Canzone in maschera (Song in the mask): it was the first ever game of Sarabanda. The competitor had to guess a song of his favorite singer, widely revisited by Saraband in such a way as to make it difficult to guess. Three songs were performed (one for each competitor). If the competitor guessed, he earned a point, otherwise it remained at zero. Any earned points were retained for the next game. It was present only in the first episode of the first edition.
Fuori uno (Out of one): it was introduced a couple of weeks after the start of the program. In this game the elimination of one of the competitors was immediately foreseen, replaced by the current champion. It was composed of individual questions of musical culture (the competitors had only three seconds to answer), where those who first committed three errors were rejected (the non-answer to a question was considered an error). It was present only in the first edition and for the first part of the summer one, until 1 August 1998.
Spaccasecondo: replaced
Fuori uno from August 24, 1998; the competitors, one at a time, had to guess two reasons in the shortest possible time on a limit of five seconds each. The game was therefore structured in two series of reasons to listen and try to guess; after the first series (called "first round of music" by Papi) was shown the provisional ranking and proceeded to the second series starting from the first in the standings to the last. The competitor, once booked, had five seconds to say the title; in the event of an expired response time or an error, five seconds of penalty were given. The "slower" competitor was eliminated, that is, the one that took the most time to guess his two reasons, replaced by the champion who took his position. From January 2002, he also saw the current champion busy (thus losing the preliminary game feature) which always took place in the post furthest from the presenter. This game, to avoid frequent parity situations, presented an approximation of 0.05 seconds until the fourth edition, 0.02 seconds in the fifth edition and 0.1 seconds in the sixth edition. On 13 March 2003 it was canceled due to the shortening of the duration of the program. It is resumed in the special edition of 2017, returning to an approximation of 0.02 seconds.
Countdown: introduced in the 2003-2004 edition in progress and present from October until the end of the edition. The participants, including the champion, were involved together and had to guess three songs in 1 minute and 30 seconds, without time stopped (only the conductor could stop him), to pass the turn. The competitor, once booked, had five seconds to give the answer. The game ended when three out of four competitors guessed three tunes each, eliminating what had not yet arrived. In case the time was up, if two or more competitors did not guess the three tunes necessary to pass the turn, went to the play-off whatever their score had been.
Extracanto: used in the 2009 edition, it provided for the broadcasting of a video where a foreign tourist visiting a city in Italy sang a song he was listening to on headphones; at the end of the registration the first competitor who booked could try to guess the title of the song, qualifying for the next round if he had guessed. In case he had not guessed, he could no longer give the title by allowing others to book. The last competitor still in the race was eliminated and replaced by the current champion. It was present from the beginning until July 24. '''''Non c'è due senza Teo''''' (There is no two without Teo): the competitor had to answer a multiple choice question. The correct answer was worth three points, if he was not sure of the given answer he could choose a second one, thus having a point in case one of them was correct; the wrong answer made a point lose. After a certain number of questions the competitor with the lowest score was eliminated and replaced by the current champion. He replaced the Extracanto from 24 July 2009 until the end of the season.
Pentagramma (Music pentagram): through a series of questions, riddles and songs performed by Saraband, associated with the notes to choose, which in turn corresponded to a letter, were composed the words of a phrase taken from a famous song, which you could try to guess only after having answered the single question addressed to all competitors, by reservation. The competitor who answered the question correctly, after discovering the letter (on the model of the famous game
Wheel of Fortune), then, had five seconds to give the verse of the Pentagram or could continue to choose the remaining notes. In the event of an expired response time (five seconds) or incorrect response, the competitor could no longer answer the question by allowing others to make a reservation. If no one gave the correct answer or the time ran out, a letter was found, but the point was not assigned to anyone, as no one could give the answer and the next note was chosen by the competitor who had chosen the previous one. The first note of the game was always chosen by the champion. The solution of the sentence was worth five points and sanctioned the end of the game. In the fifth edition were made small changes to the game: who was wrong to answer the question, gave a point to opponents and the solution of the verse was worth three points and no more than five. In the first edition, with a three-way formula, this game was immediately accessible to the final: the winner of the Pentagramma had to wait from behind the scenes who among the two remaining competitors won the next game, that is the
Asta musicale. From August 1998 only the competitor with the lowest score was eliminated. This game, present from the first edition, was canceled during the fifth edition and replaced by the game of Gong. It is shown in the special edition of 2017.
