Talk:Paah

Really needed?

Is this page really needed? -- FanOfYoshi 14:05, June 24, 2022 (EDT)

It's a recurrent game feature with a perceptible effect on gameplay. Therefore, yes. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 15:25, June 24, 2022 (EDT)

Also, the effect on gameplay is hardcoded into the "bah" itself rather than just being aligned to the occurrence of the "Bah"s, so the gameplay effect isn't a coincidence. ^S _o ^m _e ^t _h ⁱ _n ^g _o ⁿ _e ! 15:32, June 24, 2022 (EDT)

Yep. To wit, when a level's current music changes as a result of obtaining a star, pressing a P Switch, or some other thing happening, and there are consequently no vocals or equivalent sounds in the new music, enemies stop responding to the audio. This is the case in all NSMB games. Perhaps both this bit of information and yours should be incorporated somewhere in the article. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 15:51, June 24, 2022 (EDT)

IDK if that's the case; "bah" noises don't seem to line up very well when you put music mods in New Super Mario Bros. Wii; enemies still "react" with custom soundtrack, and not in sync. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 22:41, June 24, 2022 (EDT)

“Bah” in The Super Mario Bros. Movie

When Mario exits the Warp Pipe to Peach’s Castle, the note that plays at the end of the song playing is the “Bah” sound.

You can copy and paste this into the article if you want, while adding to it of course. This was signed by NintendoFan08 14:13, December 10, 2022 (EST)

Rename to Paah?

Since the original sample as it appears on the CD Library is called "Paah", shouldn't we be calling the article that unless Nintendo comes out with a unique name for it? We don't plan to put this to a vote unless it feels contentious enough, but just wanted to know what others think. (Bah would probably remain a redirect, since most people know of it as the "Bah" sample.) ~Camwood777 (talk) 17:08, December 30, 2022 (EST)

If there's no other working source for it, I agree. LinkTheLefty (talk) 17:46, January 4, 2023 (EST)

Yeah, that's what I'm confused about myself. The article is "Bah" which is what everyone knows it as but the article itself calls it "Paah" from the CD library. Plus, if you listen, it sounds like the sound is "Bah" and not "Paah". PrincessPeachFan (talk) 12:53, January 9, 2023 (EST)

Proposal: Expand scope of article and/or rename it

Expand scope of Paah and/or rename it

This talk page proposal has already been settled. Please do not edit any of the sections in the proposal. If you wish to discuss the article, do so in a new header below the proposal.

failed 1-0-1-6
I was genuinely surprised when I found that the "bah" had an article. I suppose it makes sense, since enemies do react to the music in certain games, but the article is named "Paah" when it also features two other instruments that are clearly not named Paah. The article name seems to be little more than a holdover from the article's previous fanon name, "Bah", which either way should not be used as an umbrella term for the differently-named "Taaaa" and "Cartoon Bell" samples.

In fact, why is this article restricted to the New Super Mario Bros. games (and these three samples) at all? Why not have a general page for notable situations where the environment and/or enemies react to the music? The article even mentions in a footnote that flowers in Super Mario 3D World also dance to the music, despite that having nothing to do with any of the previously mentioned instruments.

Going by the wiki's naming and article standards (that I'm aware of), I think that leaves a few different options for how this should be handled:

1. Split the article into Paah, Taaaa, and Cartoon Bell.
2. Expand the scope of the article to encompass more games and rename it.
3. Delete the article and move the info relating to how objects react to the music to their respective pages.
4. Leave article as-is, but give it a different name (i.e. not named after one of the samples)
5. Expand the scope of the article, keep the name "Paah"

Proposer: DrippingYellow (talk)
Deadline: November 7, 2023, 23:59 GMT

Expand scope of article, rename to conjectural name (or official name if available)

1. DrippingYellow (talk) Per proposal.

Expand scope of article, keep the name "Paah"

1. MegaBowser64 (talk) I don't think "Paah" is too bad of a name, but it should be expanded, "paah" proposal. "Paah"sonally, I think, in this "paah"ge's "paah"resent "paah"redicament, expanding the "paah"ge is the "paah"remier "paah"roposition for this "paah"roposal.

