Musical Note
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| Game(s) | Banjo-Kazooie Banjo-Tooie Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge Banjo-Pilot Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts |
| Usage | Opening Note Doors (Banjo-Kazooie) Learning new abilities (Banjo-Tooie/Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge) Earning extra Cheato Pages (Banjo-Pilot) Currency (Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts) |
   
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- “I'm a Note, one of a hundred on each world. Collect us to open the Note Doors!”
- —Musical Note, Banjo-Kazooie
Musical Notes, or simply Notes, are recurring collectibles in the Banjo-Kazooie series.
Location and uses[edit]
Although they normally have different uses in each game, they are generally used as a type of currency.
Banjo-Kazooie[edit]
Musical Notes first appear in Banjo-Kazooie, where they are used to open the Note Doors located throughout Gruntilda's Lair. Each world (aside from Spiral Mountain and the Lair itself) contains 100 Musical Notes, for a total of 900.
Like many things, collected Notes are not permanent, and all reappear when the world is exited or the player loses a life. Instead, they contribute to the world's "Note score" - how many Notes were collected in a single "play" of the world. For example, getting 10 Notes and leaving means the best Note score for that world is 10, while returning and collecting 30 Notes (whether they are the same ones, different ones, or any such combination) will update the score to 30. Successfully collecting all 100 Notes not only means that they no longer need to be collected on return visits (as the score becomes the maximum of 100), but grants Banjo and Kazooie an Extra Life.
Upon approaching a Note Door, all the current best Note scores for every world are added together to form a total. If this total is equal to or greater than the value on the Note Door, it is permanently opened. As a result, the duo cannot ascend Grunty's Lair without doing a reasonably good job of collecting Notes in every available world.
Bottles reminds Banjo and Kazooie of their best Note score when they enter a level or after they lose a life. He also congratulates them when they beat their previous best Note score or collect the 100th Note.
The inability to collect Notes permanently is explained as being caused by Gruntilda's magic. In truth, it is caused by the Nintendo 64 cartridge not having enough space to save whether each individual Note has been collected.
The Xbox Live Arcade port makes two changes to Notes:
- Notes are now permanently collected, removing the concept of a "Note score". Bottles will no longer mention beating a previous best score.
- If the player obtains every Note, they unlock the "Music Maestro" achievement (worth 25G).
Banjo-Tooie[edit]
In Banjo-Tooie, Musical Notes are now used by Jamjars to determine whether Banjo and Kazooie are fit to learn new abilities. As these abilities are necessary to advance through the Isle O' Hags, they essentially serve the same purpose of "overworld traversal gates". Like Note Doors, Jamjars only counts the cumulative total of collected Notes.
There are again 900 Notes in the game, but they are distributed differently.
- Notes now appear across the hub world (the Isle O' Hags).
- Notes are no longer found individually, but in Note Nests:
- A Note Nest is worth 5 Notes. There are 16 of them in each world.
- A Treble Clef is worth 20 Notes. There is only one per world.
- Notes are collected permanently. (Having so many fewer physical pickups allows the N64 to save them.)
Grunty's Revenge[edit]
In Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge, Musical Notes have a similar purpose as in Banjo-Tooie, as Banjo and Kazooie must collect them to learn new abilities from Bozzeye. Notes are usually scattered across the world map individually, but may rarely appear in a Note Nest. Every world still has 100 Notes, including the hub world Spiral Mountain. There are a total of 600 Notes to collect.
Banjo-Pilot[edit]
In Banjo-Pilot, there are four Musical Notes placed in a set location for every course. If the player obtains all of them, they receive more Cheato Pages after completing the race. By collecting a Musical Note, it briefly displays on screen with the other Musical Notes. When all four are collected, a small fanfare plays, and the four Notes individually slide offscreen.
They replace the K-O-N-G Letters from the 2003 Diddy Kong Pilot.
Nuts & Bolts[edit]
In Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Musical Notes appear in three varieties, each worth a different amount: copper (1), silver (5), and gold (10). They are used as currency in Showdown Town, and like previous appearances, are scattered around the worlds - 200 per world, and 900 in Showdown Town itself. If Banjo collects all the Musical Notes in Showdown Town, the player unlocks the "Loose Change" achievement (worth 20G).
Banjo and Kazooie can use Musical Notes to buy vehicle blueprints, tips from Bottles, Jiggys from Jolly Dodger, and upgrades for Boggy's Gym. He can even bribe Pikelet to keep the Showdown Town Police off his case, but this is a very bad idea, as this can leave him permanently unable to buy important things and thus get all the Jiggys.
1,900 worth of Notes can be obtained through traditional means; the rest are obtained through various methods, including Challenges, Klungo's Arcade, freeing Jinjos, capturing Minjos, and playing Jinjo Bingo. All told, there is a total of 5,230 Notes. In the L.O.G.'s Lost Challenges DLC, there are 120 Notes, increasing the total to 5,350 Notes. If the player buys every vehicle part and blueprint, they are left with a remainder of 9 Notes.
One of Bottles's offered hints is the Stop 'n' Swop Truth, at the impossible price of 6,000 Notes. Should it somehow be bought anyway, Bottle just mocks the player.
Gallery[edit]
Artwork[edit]
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Banjo-Kazooie -
Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge
Sprites[edit]
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Banjo-Kazooie -
Banjo-Kazooie (XBLA) -
Banjo-Pilot