Gong: introduced during the fifth edition, from November 2001 to January 2002, replacing the
Pentagramma, it consisted of finding, among the boxes of the game graphics, those that depicted a gong; when a competitor found one, he had to guess within a certain time limit a number of motifs that were variable and if they were all guessed, a sum of money was also won which varied according to the number of reasons to be guessed; if you chose a box that did not represent a gong you had to answer a question of musical culture, all the competitors could book (as happened in the game of the Pentagramma) and who answered correctly got a point. The game ended when all the gongs, whose number were variable to bet in episode, were found; the competitor who had the lowest score was eliminated.
KaraTeo: introduced in 2009 alone, the contestants, one at a time, had to guess the word of a song's text from its initial letter. In case of an exact answer, you earned a point, in case of an incorrect answer, anyone among the other competitors could make a reservation to answer. Fragments of text of three different songs were proposed, for a total of twelve words to be guessed (four to song). The competitor with the lowest score was eliminated. It was present from the beginning until June 29.
10×10: the competitor had to guess ten tunes as quickly as possible on a ten-second limit because, in case of an error or an expired response time, ten seconds of penalty were given. The competitor who had accumulated more seconds was eliminated. It replaced the KaraTeo from 29 June 2009 until the end of the edition.
Asta musicale (Musical auction): through a ridged rhyme riddle (except at the beginning of the first edition, where it was a simple clue, and at the beginning of the seventh edition, where the riddle was placed in the form of an enigma), in which no word of the title could appear of the song to guess, you could deduce the hidden title of a song by listening to a number of notes starting from ten and playing alternately the number of notes down, until the competitors (initially one in the first edition, two in the following, three in the last) they did not pass the hand, saying "step" or "I leave", or at the achievement of a single note. After listening to the notes (or the note) the competitor had five seconds to give the title. At that point, guessing was gained a point, but mistaken or allowing the response time to expire it was delivered to opponents. The possibility of passing the hand, if you did not know the answer, was precluded only to the competitor who was first read the clue, which was then to try to guess. Who had already identified the title was enough to say "The soothsayer with a (note)" and so hazard the answer immediately with the help of a single note played by Papi with the piano (in the 2009 edition was the teacher Idà to play the notes ). Special cases were the first episodes of the first edition, in which the clue was shown only after one of the two competitors had won the auction. After a fixed number of riddles (variable from four to eight depending on the editions) the competitors with the best score qualified for the next round (in the version with four) or went in the final (in the three-way version). In the first edition and for a part of the summer one (in the version with two), those who reached first three points went to the final. During the seventh edition, between November and December 2003, for a short period, following the suppression of the
Sessanta secondi, in the version with four, two competitors were eliminated, those with the lowest score, qualifying the final two. The
Asta was present in all editions, with the exceptions of the
Scala & vinci and
Super Sarabanda versions.
Sessanta secondi (Sixty seconds): appearing for the first time with the beginning of the 2001-2002 edition and initially called Fuori i secondi, it involved the three competitors one at a time and consisted of guessing the greatest number of tunes in a minute, reserving to give the title it stopped even the time, which flowed backwards. After booking, they had the usual five seconds to say the title; the competitor could also say "pass", but the reason could not be recovered. After five seconds of listening, if the competitor was not booked, the motive was stopped and the title could not be given. Whoever guessed less was eliminated, the remaining two took part in the final game. The champion always played last, knowing already the threshold for the passage of the turn. At the end of the 2001-2002 edition, on May 22, the game was canceled due to the reduction of the duration of the broadcast, and then returned during the 2002-2003 edition, from October 21, due to the lengthening of the program. In the 2003-2004 edition, it was only present between October and November, taking the place of the ''Stop 'n' Go'' and then definitively canceled after about a month. It was reproposed in the special edition of 2017 only in the last episode. '''''Stop 'n' Go''''': it replaced
Sessanta seconi from the start of the 2003-2004 edition, remaining among the games for just under a month (between September and October). The regulation of the game was completely the same as that of its predecessor with the only difference that time ran without stopping (only the conductor could stop it) even when the competitor was booked to say the title of the song; the traditional
Sessanta secondi formula was then restored.
Triello: he made his debut in the 2003-2004 edition, remaining present from December until the end of the edition. The rules of the game were quite the same as that of the
Sessanta secondi with two differences: simultaneously involved all three competitors remained instead of one at a time and those who missed or delayed the response time after having booked, gave the point to the opponents.