Do nothing

1. Koopa con Carne (talk) I don't see a point in doing anything proposed here. "Paah" does work as an umbrella term because it's the most common "interactive" sound throughout the NSMB games, with all the others being derivative and theme-specific. Furthermore, the gameplay function of these samples is identical no matter how they were created, be it through human voice, bells, marimba, or cymbals (the last two of which aren't given consideration in the proposal), which is why I disagree with having them split.
2. Camwoodstock (talk) Splitting this article up just because of different instruments being tied to the mechanic feels... Very sketchy. Stuff changes visually while still being the exact same mechanic and same name all the time--we don't exactly split the Hard Blocks because one is wood and one is concrete. This is just kind of the audio equivalent to that, and the idea of splitting it up feels like it'd just over-complicate things. For renaming, there's not really a better name seeing as there's no official name beside what's on the original sample CD for the most commonly used instrument (the Paah), so unless Nintendo decides to name this for whatever reason, Paah is our best option. And uh, deleting this page and splitting everything about this mechanic across dozens of enemy pages is as cumbersome and over-complicated as you could get, and as far as we can tell, is entirely unprecedented. If it ain't broke, don't fix it--and, y'know, this isn't exactly broken enough to warrant any of these much more convoluted changes.
3. Arend (talk) "Paah" or "Baah" works perfectly fine as an umbrella term for this effect: as Koopa con Carne has stated, it's the most well-known term for it, since "Paah" is so common in the NSMB; that rules out Option 4. Splitting the articles into multiple, smaller articles just because of the different instruments feels incredibly minor and cluttery for what is essentially the same mechanic of enemies doing a little dance when a certain sound plays in the music track; so that rules out Option 1. Out-right deleting it makes no sense, since it's something that does appear in the games and is quite prevalent, so no Option 3, either. Expanding the scope or at least making mention of similar effects under a different header is a good thing to do, but again, the article doesn't need to be renamed; so Option 2 is ruled out as well. Best to just leave the article as-is, then; per all.
4. FanOfYoshi (talk) "Paah" all.
5. Hewer (talk) Per all, I don't really see much of an issue here that needs fixing.
6. Swallow (talk) Per all. I'm not sticking around to engage in a debate, but I will just say that it covers the New Super Mario Bros games because those are the games where the Paah mechanic is prominent with nearly everything, Super Mario 3D World has barely any of it.

Comments

"In fact, why is this article restricted to the New Super Mario Bros. games (and these three samples) at all? Why not have a general page for notable situations where the environment and/or enemies react to the music?"
FYI, the article was originally going to encompass instances of music that is integral to the world of Mario games, but that would have come with a risk of bloat and padding: a lot of such instances are purely stylish, such as the TV in DK's shack in DKCR and the phonograph in Luigi's Mansion 2. This led me to restrict the article's scope significantly. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 16:16, October 24, 2023 (EDT)

I agree, the article you were originally making would've been kind of pointless and bloated. But my idea of "expansion" was just to add more instances of the phenomena of enemies/the environment reacting to the music in some way, not listing every instance of music being played in-universe. Reacting to the music and playing the music are two different beasts.

On your point about "Paah" being the title because of it being the most common of this type of sound in the NSMB games, the problem for me is that the name of one instrument is being prioritized over the other two samples. All three samples should have approximately the same priority in the list of names for the article, since they were all introduced in the same game (not counting SM64, where Paah is used as an instrument and nothing more).

If we're going off of usage in the game of origin, then we actually ought to be naming the article "Taaaa", since that sample is used in twice as many themes as the "Paah" sample. But still, we're left calling the Cartoon Bells a sub-type of a feature named after a vocal instrument, which is just awkward. And things become even more complicated if the article gets expanded to include non-NSMB games that don't predominantly feature vocal riffs in the soundtrack. Continuing to name the phenomenon after the "bah" sound effect that isn't even featured in the latest games would be really convoluted. DrippingYellow (talk) 00:00, October 25, 2023 (EDT)

Why should the game of origin be prioritised? And why should an expanded scope be taken into consideration when we're voting against expanding the scope in favour of keeping the name as is? These are strawman arguments. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 06:14, October 25, 2023 (EDT)

Fair enough, I'm not sure what I was thinking when I brought up the sample's usage in the original NSMB. And as I mentioned below, I limited the options of the poll to something that makes sense. DrippingYellow (talk) 12:43, October 25, 2023 (EDT)

@Camwoodstock "For renaming, there's not really a better name seeing as there's no official name beside what's on the original sample CD for the most commonly used instrument (the Paah), so unless Nintendo decides to name this for whatever reason, Paah is our best option."
For what it's worth, the Mario Wiki naming guidelines do not mention licensed sound CDs as potential sources for names. The closest thing they might fall into is #5 (names used during development), and it's impossible to be certain that the developers referred to the vocals in the music as whichever samples they were.

