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!

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.

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…

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.

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. :)

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