Reading is "Lecture à vue" [1]. Notes: - I'm French; - I learnt to play the piano as a teenager, and I'm trying to get back to it again as at 45+; - I too discovered the "sight reading" term online, but that was long ago (as I recall, through a video of an adult piano player doing "live sight-reading" versions of songs he didn't know beforehand, such as the Mario theme [2]; ... and YET neither have I ever heard of nor used "Lecture à vue" (that I remember of). I too would use "apprendre le solfège" (EN: learn solfège) when saying that I'm learning to read the notes on sheet music while playing at the same time. [1]: [LINK