@Arend I didn't include "Expand scope, don't rename article" as an option because adding instances from other games that don't have Paahs and Taaaas in the soundtrack would beg the question as to why it's still named Paah. I'll still add that option to the poll, if that's alright with you all. (I feel like I remember someone being chastised for changing a poll while it was running) DrippingYellow (talk) 00:00, October 25, 2023 (EDT)

Per rule 14, you can change this proposal if it's within six days of its creation. Anyway, why are you calling the validity of the sound effect library names into question when you're proposing to split into more articles also using the names? They're being used because it's the best we have in lieu of a proper official name, as the only alternative is outright conjecture. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 06:14, October 25, 2023 (EDT)

I'm sorry for the confusion, but that wasn't necessarily what I was proposing at all. My proposal was for expanding the article and renaming it, and put other options for people who only partially agreed with what I said. Thinking it over now, those courses of action are extreme and definitely unprecedented, so I went ahead and removed them. DrippingYellow (talk) 12:43, October 25, 2023 (EDT)

I see. I understand that it would put the name of the article into question if we include all instances of this effect. Koopa con Carne also brings up a good point that it would bloat the article quite a bit if we expanded the scope of this effect in general (maybe a list article would be more practical for that, then?)
As for your point towards Camwoodstock regarding sound CDs as naming sources, I see the name "Paah" as a similar case as to the track names of official soundtracks or in-game music lists and sound tests. If the Super Mario Odyssey Sound Selection counts as a source for the name "Break Free (Lead the Way)", then Best Service Voice Spectral Volume 1 should count as a source for the name "Paah". rend (talk) (edits) 07:57, October 25, 2023 (EDT)

I don't really see how an official soundtrack release providing the name for the music compares to using the name from a licensable sample pack for a sample that makes up the majority, but not all, of instances of the phenomenon in the New Super Mario Bros. games where enemies react to the music. And concerning the article bloat, as I explained to Koopa Con Carne, the article would ideally contain instances somewhat similar to what occurs in the New Super Mario Bros. games, not every instance of diegetic music in the extended Mario franchise as a whole.
The preceding unsigned comment was added by DrippingYellow (talk).

(Psst, that above comment went unsigned! Uhh, anyhow...) The Wiki already takes third party names of things being their official names in other contexts, not just this article. Probably the most known one are when guidebooks are the solitary source of a name of a thing, and while it can't be confirmed if that's Nintendo's name, it's the best thing we've got. More similarly to this, however, is how we don't think anyone bats an eye at us calling the Punch Balls from Punch Ball Mario Bros. well, Punch Balls, in spite of the fact that the game was developed and published by Hudson Soft, and was merely licensed out. Especially seeing as Nintendo is unlikely to go back and say that no, actually, Punch Balls aren't their name, for a wide variety of reasons (they're extremely unlikely to bring them back, this game's extremely unlikely to see a rerelease, and they would gain practically nothing by claiming otherwise out of the blue).
With no name provided by first-party sources at Nintendo and no conjectural name, we call those "Punch Balls" despite their name being from a fully third-party source. Likewise, "Paah" takes precedent as a solidly-defined third-party name from the sample CD--there's no official name, there's not really much of a conjectrual name aside from the "baah" mondegreen, so the Sample CD's word of "Paah" takes priority. Plus, the idea that third-party audio is not a reliable name for itself raises way more problems than it fixes; see the absolute nightmare that would be Donkey Kong Goes Home (yeah, we keep referencing this thing. it's a problem.) under the restriction that we can't use its official name if it's third-party only! ~Camwoodstock (talk) 13:00, October 25, 2023 (EDT)

