Music in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, part three
[Part one | Part two | Part three | Part four]
All right, back into the fray! It’s time to finish off the analysis of the twelve ocarina songs. We’re down to the last six.
As fans of the game will remember, adult Link learns six “warp songs” from Sheik. From a gameplay perspective, these songs work the same way as the earlier ones — the player must perform a trigger motive using the controller buttons, and then the game takes over and finishes the song. There are a few important differences, though.
First, the warp songs are orchestrated as soon as you trigger them. With the child songs I had to dig into Ocarina of Time’s background music to find chords to analyze; thankfully, the adult songs are harmonized right away.
Second, the trigger motives themselves are more varied. You might have noticed that all of the child songs feature a six-note motive, and that each of those motives is made up of a three-note idea, repeated twice. By contrast, the warp song trigger motives vary in length from five to eight notes.
Third, the warp songs all have the same call-and-response structure. Sheik states the trigger motive melody on the harp, and Link repeats it on the ocarina. The piece then quickly moves to a cadence, often with both instruments in unison. One whole piece is only six or eight bars long.
Fourth, the warp songs actually stop. Video game background music, like the pieces we’ve analyzed so far, loops indefinitely. This structure requires that they be harmonically open — in other words, they end on a dominant chord (or something similarly unresolved) so that the harmonic progression can cycle back to the beginning. The warp songs, by contrast, are self-contained and have full cadences at the end.
There’s a lot of fun music theory nuggets in here, so let’s move on to the specific examples. First up is “Prelude of Light”:
Take a look at the E♭ma7 chord in the sixth bar. Typically when there’s a chord built on scale degree ♭II, it’s a tritone substitution for the V chord. I’ve left this one as ♭IIma7 because it’s a major seventh chord, not a dominant one, and therefore functions a bit differently; it doesn’t have the tension-filled tritone between the third and the seventh.
So how does it function? I say it’s as a subdominant minor. Take the upper three notes of the Em7 and E♭ma7 chords and you’ll have G-B-D and G-B♭-D — G major and G minor. Analyzing those gives us IV-iv-I, which is a very common pop music cadence.1 I think that’s the harmony Kondo is after here; the bass notes are just there to provide a chromatic descent to the tonic.
I want to look at these next two pieces together. Here’s “Minuet of Forest”:
And here’s “Serenade of Water”:
Look at the Roman numeral analysis — they have the exact same chord progression!2
This may seem like a bit of a copout, but remember that Kondo wrote the first four bars of both pieces with the same five pitches. “Serenade of Water” had available scale degrees one, three, five, six, and one. If you’ve been reading this whole series, you’re now familiar with the minor triad and the raised Dorian sixth that a D tonic provides. “Minuet of Forest,” though, uses E as its tonic, so the pitches are scale degrees seven, two, four, five, and seven. Those are not easy pitches to write with, to put it mildly — and, indeed, the trigger motive sounds a bit off. If you play it without the chords, it sounds like it might be in G major. The interest of the piece, then, comes from the tension between the melody and its slightly awkward harmonization.
Speaking of awkward harmonization, let’s look at “Nocturne of Shadow”:
This one is a doozy — it’s easily the least tonal of all the songs in Ocarina of Time. For the first four bars there’s no functional harmony to speak of; the strings move in chromatic parallel fourths and preclude any definite key center. This harmonic uncertainty is what gives the piece its characteristic uneasiness.
My favorite part is the F in bar 2 (and again in 4). It’s coincident with a A♭-D♭ fourth in the harmony, which creates a D♭ major triad (D♭-F-A♭) — the most innocent harmonization imaginable. In context, though, it sounds incredibly dissonant. Kondo has pulled off a very cool trick here — it’s quite hard to make a major chord sound “wrong.”
One more thing about “Nocturne.” The ♭VI-♭VII progression — which I discussed in detail in “Koji Kondo’s favorite cadence” — is used twice in a row here, one a half step higher than the other. This is a technique that an old theory professor calls “planing,” and is a common move in jazz — see, for example, Charlie Parker’s “Blues for Alice,” which has four consecutive ii-V progressions that descend chromatically. The planing here is another example of how broad Kondo’s influences are.
