Studio MDHRStudio MDHR’s indie babe Cuphead might well be one of the most punishing video games of the last decade, but the run-and-gun platform/shooter is also a glorious treat for the eyes and ears thanks to its lovingly recreated 1930’s cartoon aesthetic.
The good news is that you, yes you, can now download the sheet music for Cuphead’s glorious, award winning tracks in PDF form. Available here, you can grab everything from the Barbershop Quartet arrangements of “Don’t Deal With the Devil” and “A Quick Break” to the full band recordings.
Calling all plucky performers!! Official Cuphead sheet music has arrived. We've prepared High School, Professional, and Barbershop Quartet charts of Cuphead's most iconic tunes for jazz lovers of all ages and skill levels.
Available now at https://t.co/TH0Pkeh2W6 pic.twitter.com/aFKLqDbeGh
— Studio MDHR (@StudioMDHR) August 26, 2019
MDHR has even arranged the sheet music in a way that encourages school bands around the world to get in on the fun. IGN notes that the scores have essentially been separated into “difficulty levels”. The developer wrote in a tweet that they “prepared High School, Professional, and Barbershop Quartet charts of Cuphead’s most iconic tunes for jazz lovers of all ages and skill levels.”
I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather have heard my school’s band playing tracks from Cuphead when I was growing up. There are only so many times you can hear a badly-performed arrangement of “Ode To Joy” before you start to lose the will to live.
It’d be great if this kind of thing took off in school though, as the chance to play arrangements of some of the best pieces in gaming would surely encourage more kids to get involved with school bands. Just imagine getting to perform the main theme from The Legend of Zelda, or Uncharted.
Then again, would kids today really find that cool? My finger isn’t exactly on the pulse anymore, but I like to think kids these days see gaming as a much less nerdy pastime, even if school bands are still frowned upon by the popular elite.
Obviously, my main advice to any kids out there who’d be interested in joining a school band to play video game pieces would be this; screw what anyone else thinks and do what makes you happy.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.