The problem for me isn't that it's a third-party, it's that the name has absolutely no connection to the Mario series. At least Donkey Kong Goes Home was licensed by Nintendo, and specifically called "Donkey Kong". "Paah", on the other hand, is just a name taken from a sample CD for a sample that, in turn, was made into an instrument that was used for most instances of the mechanic where objects bop along to the music for no discernable reason. DrippingYellow (talk) 13:09, October 25, 2023 (EDT)

It's an instrument--unless you are an electronic musician sampling Mario noises, none of those really have connections to the Mario series. That's not necessarily a bad thing, either, considering when we have articles on pre-existing real-world stuff because of them appearing in the Mario series, we don't just call them some other thing because the name isn't Mario-y enough, we just... Call them by the thing. We don't think anybody is going to ask to move the Grapes article because that's a name that's not related to the Mario series, after all.
Now, bear with us here, but this is kind of the best way we can think to convey our thoughts here: say in a hypothetical other world, instead of the iconic "Paah" sample being tied to this mechanic, it was instead a sort of synth trumpet instrument. We feel like in this case, people wouldn't exactly object to the idea of calling this article "Trumpets" or maybe just "Trumpet"--the instrument itself doesn't matter, it's the fact that in this case, it is most commonly associated with the synth trumpet noise, and has a mechanical impact on the game. Of course, outside of this highly-specific hypothetical, they're not trumpets--instead, they're instead a sample of a vocalization. And while "Baah" is a common mishearing of that vocalization, the original source of that sample cleanly labels it as "Paah".
You can see where we're going with this, hopefully--in essence, "Paah" is just the name of the instrument that they use for this mechanic. And while they occasionally change the underlying sample, it's pretty easily proven that this is still the same overall mechanic. You could make a compelling argument for a redirect for "Taaaa" and "Cartoon Bell", but a full article split is definitely way too much, as we brought up with Hard Block earlier. If it's part of the music like a Paah, it makes enemies react like a Paah, it's a unique sample in the music like a Paah, it's a Paah, plain and simple. ~Camwoodstock (talk) 13:44, October 25, 2023 (EDT)

There's actually precedent for this scenario where the name for something is official but comes from a source not affiliated with the Mario franchise at all - according to MarioWiki:Naming, "For subjects that originate from other franchises and appear in crossovers with the Super Mario franchise that are not named in the Super Mario-related media, an official name from the franchise the subject originated from may be used to title the article instead." Paah is applicable here since it's not named in the Super Mario-related media, but is named as Paah in the "franchise" (Best Service Voice Spectral Volume 1) it originates from. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 14:05, October 25, 2023 (EDT)

Oh another, er, note, the final paragraph of the Acceptable sources section on the wiki's naming policy page (the same section where you got #5, development names, from), states the following:

For subjects that originate from other franchises and appear in crossovers with the Super Mario franchise that are not named in the Super Mario-related media, an official name from the franchise the subject originated from, derived from similar sources to those listed above, may be used to title the article instead.

If you may, you could say that "Paah" falls into this, since it's not from the Super Mario franchise — it's a sample specifically made to be used by other composers — nor was it named in the Super Mario games, but it DOES have an official name: the track's title from the sample sound CD it came from, which I feel is similar enough to track titles from soundtrack CDs like the Super Mario Odyssey Sound Selection I previously mentioned. Sure, the sample is not from another franchise per se (that is, it's not from any franchise), but it's still the most official name we have for the sample, and considering we're probably not ever going to get another name from the composers of the New Super Mario Bros. games, we might as well use "Paah" as the article name, similar to any other subject that didn't come from Super Mario.
Hewer pretty much said everything I just wanted to say here... rend (talk) (edits) 14:15, October 25, 2023 (EDT)

@Hewer I'm not so sure that rule applies here. The way it's worded, "...subjects that originate from other franchises and appear in crossovers...". While "franchise" is as vague as you can get, the definition of "crossover" almost always refers to combining different fictional characters, settings, universes, etc. (e.g. Mario & Sonic, Mario Hoops 3-on-3), not utilization of a commercial product for game development/music composition purposes. DrippingYellow (talk) 16:06, October 25, 2023 (EDT)