Next let’s take a quick look at “Requiem of Spirit”:
As you can see, I’ve written this one out fully instead of doing my usual attempt at a piano reduction. The top staff features the melody, played on the harp and ocarina and doubled by strings; the other three contain the various accompanying string parts.
Harmonically there’s nothing to write home about here; I just want to draw your attention to the second staff. Starting in the third bar, you’ll notice that there’s a contrapuntal idea exactly identical to the trigger motive, but at half the speed. (If you’re not a great music reader, you can verify this with careful listening; listen for the string part that begins right when the ocarina takes the melody). This is what music theorists call rhythmic augmentation — the extension of a musical idea in time. Normally counterpoint like this is difficult to do well, but since the motive here is just an arpeggiated D minor triad, there’s not really any way to mess up the harmonies. Anyway, nothing too special — just a fun bit of trivia.
Finally, here’s “Bolero of Fire”:
I’ve transcribed the percussion part here as well, and if you’re a classical music fan, you can see why. In fact, you’re probably already laughing.
What am I talking about? There’s a snare drum ostinato in Maurice Ravel’s famous Boléro which is repeated ad nauseam throughout the entire piece. Here’s a sample:
Kondo, as you can hear, has appropriated this pattern for his own bolero. Sneaky!
Well, that does it for our in-depth look at the twelve ocarina songs. In the next and last post of this series, I’ll wrap up with some general observations about the music and a few tidbits about the in-game ocarina as an instrument. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little project.
- See, for example, Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” or Oasis’ “Don’t Look Back in Anger.”
- Well, to be fair, “Minuet of Forest” actually just has a bare fifth for its tonic chord (E-B) instead of a full triad (E-G-B), but I’m inferring minor harmony from all the ♭3s and ♭7s in the melody.
Easily by far the best one in the series, Dan!
Ravelle’s Bolero is fantastic, and it’s a nice little nod to classical music that Kondo’s put in there. What a pro. =)
Your breakdown of requiem of spirit is great too - the rhythmic augmentation is hidden away in there, but you found it, and it only increases my appreciation of Kondo’s work.
The “wrong” major chord in Nocture of Shadow is really interesting, isn’t it. I don’t think it would be visible without looking at the score like this - and I think it only feels wrong because its on the weak beat of the bar, and with all the parallel chromatic movement, the listeners ear expects the resolution down. Aint it weird that we expect a major chord to resolve down to a (correct me if I’m wrong) Csus4 chord… what kind of resolution is THAT?
I know you left out Roman Numerals from the 1st 4 bars because it isn’t acting in any way like function harmony, but I think maybe straight chord names might have been nice. Took me about 5minutes to work out the DbM->Csus4… although, I am horribly slow…
What’s next? =P
Hey Ben — fancy seeing you in here. ;)
I avoided chord names in the first half of “Nocturne” because I don’t think the harmony is even intended to be triadic, let alone functional. If anything I would have written something like Gb4 G4 Ab4 G4, but I’m not familiar enough with quartal harmonic analysis to pull that off.
As for the Db major chord that pops out — it falls on beat one, which I feel as metrically strong, but I can see what you’re saying. On beat three the two lower notes move down to G and C, and if we want to analyze that triadically with the melody note we will indeed get Csus4 (C-F-G). I’m not really sure what harmony would have made that F not sound “wrong;” the melody is crafted such that it sounds out of place (to my ears) no matter what.
Anyway. I have a bit more to say about music in Ocarina; after one more post on it, I’ll probably write about, you know, video games for a bit. But I’m sure I’ll be back to music soon enough. :)
Pfft! Videogames? What r those?
I agree with Ben that this is your best one yet. Just terrific and very informative.
I’m curious to know how you think the scores for Wind Waker and Twilight Princess compare to Ocarina? They seem more varied and ambitious to me, though I know Kondo had collaborative help.
I’m not asking for more analysis posts - though I’d love to read them ;-) - but I’m curious as to your opinion of these post-Ocarina titles.
That’s an interesting question. I was very focused on small details in this series of posts, so I haven’t thought much about the score more generally.
