Maniac Mansion - Sonatina in G Opus 47 BVW 801 (Wendy's Theme - All Instrument Cover)

Here's a cover of Sonatina in G Opus 47 BVW 801, better known as Wendy's Theme from 1990's Maniac Mansion on the NES! This is quite the tune, sounding vaguely Bach-ish, and containing what sounds like maybe a Picardy Third or a Neapolitan 6th chord, definitely something above my pay grade for music analysis! I'm not sure how rough this tune is to play on a keyboard, but on guitar it's pretty rough with 16th note arpeggios all over the place. As my picking technique is fairly non-existent, I played most of these arpeggios via alternate picking and economy picking when possible, as at tempo I just didn't have the technique to sweep the arpeggios. As a kid playing thru Maniac Mansion, I didn't really like this song, but over thirty years later, the melodies woven into this song stand right up with the rest of this idiosyncratic soundtrack that regularly features complex harmony, occasional atonality, and multitudes of key changes. I was super happy to be able to put this one together as earlier in my channel's history, this tune was beyond my playing ability!
If you enjoy slightly obscure videogame covers like this tune, and generally enjoy seeing what I can pull off in my basement, consider subscribing to this channel!
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[@ValterraSangueRossa]

thank you so much for covering this one, its so underrated and you did an excellent job what a great game and soundtrack

[@thesosomusician]

Cheers, glad you enjoyed it! This song was deceptively tough for me to play, alot of those arpeggios were on the edge of my playing ability. There's really great harmonic content in it, I was definitely happy when it came together while tracking it!

[@doggtown]

And how i do miss Headbangers.

[@BassicBits]

I love classical sounding VG music! Great job

[@thesosomusician]

Thanks! It's surprising the amount of harmony they crammed into this three voice arrangement, great tune!

[@corgibuttz2550]

I just discovered your channel and I fucking love it. This is my shit.

[@thesosomusician]

Cheers! It absolutely makes my day when folks discover the channel and dig it! I've got some fun tunes in the pipeline already for later this month, and kicking around ideas for after that!

[@LukeAvedon]

Beautiful harmonies!!

[@thesosomusician]

Such a cool tune the way the three voicings weave together!

[@ZeroJanitor]

Cool rendition is an underrated theme!

[@thesosomusician]

Definitely alot of effort went into composing this tune, I think alot people sleep on this tune since the whole rest of the soundtrack is so killer!

[@MH-605]

Never hearing the original I'm gonna assume it was on harpsichord. Great video.

[@thesosomusician]

Ha, thanks! The original is like harpsichord-ish squarewave, although some of the notes have slightly longer sustain here and there than a harpsichord. The piece definitely melodically has that kind of a sound

[@steinitzb]

Benn loving the maniac mansion covers on your channel, would be awesome to hear your version of Bernard’s theme!

[@thesosomusician]

Thanks! I really want to do Bernard's theme, but I've always been concerned if I'll be able to handle it, there's some real wacky stuff going on in that tune! It's an awesome tune though, and definitely has been on my radar for years!

[@steinitzb]

@@thesosomusicianyeah it’s always been my favourite mm song. There’s lots of stuff going on in that song for sure lol and I think I tried to deconstruct it once. Has a cool vibe with drums and melody mix together, and break is also great

[@thesosomusician]

As a kid it was definitely my favorite tune on the soundtrack! Pretty cool, the fine gentleman who wrote Jeff's theme (aka Surf Face), George "Fatman" Sanger, just put out a new video for Surf Face on his youtube channel, check it out! It has a great simultaneous 90s and surf rock vibe, feels like a Kids in the Hall segue between sketches, great stuff! kzbin.info/www/bejne/b3K1o5J6draInZo

[@steinitzb]

@@thesosomusician yeah it was awesome, i’ve already watched it, looks like he’s going to play it live in the San Diego area. Too bad he can’t do a maniac mansion tour, it was one of the best nes sound tracks imo soso you could always do a nes tour one day 😎

[@thesosomusician]

I'd love to but it's tough to put a lineup together and differentiate from the multitude of bands out there. There's so many vgmusic bands it's almost a bigger genre than metal! I went to Magfest 8 years ago, I couldn't believe how big it was back then!

[@doggtown]

I would like to site a spelling error in the title edit : *Sonatina in G SUPER TURBRO BMW AMG" thanks

[@thesosomusician]

Ha, thanks! A tad more kick drum in this version than the original!

[@stephenkain6603]

Rare game is rare

[@thesosomusician]

Not really a rare game, I think though this is one of the less popular tunes to cover. Pretty slammin tune!

[@dasaten]

very nice! now if you wanna do classical vgm music do Gyruss, haha.

[@thesosomusician]

Ah, no kidding, I didn't remember Gyruss having music, I probably haven't seen that anywhere besides on Atari over 30 years ago, I didn't remember it had music, let alone classical music tunes!