Hi there, I’m the Mario Paint Music Guy! Welcome to my world!
I’ve been writing music in the original Super Nintendo game Mario Paint since it released in 1992. As a child, it was a tremendous creative outlet for me. As an adult, it’s become a way to keep my connection to music going.
I’ve been a classically trained musician since age 3. I started on the piano and added the violin when I was 6. I was blessed with natural talent and an ear that gave me perfect pitch, and I spent much of my childhood playing both Western classical and Indian music.
I can’t say that I reached my full potential - or even really came close - but music gave me some of the best experiences of my life before I even turned 18:
After I graduated high school, I didn’t do much with music. I would play my childhood piano when I was in town here and there, I kept playing around with Mario Paint here and there, and I tried joining a local band called Full Spectrum.
As an adult, I was engaging with music in only fits and starts. It started to bother me more and more as I hit my 40s. Why wasn’t I doing what I do best?
In 2025 I wrote about my 40 years as a musician to date. At the end, I promised myself that I’d find a way to bring music back into my life on a regular basis. It’s the thing I have always done best and I should be doing it more.
After watching a Nintendo Life video about Mario Paint, I was inspired to start up this project. Be the Mario Paint Music Guy who uses the original Mario Paint both to bring back old works I’d written as a child and create new ones.
I decided to start with a 100-day upload challenge. I created and uploaded songs across genres - video games, pop, TV themes, original compositions, and more. It was amazing, and I wanted to keep going.
So I have. The cadence isn’t daily anymore, but I have this outlet anytime the mood strikes.
There are many tools with more flexibility than Mario Paint, including mods. But for me, the limitations of Mario Paint are the real charm.
You only have 96 beats to create with. That’s 24 measures of 4/4 or 32 measures of 3/4.
You only have 15 instruments to use, and only 3 of them can play simultaneously. And none of them can play the same note.
You can’t use sharps or flats, meaning you’re locked into C / F / G major and A / D / E minor depending on what you can get away with.
So the magic trick is, given these limitations, how can you capture the essence of a musical work? Every single decision is thoughtful, the tradeoffs clear. And I love it.
I write these by ear, and each song takes me between 20 and 30 minutes to put together. I’ll first write up the melody, then typically bassline, percussion, countermelody, and embellishments in that order. Check out the NFL on NBC or NFL on FOX videos to see it in action!