The main thing that struck me about Twilight Princess its incessant reuse of that one motive from the Hyrule Field theme. I think I counted it in four different pieces, but I’d have to go back to be sure. It reminds me of how the Super Smash Bros. Brawl theme shows up all over the various modes. I have a number of half-formed ideas about this, but I’d need to do some more analysis first.
Also interesting is that the TP Hyrule Field theme, based on my unfocused listening, seems to be based on Ocarina’s Hyrule Field theme, which is itself based on the original Legend of Zelda theme. I’d like to do a post sometime tracing the musical ideas through these three pieces.
I can’t speak to Wind Waker, as I haven’t played through it yet. There is a copy in the mail, though — after you mentioned that it was your favorite of all Zelda scores, I had to check it out. :) I’ll get back to you on that one.
Anyway, I’m glad to hear that you and Ben have enjoyed these. I’d like to make this sort of thing an occasional feature on the site, and it’s good to know that other people are getting something out of it too. I appreciate the comments and support.
PS - I’m pretty sure the Kakariko Village theme in TP has that bVI-bVII-I progression I talked about back in my essay on Kondo’s favorite cadence…
Another musician here. I like what you’re doing. Here’s my take.
Nocturne of Shadows:
First, I would’ve notated the opening harmony f sharp-b. It highlights the octave in the melody and the rising inflection to g-c, though both notations are correct.
Perhaps I’ve looked at too much Schenker lately, but what jumps out to me in this one is the rising contour of the bass line, from the initial g flat to the ending d flat. I see the a flat-d flat as parallel neighbor tones. But the chromatic shifts in both lines do interrupt the motion. The f in the melody clearly sounds wrong after the prevalence of b.
Requiem of Spirit:
I’m surprised you didn’t note how the bass line follows the same basic pattern as the Nocturne for the first two bars. I’d've written the third lower string part as g-e-f sharp and kept the d in the bass for the last two bars. Then, the harmony could be i, with the suspension b flat-a and the changing tone g-e-f sharp. A classic interpretation issue; both ways have their merits. I like the i interpretation because it lines up with the melody and sustains a certain simplicity in the piece, which is entirely based on the d minor triad.
That’s all I’ve got for now, but I love seeing this! I’ve always been a big fan of the music in Ocarina of Time. Looking at the written-out plainchant development of the Song of Time, I was amazed how well it works out. I’m also enjoy the music from Hyrule Castle Town; maybe you could check that out, too. Thanks for a great read.
Hey, Newcomer.
You’re absolutely right about the F#-B harmonization in “Nocturne.” I need to do another editing pass of my musical examples to fix a couple of mistakes — I mixed up chord names in “Prelude of Light,” for example. I’ll roll your correction in and credit you when I get around to an update.
I think I see where you’re going on your analysis of the bass line, but I have a hard time hearing it as a continuous ascension with neighbor tones; to me there seems to be a pretty severe harmonic schism between the first four bars, with the oscillating bass line and non-triadic harmony, and the cadence in the last four. It’s a weird harmonization any way you slice it, though, and I feel a bit out of my league on that one so I’m not attached to the analysis I gave. I do think you’re onto something with why that F sounds so off — the prevalence of B makes us acutely aware of the tritone.
Regarding “Requiem of Spirit”: You’re right that the first four bars use the same 1-2-3-2 bass pattern — “Song of Storms” does too, incidentally — but the harmony seemed different enough that I wasn’t sure it was worth remarking on. I might throw it on my bulleted list in part four. As for the last bars of “Requiem,” I think your analysis is much more logical. Looking at it now, I’m not entirely sure why I didn’t keep the D in the bass, when that’s clearly where it belongs. :) I’ll fix that up when I update the post, too.
It seems like the more I write about Ocarina of Time music, the more there is to say about it. I may revisit it down the line and cover some of the other music — Kakariko Village, Hyrule Castle Town, Kokiri Forest, Zora’s Domain, Gerudo Valley…there’s a lot to chew on. I plan to do an overview of Zelda overworld music at some point too. One day!
Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting. You (and Ben, and Michael) are exactly the audience I had imagined reading this series, and I’m encouraged that that audience that actually exists!