7×30: as the name suggests, the final game, never modified, consisted of guessing seven motifs in half a minute and thus winning the prize money, or guessing in greater number of the adversary to take the title of champion and return the following episode. The contestants played each one with their own grid of motifs, which were alternately heard; even if, from the sixth edition, towards the end of the game, in crucial situations, the closest competitor was kept to the prize pool, thus making the other competitor listen to more reasons in a row. The reasons were mainly composed of six Italian songs and a foreign one, with a different level of difficulty, evaluated with the popularity of the single songs, often of increasing difficulty depending on the order, however leaving a position between the most difficult reasons. fifth and seventh position. The most easily guessable songs used to cyclically occur in the game during the episodes, whereas the most difficult ones were almost always one-off. Once the button was pressed, the contestants stopped the stopwatch, which ran backwards, after which they had five seconds to try the answer: alternatively they could say "step" and freeze the motif, trying to guess it after listening to the missing grid motifs. , compatibly with the seconds available. In the event of a wrong answer or an expired response time, the prize money could no longer be won, but only to aim for the title. If the two competitors had guessed both their seven reasons, the prize went to those who remained with more seconds (this fact never occurred). The grid was graphically represented by seven vertical boxes per competitor and was listened starting from the bottom (first motif) to the top (seventh motif); in the first three episodes of the first edition the grid was heard from top to bottom while in the first episode it was not even present in graphics. This game turns out to be the most used by the program since it was only missing in the Scala & vinci version.
Spareggio (Play-off): in all the situations of equality between two or more competitors, one or more non-consecutive reasons to be guessed were proposed (depending on the number of competitors involved); pressing the button, the competitor was saved giving the correct answer or eliminated in case of an expired response time or wrong answer. Competitors who did not have to support the play-off usually fell behind the post. In the rare cases in which no competitor booked to give the answer, after about 10–15 seconds of listening, the presenter interrupted the motif and another was proposed.
Spareggione: in the editions conducted by Papi, from the fifth onwards, for the sixty seconds and the 7 × 30, the
Spareggio was played to the best of five tracks to be guessed (thus winning, who first guessed three reasons). In case of an incorrect answer or an expired time, the point was assigned to the opponent. In the
Sessanta secondi, in case the two challengers of the champion had achieved the same score, the
Spareggione between them was disputed before the champion himself started the game.
Games in the Scala e vinci version The competitors competing in each episode in this version were seven, each equipped with a small monitor on the station. The jackpot took shape during the episode based on the progress of the following games:
Il gioco delle notine (The game of notines) The competitors, one by one, had to choose a
Notina (which through gestures could give indications or mislead), which extracted from a pocket of the miniskirt a CD on which was depicted a figure which was associated with a question of a musical nature; a song fragment, who was the first to be booked and answered correctly, passed the turn and helped to increase the prize money of the number corresponding to the one shown on the CD. In the event of a wrong answer, the competitor could no longer answer the question, allowing others to make a reservation. Among the seven CDs to choose from there was a special, called "jolly" on which there was the logo of the program instead of the figure: whoever found it automatically passed the turn and increased the jackpot of 3,000 euros. The last competitor still in the race was eliminated.
Titolo nascosto (Hidden title) It was necessary to guess the title of a song of which only the number of words was known. After discovering a word, Papi offered a sum to his liking to accumulate at the prize money in case of identification of the title. The more words were discovered, the more the figure diminished. Those who booked and gave the exact title, passed the turn and raised the prize money of the amount offered by Papi, in case of wrong answer, the competitor could no longer try to guess, allowing others to book. The last competitor still in the race was eliminated.
Nota stonata (Note out of tune) A series of individual questions of musical culture were asked by the host, to which the five remaining competitors had to answer "yes" or "no", where the two mistakes were eliminated. When there were three competitors (two from February 6, 2004) the Notines were taking place, each affirming something true regarding the music world, only two (then only one) claimed something false. Who among the competitors still in the race identified the false statement (and therefore the Notata stonata) was qualified to the final game, who was booked when the statement was true was eliminated. It was possible that the Notines took over even if the number of competitors had not been reached, in fact after a certain amount of time and after a certain number of questions a siren was triggered that ended the series of questions.