Look, no matter how you slice or dice it, "Paah" is still the official name of the sample/"instrument". As I stated in the crossed message above, "it's still the most official name we have for the sample, and considering we're probably not ever going to get another name from the composers of the New Super Mario Bros. games, we might as well use "Paah" as the article name, similar to any other subject that didn't come from Super Mario."
The truth is that this is a very unique case, since we haven't had an article on a sound sample (that wasn't made for Mario) before; we do have one because this (and two other sound samples) are recurring throughout all the New Super Mario Bros. games with an actual effect in the games. Regarding the name, it would make sense to just use the official name of the (most recurring) sound sample until Nintendo themselves gives us a name for the effect in the NSMB games, since that seems to be the closest thing we could do in our naming policy in regards to non-Mario subjects. I'm not entirely sure why this has to be such a big deal or what the problem is with simply using the sample's official title, or why it has to be moved to a more conjectural title. rend (talk) (edits) 19:01, October 25, 2023 (EDT)

But the article isn't about the Paah sample itself, the page starts with:

Many musical tracks in the New Super Mario Bros. series incorporate sound effects that enemies and objects on-screen may briefly react to. These sounds are usually vocal samples that punctuate the background music at the end of a melodic phrase.

The first mention of the "Paah" itself isn't even in bold. Wouldn't it make more sense to name it based on the professed subject of the article, and not a sample that just happens to comprise the majority of the feature? (Never mind that uses of the sample in Super Mario 64 and The Super Mario Bros. Movie are listed despite having no visible effect. IMO they should've been mentioned in the intro or trivia or something like that, not in their own sections)

And why is this a "big deal" for me? Because this article just sticks out like a sore thumb. It's trying to be both a history of instances of "Paah" in the Mario series and an article on how the enemies react to the music in the NSMB games (and only the NSMB games, for whatever reason) both at the same time. Since there are no other "instrument history" articles, I'm more inclined towards just the latter.

Sorry, I feel like I've been coming off as condescending and rude on here. My apologies - DrippingYellow (talk) 21:17, October 25, 2023 (EDT)

But the problem is that Paah is the closest thing we have to an official name, and if we did that move, we'd be moving from a kinda technically official name to a completely conjectural one. Conjectural names are best avoided whenever possible. Also, did I miss something or have you not actually suggested the name you want to change it to? Because if you're not even sure what else to call it, that probably says something about how good of an idea this move is. Hewer (talk · contributions · edit count) 05:28, October 26, 2023 (EDT)

IMO, "Closest thing we have to an official name" isn't exactly something we should strive for if it means giving the article a title that doesn't even really describe it. This isn't something being given a weird/generic name via a guide like Ghost or Egyptian Koopa, it's like naming the article for the "Homing Ground Pound" after the filename for the sound effect that plays when you use it.
Though, you do bring up a good point... what else could we name this? Maybe the filenames for the animations of the enemies reacting to the music might give us some pointers, though I haven't looked in the files, so I can't be too sure. I considered something like "List of character and environment reactions to background music", but I think we can both agree that's way too long of a title.

To be honest, this proposal is a mess. I really should've discussed this before starting the proposal, since my opinions have changed somewhat. I'm not nearly as partial to adding more instances from other games to the page, for example. If it's alright with you all, can we cancel this proposal? DrippingYellow (talk) 12:51, October 26, 2023 (EDT)

...honestly, "List of character and environment reactions to background music" isn't that bad to me. It's long, but every word in it's doing something. As for canceling the proposal, there's no shame in doing that so you can come at it again with a better-formed plan. I've done that before. Ahemtoday (talk) 12:57, October 26, 2023 (EDT)

If it's worth anything, the booklet of The 30th Anniversary Super Mario Bros. Music soundtrack CD had also discussed the music of New Super Mario Bros. and referred to the phenomenon as "「ワッワー」というコーラスのような音" (a sound like a chorus of "wah-wah"), as seen in this image (seems like they refer to "Paah" as "Wah"). If filenames mention anything like "wah-wah" or just "wah", then I think it's better to either use the sample's official track name like we're already doing or rename it to "Wah" or "Wah-wah" as per the 30th anniversary soundtrack's booklet (although "Wah" makes me think of Wario and Waluigi, and "wah-wah" makes me think of the more wellknown "wah-wah" trumpet). rend (talk) (edits) 13:19, October 26, 2023 (EDT)