Takashi Tateishi – Mega Man 2: Flash Man Theme
I’ve always had a bias towards 80s game themes. Which I’ve taken to be partly because I did most of my gaming in the 80s and partly because 80s game music was much better.
But the ever-interesting – even for non-gamers – Extra Credits had an episode about video game music a while back made me look at it in a more nuanced way.
They make the convincing argument that game music hasn’t got worse, just less memorable. I’d completely forgotten that game music was there primarily to increase immersion in the game. And as far as that goes game music certainly is better now that it was in the 80s.
But the fact that 80s game composers were restricted to three notes and had to come up with memorable tunes certainly does make for good conversions to ukulele. And I think the Flash Man theme from Mega Man 2 works particularly well.
Trickiest Bits
Bars 3 and 4: I use fingerpicking through most of the song. But for the rapidfire notes in bar 3 and the first half of bar 4 I’m strumming.
I switch back to picking for the last half of the bar. Fret the third and second frets here with your ring and middle finger and have your index finger on the E-string second fret ready for the pull-off.
Bar 17: For the last note barre across the second fret.
Bar 21: If you’re using a soprano ukulele you can play this bar like this:
Links
Buy the MP3
Interview with Takashi Tateishi and other early Mega Man composers
More Game Theme Tabs
you always do good versions of tunes woodshed but sometimes you pick really extra kick ass stuff, this is a prime example, Great work and thanks very much.