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mrsluigivargas(Context: this theory post)
There's a bit in the beginning of Origami King where you come across the edge of a cute little campground, with a cute little song playing out of a nearby speaker. If you hit the tree the speaker hangs in, the speaker falls to the ground and the music abruptly stops, leaving you to awkwardly walk away and pretend it wasn't you who did that. However! That cute little tune is actually the background music for the main part of the campground, as you find out when you walk towards it, and there are several speakers there, too! So that's a fun way to anchor that song into the world 🙂
And obviously there's the parades and celebratory dances and dance numbers and stuff in the Paper Mario/M&L games - that's kind of a low-hanging fruit as far as diegetic music goes. (e.g. in Origami King, you can still hear the parade music in the distance as you leave the area and continue down the river, iirc)
But yeah this theory is fun and I think about it sometimes also, haha. I've personally always explained most of the level/town/character themes away with ambient magic resonating in a certain way that manifests as music. Because, like. Where is the music coming from otherwise, lmao. It would probably be something subtle, something you only really hear and latch onto if you really concentrate on it, because otherwise I dunno if people would want to make towns and settlements with the knowledge that they'd be stuck with some tune incessantly blaring in their ears for all the years they'd be living there XD
Maybe some of the music from SMB 1-1 stuck to Mario while he was there and that's his theme now! It's where his hero journey began, after all. And then he got famous enough that people started making songs based on it or something, lmao. And then it's a weird feedback loop where you hear it on the radio and stuff but also Mario brings the song with him wherever he goes by virtue of existing. And then it ends up as Wario's ringtone in Mario Power Tennis, somehow.
(I wonder if the magic can't figure out something for Luigi - which is why his theme music shifts as it does between games. He's too complex and multifaceted, heh)
(But meanwhile Peach and her castle are pretty consistent! And Bowser has a lot of different castles throughout the games so it makes sense for the music for those would vary.)
(Also sometimes Bowser and Junior's themes share a melody and that's fun. I just wanted to say that, hehe)
And then that's why everyone's musically on the same page in Luigi's Mansion. I'll bet E. Gadd is in tune with it too, which is why the Game Boy Horror ringtone is the Luigi's Mansion theme as well.
But then if the Mario music is diegetic, then in addition to the background music it would make sense for the timed powerups (e.g. Superstars, Mario Galaxy's Fire and Ice Flowers) and timed switches/challenges (e.g. P-switches, red coin challenges) to have noise playing out loud or in people's heads, too. As well as some minigame music too, like the Chuck Challenges from Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope (that song is the same length as the minigame itself). Or maybe you can figure out that you're trapped underground, for instance, because you listen and hear that pattern of notes echoing in the caverns. Or there's people who like to go diving just so they can hear the underwater music (and then get into debates about which region's body of water has the better version of the tune, haha). And when you're in a level — if you're a native, the song's probably baked into you because you live there, and if you're stuck patrolling the same area for a long time, what else is there to do but listen to the music and dance a little? You're probably bored, after all.
This sort of feedback loop is probably free real estate for composers and the like, too — just hang out in a cave or on a beach for a while. Though I wonder what copyright would be like...a nightmare maybe…There's probably a culture of people who farm these melodies vs. purists who refuse to touch them on account of it being considered cheating, or something. And there's plenty of examples of diegetic music that was presumably composed on purples, e.g. amusement parks and festivals and sports stadium music and that one Paper Mario song from that sidequest chain.
There's a bit in the beginning of Origami King where you come across the edge of a cute little campground, with a cute little song playing out of a nearby speaker. If you hit the tree the speaker hangs in, the speaker falls to the ground and the music abruptly stops, leaving you to awkwardly walk away and pretend it wasn't you who did that. However! That cute little tune is actually the background music for the main part of the campground, as you find out when you walk towards it, and there are several speakers there, too! So that's a fun way to anchor that song into the world 🙂
And obviously there's the parades and celebratory dances and dance numbers and stuff in the Paper Mario/M&L games - that's kind of a low-hanging fruit as far as diegetic music goes. (e.g. in Origami King, you can still hear the parade music in the distance as you leave the area and continue down the river, iirc)
But yeah this theory is fun and I think about it sometimes also, haha. I've personally always explained most of the level/town/character themes away with ambient magic resonating in a certain way that manifests as music. Because, like. Where is the music coming from otherwise, lmao. It would probably be something subtle, something you only really hear and latch onto if you really concentrate on it, because otherwise I dunno if people would want to make towns and settlements with the knowledge that they'd be stuck with some tune incessantly blaring in their ears for all the years they'd be living there XD
Maybe some of the music from SMB 1-1 stuck to Mario while he was there and that's his theme now! It's where his hero journey began, after all. And then he got famous enough that people started making songs based on it or something, lmao. And then it's a weird feedback loop where you hear it on the radio and stuff but also Mario brings the song with him wherever he goes by virtue of existing. And then it ends up as Wario's ringtone in Mario Power Tennis, somehow.
(I wonder if the magic can't figure out something for Luigi - which is why his theme music shifts as it does between games. He's too complex and multifaceted, heh)
(But meanwhile Peach and her castle are pretty consistent! And Bowser has a lot of different castles throughout the games so it makes sense for the music for those would vary.)
(Also sometimes Bowser and Junior's themes share a melody and that's fun. I just wanted to say that, hehe)
And then that's why everyone's musically on the same page in Luigi's Mansion. I'll bet E. Gadd is in tune with it too, which is why the Game Boy Horror ringtone is the Luigi's Mansion theme as well.
But then if the Mario music is diegetic, then in addition to the background music it would make sense for the timed powerups (e.g. Superstars, Mario Galaxy's Fire and Ice Flowers) and timed switches/challenges (e.g. P-switches, red coin challenges) to have noise playing out loud or in people's heads, too. As well as some minigame music too, like the Chuck Challenges from Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope (that song is the same length as the minigame itself). Or maybe you can figure out that you're trapped underground, for instance, because you listen and hear that pattern of notes echoing in the caverns. Or there's people who like to go diving just so they can hear the underwater music (and then get into debates about which region's body of water has the better version of the tune, haha). And when you're in a level — if you're a native, the song's probably baked into you because you live there, and if you're stuck patrolling the same area for a long time, what else is there to do but listen to the music and dance a little? You're probably bored, after all.
This sort of feedback loop is probably free real estate for composers and the like, too — just hang out in a cave or on a beach for a while. Though I wonder what copyright would be like...a nightmare maybe…There's probably a culture of people who farm these melodies vs. purists who refuse to touch them on account of it being considered cheating, or something. And there's plenty of examples of diegetic music that was presumably composed on purples, e.g. amusement parks and festivals and sports stadium music and that one Paper Mario song from that sidequest chain.