Scala musicale (Musical scale) It consisted of guessing the title of the fragments of eight songs (the first seven represented graphically by the musical notes, while the eighth from the jackpot). The competitor, in case he won the prize, could choose to double it by listening to a ninth song. In case he had not guessed it would have lost the entire sum won (the doubling was never attempted by any competitor). There were also two aid to complete the climb, usable in case of error or uncertainty by the competitor but only usable after having guessed the remaining songs (in the version with two competitors the first who could benefit from the aid was the one with less seconds) . Initially they were the option (they were affected five seconds of the song in question and then were given five titles of songs or the same author or very similar, of which only one was correct) and the change (they were made to listen to seven seconds of another song instead of the changed one). The latter was then replaced by a second option from February 6, 2004. The time available was 50 seconds, which flowed backwards and could be stopped by booking. It was not allowed to say "step" and listen to the songs more than once. In the beginning this game involved two competitors, who made the first mistake or did not know the answer and had exhausted the aid or did not exploit properly a help was eliminated and could not continue climbing leaving the title of champion to the opponent, while in the case both had guessed the eight songs the prize money and the title of champion went to those who had more seconds and only he could try to double it. The finalists were then reduced to one from 6 February, which automatically became the champion. In the version to a competitor, the aid was immediately usable, without having to wait to guess all the remaining song fragments.
Games in the Super Sarabanda - Il torneo dei campioni version Super Sarabanda - Il torneo dei campioni (Super Sarabanda - The Champions Tournament) was a tournament in which the contestants were among the strongest champions in the program's history. This tournament was divided into two phases: the first, which lasted 12 episodes, saw four champions compete against each other, of which only two could take points; at the end of this first phase, the seven champions who had scored the most points and a fished out among the excluded, moved on to the second phase. The second phase lasted 8 episodes and saw the remaining champions compete in direct matches, starting from the quarter-finals and then moving on to the semi-finals until the two finals between the two remaining champions. To win the tournament you had to win both finals, otherwise in the case of a final won a head playoff was necessary. The prize money for the winner was €250,000. The games were only two:
Terzetti: involved four champions together and consisted of guessing three sequential motifs, those guessing earned one point, the wrong guy gave the opportunity to others to book and respond. Those who reached two points qualified for 7 × 30.
7 × 30 In the two finals the
10 × 50, a similar version of the 7 × 30, was used instead.
Spareggione: was played to the best of the three reasons (therefore the winner was the one who first guessed two).
Games in the Special 2017 The tournament was structured on three episodes, broadcast on Tuesday every week. The first two episodes saw four historical champions of the program compete against four new competitors (a total of eight historic champions and eight new competitors were involved). The winners of the first two episodes qualified directly for the final phase, while the third and final finalist was the winner of the third episode, contested among ten of the fourteen eliminated from the previous two episodes. The final phase was played at the end of the third episode. Among the games there were the returns of the Spaccasecondo, the Pentagramma (with the rules used until the fourth edition) and the
Sessanta secondi (used only in the final episode to decree the two finalists) while they were confirmed both the
Asta musicale that the
7 × 30. In some cases the classic
Spareggio with a dry pattern was also used. Change of name instead for the
Spareggione, become
Spaccaduello (used only in the final episode to select five of the ten best competitors of the previous two episodes). Three new games:
La materia (Matter): A reason was made to listen to the five competitors, the first to book and give the correct answer could choose one of the eight subjects available. If the competitor did not guess the reason, another competitor could be booked until the correct answer was given. The chosen subject consisted of three questions to which the competitor had to answer in thirty seconds. In the case of a wrong answer even to only one of the questions or time expired, the competitor was eliminated. The first two competitors to make mistakes (or alternatively the last remaining in the race) were eliminated. Competitors who answered the three questions correctly qualified for the next game.
La scommessa (The bet): The three remaining competitors had to bet on the driver's proposals how many reasons (from a minimum of one to a maximum of five) would have been able to guess. The motives lasted four seconds, after which the competitor had to give the title; in case of a wrong answer or no reply, the next reason was passed. The two competitors who, by booking, had bet to guess the highest number of reasons and who in turn would have won their bet, or they would have guessed as many reasons as they had expected to guess, qualify to 7x30.
Duello (Duel): He saw the two competitors who risked the elimination competing, involving them together and consisted in the guessing of the trio of songs (three motifs placed in sequence). The Duel was played at the best of five trio to guess, so he won, who first guessed three trio. In case of error or time expired the point was assigned to the opponent. This game was proposed after the
Spaccasecondo, the
Pentagramma and the
Asta Musicale. == History of the program ==