Have you ever seen a video game them played with spooky accuracy on an ancient Chinese musical instrument? Chances are that’s a universal “no,” unless you’ve seen the following clip of a young Chinese woman shredding Mario on the sheng.
The sheng was invented a good 3,000 years before Super Mario Bros. first began our love affair with the mighty mushroom-gobbling plumber. It’s a complexly beautiful woodwind instrument, used prominently in Chinese operas, which just happens to look like a cross between a Tolkien relic and something out of H.R. Giger’s imagination. Nevertheless, the sounds it makes can be manipulated to reproduce the digital mind-leech music that accompanied Mario, Luigi, and Bowser through some of the most iconic gaming moments of our youth.
Watch the sheng in action below, with video of a young Chinese musician pulling off the Mario theme with shocking accuracy.
The original Super Mario Bros. theme, for comparison:
