Music in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, part three
April 14, 2008
[Part one | Part two | Part three | Part four | Part five | Part six]
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”:
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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”:
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And here’s “Serenade of Water”:
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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” (thanks, Newcomer, for the notation suggestion):
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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” (thanks again to Newcomer for a minor correction):
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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”:
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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:
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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.
[Part one | Part two | Part three | Part four | Part five | Part six]
- 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.
24 comments
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
by Ben Abraham on April 15, 2008 at 12:25 am #
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. :)
by Dan Bruno on April 15, 2008 at 12:54 am #
Pfft! Videogames? What r those?
by Ben Abraham on April 15, 2008 at 1:44 am #
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.
by Michael Abbott on April 16, 2008 at 8:54 pm #
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…
by Dan Bruno on April 17, 2008 at 12:25 am #
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.
by Newcomer on April 19, 2008 at 9:30 pm #
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!
by Dan Bruno on April 19, 2008 at 11:34 pm #
Hello again,
Once again, some really interesting material, and I owe you a debt of gratitude for taking the time to transcribe these tunes so they can be discussed with this level of detail.
Since I have a bit of a different perspective on some of these analyses, I just thought I’d shed some light on some of the chord progressions that might have appeared ambiguous at first (although I can’t promise that they won’t remain ambiguous after I’m done).
In the Prelude of Light, the cadence is not really dealt with much in classical music, but is often seen in jazz. The best way to analyze this progression is using a method called “modal interchange.” This method means that the chord in question (the bIImaj7) is “borrowing” tones from a parrallel mode. In this case, it is borrowing tones from the locrain mode, and then resolving them back to the ionian. There is sort of a version of this in classical music called “mode mixture,” but that usually only pertains to the major and parrallel minor (or aeolian) modes. This analysis system (developed at Berklee College of Music) simply expands that principal to include other modes.
This “modal interchange” also explains the other ambiguous cadence you mentioned, the bVI-bVII-I. The bVI chord uses borrowed tones from the aeolian mode, and the bVII chord uses borrowed tones from the mixolydian mode, which cadences to the ionian. This progression is also very popular in jazz and pop music.
I did have one problem with the parrellel you drew to the “Minuet of the Forest” and the “Serenade of Water.” The E chord at the beginning of the “Minuet of the Forest” has no minor third, and therefore shouldn’t be analyzed as E minor. Instead it can be thought of as V7/IV, since there is a dominant 7 in the chord. However, since there is no third present (as no G is available in the 5-tone collection) it does remain somewhat ambiguous. In contrast, the “Serenade of Water” has a very obvious minor tonality, as the first measure is a minor arpeggio.
The last thing I wanted to comment on is in the “Nocturne of Shadows.” I just think this piece is really cool, particularly in the first four bars where Kondo moves chromatically around three second inverstion triads. The perfect fourth in the bass creates so much ambiguity, but the melody hits a tone that completes the triad each time on the strong beat. This is the most complex thing that Kondo was able to do with the 5-tone restriction, and in my opinion that makes it the most creative. Incredible.
This is the last comment I will be making, as I have to prepare my own presentation now, but I will no doubt be mentioning your site as an excellent resource for more information on the music of this game. I hope you found my comments interesting and informative. Feel free to comment on them as well.
Thanks again,
Ben
by Ben Bromfield on December 18, 2008 at 12:56 pm #
Hey Ben,
Good points on modal interchange. I’m familiar with the idea — I studied it in my college too, and also when I did a program over at yours — but I admittedly didn’t use it much when doing these analyses. In hindsight, I seem to have given a pretty roundabout explanation for why those chords work, without actually explaining how to get to them. So, thanks! Hooray for Berklee! :-)
Regarding “Minuet” and “Serenade”: You’re right that the former piece has no minor third. I actually pointed out my reasoning for the comparison in one of the post’s footnotes — I’m inferring minor harmony from the flatted thirds and sevenths in the melody. It’s slightly ambiguous without the fully developed chord, but I don’t see it as too much of a stretch.
Totally agreed on “Nocturne of Shadows.” It’s one of my personal favorites from this game too — a very neat bit of work that’s more harmonically complex than is immediately evident.
Thanks for your contributions here, and I hope your presentation went well. I hope you come back soon!
by Dan Bruno on December 21, 2008 at 5:36 pm #
Great series, i think the music is half the reason why the Ocarina of Time did so well.
I am enquiring your thoughts on Minuet of Forest. I was recently transcribing this song and got caught up when it moves from bar 4 to 5.
To me, it sounds like there is a slight pause at the end of bar 4 before bar 5 begins.
I thought it may be the key signature changing to 7/8 for that bar or perhaps the phrase starts on the second 16th note of bar 5.
I’m quite new to trascribing, so any feedback on this would be great.
Thanks
by Jonathan Connell on January 29, 2009 at 7:58 am #
Hi Jonathan,
I hear the pause you refer to, but I think I would call it a brief ritardando rather than a change in meter. I probably could have put a rubato marking at the beginning, but these were quick and lazy transcriptions. :-)
by Dan Bruno on January 29, 2009 at 8:35 pm #
Thank you so much for posting this little series, I’ve learned so much from your analysis. I have one criticism though; I think that the left hand part of the “Nocturne of Shadow” has more notes than your transcription. I believe that it is more quartal. Underneath your written bass notes it I think it goes ” C# D ,Eb D ,C# D ,Eb D ,”. I’m not sure but that sounds more right to me than just fourths. This also helps explain how dissonant that Db major chord sounds, because it’s really a Db/Eb.
by Tim Wisdom on June 16, 2009 at 3:09 pm #
Hey Tim,
Good ear! I think you’re absolutely right. I’m kind of lazy when it comes to updating the transcriptions, but when I get a chance I’ll put it right and credit you. Thanks!
by Dan Bruno on June 17, 2009 at 7:16 pm #
Dear Dan,
First of all let me say–I love what you are doing here! I also enjoy analyzing video game music. There are many reasons why I think that video game music in particular is a great genre to analyze. First of all, the tunes are usually short, so that it is easy to detect any large scale patterns in the music. Secondly, they often have chord progressions that are not found in the classical repertoire, so they force us to look for “non-standard” explanations for their effectiveness.
As an aside, one particular chord progression that I have been taken with for years is the progression I – II – iv – I, found in many video game tunes, a good example being Level 1 of Little Nemo the Dream Master for NES. This progression is also (with a major IV), the famous progression of the verse of Eight Days a Week by the Beatles. The characteristic sound of this progression comes from the #4 scale degree in the major II chord. The #4 clearly moves down to natural 4, in contrast to the often taught voice leading rule that sharps imply ascending movement. The II, then, is clearly not a secondary dominant. In fact, I believe that the only way to truly understand this progression is as a consequence of the linear motion 5 – #4 – 4 – 3. In Schenkerian terms, it’s the (chromatic) unfolding of 5 – 3, one of the intervals in the tonic chord.
And speaking of Schenker, this brings me to the main point of this post. There is something very remarkable happening in the soprano line of the Minuet of Forest, which I think is worth mentioning. Before saying exactly what it is, let me begin by pointing out that the soprano line has a “superior note” in each measure, in other words a “most important note”. These notes are, respectively,
B – A – B – A – G – F# – E – E,
one note for each measure. These are the notes which sound like points of arrival–the other notes of the measure act as neighbor/appoggiatura tones to these notes.
Disregarding the repetition of the first two bars, this string of notes constitutes the descending stepwise line B – A – G – F# – E, which fills in the perfect fifth of the tonic chord, in agreement with Schenker’s fundamental structure (Schenker would call this particular line a 5-line). Schenker would say that it is this line which ultimately governs the tonal dynamic of the tune, including chord progression, etc. Basically, most of the other notes are built around this line, either to support it, prolong it, etc.
When I first began to look for these sorts of long range linear patterns in music, a whole new world opened up before my eyes. Schenker believed the life force of music to lie in melody and stepwise patterns. For example, in Schenker’s opinion (and my own), the simplest and best way to explain the bII chord in the Prelude of Light is as arising from the chromatic passing tone Eb in the bass, passing between the two structurally more significant tones E and D. In other words, the chord arises from melodic considerations.
I don’t know if you agree with the Schenkerian approach to musical analysis, but either way, I hope you find these comments interesting and thought provoking!
by Carl Phillips on July 25, 2009 at 1:56 am #
Carl, interesting points! I’m doing some game-music analysis as well, but I’m conflicted about Schenker. You’ve probably come across some of the debate about the applicability of Schenkerian analysis to pop music in general (the status of the “masterwork,” the role of V, etc.). I’d think its applicability to game music would be even more suspect, as so much of it is written to loop indefinitely without reaching strong tonal closure. (In this blog post, composer Matt Sayre goes so far as to suggest that composers avoid V-I motions in looped songs.)
That said, I agree with your analyses of the chromatic passing tones. I just worry about bringing in too much Schenkerian baggage: let’s keep the foreground and (near) middleground, but not force everything to be a prolongation of a single triad.
by Peter on July 25, 2009 at 1:50 pm #
Carl: Thanks for that! I’m not very Schenkerian in my approach — probably because my interests eventually drifted towards jazz and popular music, so I’m a big fan of throwing vertical harmonies around. :-) However, I certainly welcome the analysis and new perspective!
by Dan Bruno on July 26, 2009 at 4:53 pm #
The Society for Music Theory is abuzz with discussion of (I)-II-IV-(I) progressions, and only a month after Carl brought them up here!
The archived discussion (so far) is here: http://lists.societymusictheory.org/pipermail/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org/2009-August/thread.html The consensus so far is that this progression is “indigenous to rock’n'roll” (i.e. few if any precursors in the classical repertoire), but there are several theories about the weird motion from II to IV.
W/r/t the descending chromatic line, Dmitri Tymoczko supplied a formula that generates a list of all harmonic cycles that create such a motion… in any equal-tempered system. (Go, music theory!)
John Covach and Paul Steinbeck pointed out the ease with which this progression can be played on the guitar, including the idea of playing “in the box” (2 frets apart on adjacent strings), which was new to me and accounts for a lot of rock progressions very elegantly.
Walt Everett pointed out that several of the Beatles songs in question were probably written on keyboard rather than guitar, which shifts the balance away from the previous point (for those songs at least).
Dmitri pre-emptively plots the equilibrium point of the discussion by saying with a wink, “Or if we really want to be responsible, we could even propose that the progression works for any number of different reasons, all of which might have contributed to its acceptance by musicians and listeners.”
by Peter on August 31, 2009 at 10:22 am #
In reference to the “Prelude of Light,” The EbMaj7 could also possibly considered a Neapolitan chord. Lower scale degree 2 and make it Major in a Major key that is. Usually, however, you see this chord in first inversion to lead to the V chord. I’m not exactly sure if you could say this is a Neapolitan chord or not, considering it goes back to I and is not in first inversion. Just a thought though, as when I see “bII,” this comes to mind.
by B on September 14, 2009 at 1:39 am #
@B: Not all bII chords are Neapolitan chords. Neapolitan is more of a “function”, and just as you said, it serves the “predominant” role to the dominant V.
When bII precedes I, it usually serves the role of “tritone substitution” as Dan stated above. That’s a concept that music theory courses unfortunately don’t teach until the later semesters, which is a shame, because it’s pretty wild.
Check it out briefly at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritone_substitution
by Rafi on September 14, 2009 at 7:50 am #
Good point. I didn’t think this would work as Neapolitan but this tritone substitution is pretty interesting, ha. Thanks for the link to the past!
by B on September 14, 2009 at 11:46 pm #
I must agree with “B” on Neapolitan, and you see quite often in music from the romantic era where the Neapolitan is used as a chromatic neighbor chord to prolong tonic. but I also must mention, most all of your roman numerals do not show position of the chord which is quite important when analyzing function. Such as the IV6/4 in the “Prelude of Light.” It is quite clearly a pedal 6/4 prolonging the I chord at the beginning. Also, your roman numeral analysis of “Serenade of Water” shows a bVI when in all actuality it is just a VI. Bb is in the key signature, it isn’t chromatically altered… so why would you call it a bVI? Just a speculation. I like the idea of analyzing zelda music. Great job though! I loved that someone sat down and did this work! Thank you!
by Scyrrus on September 30, 2009 at 6:34 pm #
umm you forgot some…….
Sheik’s theme, clock town day 3, etc.
by annahay on October 24, 2009 at 2:31 pm #
this is amazing, thanks =o
very slight (the slightest) nitpicks though, last note of saria’s song has B (middle of treble clef), and the minuet of forest goes to A7 rather than A in the opening bars (G under the C# in the bass clef). that probably does nothing to change the anaylsis, but thought i might bring it up
by s1rnight on December 20, 2009 at 5:57 pm #
Important note about Boléro. The original zelda cart was going to have Bolero as the title screen music, but it turns out that Boléro is on the wrong side of the line drawn in history that divides public domain from copyrighted material. You might think that 10 years later such a work would be free to use, but thanks to the magic of political donations it is not, not even today. I’d argue that Bolero of Fire is as close as Kondo can come without angry lawyers.
by pwnguin on January 29, 2010 at 11:06 pm #