What qualifies as music?

[Fawfulthegreat64]

I'm not sure where else to ask this question but basically, I know music submissions aren't allowed, but where exactly is the line? Like say there's a short jingle that I'm 99% sure is unused, and is stored as a sound effect, and another that IS used, but is also stored as a sound effect and in-game it plays over the normal BGM as part of a boss attack's sfx. Do those count as soundtrack? For the first example, I have a video that demonstrates what it is (seems unused): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4goT9wzAoM

The other is basically the SMB Starman theme that plays during one of Bowser Memory M's attacks (over the battle theme). Like how the starman theme works in Mario Kart. Should these be omitted from my submissions because they loop? (I need to update the pending submission anyway because it's disorganized)

[Oddbrother]

Does this also include voice clips used exclusively in music, such as the ones in Konami's X-Men?

[Yawackhary]

For the OP's examples, I'll still class that as music. Even though it is stored in the sound effects folder, it sounds like music to me. 

The second example, the Starman/Invincibility/Power Star/Star/whatever it is called this week theme is still music as the original song has appeared on many Mario soundtracks over the years.

As a rule of thumb, most jingles but not all are composed by the same musicians as the ones that do the music whether past or present. The exceptions are if it is made by someone else as in not a composer or in very old games the programmer. Now, not all sound effects are a straight play once routine but a majority of them are. There are looping ones, usually in racing games due to the car engine or skidding.

As for the second post. Do you mean samples or voices that are played with music in the background? Samples are a very sketchy thing. If it is made for the game, only for the game and can be extracted within it without the music, I suppose so but quite a lot of samples in games are taken from a library including ones that you have to pay. The latter thing I'm not sure myself. I give an example, on a mobile phone game called Bullseye that is based on the gameshow, some of the voices still have the background music included in them because they were taken from the show and the host couldn't redo them.

[Fawfulthegreat64]

Well, I omitted these from my submission anyway to be safe

[Oddbrother]

Great! I'll start gathering, then.