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Analyzing Ocarina of Time's OST 3: The Spirit Temple.

TheGreatCthulhu

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I know I'm jumping way ahead here, but god damn, I have to talk about the theme for the Spirit Temple because it utilizes my favorite tonalities in music, and it's so iconic.

Just to remind ourselves of the piece.




Brings back memories, doesn't it?

For me, it really is a theme that's incredibly easy for me to improvise on because of the tonalities used in the piece, and ones I'm very intimately familiar with.

Immediately, we can hear that the piece is in a minor key, generally, yet again. Specifically, this piece uses a specific flavor of minor called Phrygian, and because of the accidentals that appear in the piece, we touch on the more exotic, spicy harmonies in music.

Now, what determines major or minor? I guess I should have started with that.

It's very simple. It's the third note of the scale. To explain let's compare major and minor.

A major scale has all major and perfect intervals, which, when written out in numbers is very convenient:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7.

Meaning, our root, the major second, the major third, the perfect fourth, the perfect fifth, the major sixth, and the major seventh.

Since the major scale has a major third in it, that defines the quality of that scale as major.

Let's compare it to say, melodic minor, or jazz minor:

1 2 b3 4 5 6 7.

Meaning, our root, major second, minor third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, major sixth, and major seventh.

One note difference, yet that note completely changes the quality of the scale to one that's a bid sad, dark, and somber.

Now, Phrygian is technically the third mode of the major scale. A mode is basically when we start a scale on a different note other than the root. So if we start on the third note of a major scale, then play up the scale one octave, we'd be playing Phrygian, the third mode of the major scale.

Now, each mode has its own intervallic structure, and Phrygian's is:

1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7.

That is, our root, minor second, minor third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, minor sixth, and minor seventh.

Since this piece has G as the root, then all of these notes are going to be how they relate to G, so G Phrygian would contain these notes:

G Ab Bb C D Eb F.

The piece starts off with a nice bVII to i chord move before a harmony finishes off the phrase.

That repeats for two times before the real fun starts.

Now, most people when they analyze this piece they just say it's in G Phrygian and just leave it at that. Problem is, I, and I'm sure many of you can hear that sometimes we don't have a Bb, but a B natural, and sometimes we don't have an F, but an F#.

That really changes the game, and opens up the piece to new, exotic harmonies that no one dares to discuss. The darker scales of metal.

I of course mean harmonic minor, Phrygian Dominant, Hungarian minor, and Double Harmonic Major or the Byzantine scale.

So what's going on here, what are these scales, and why are they important for discussing the Spirit Temple theme?

Well, simply put, we use these scales on certain choice notes and flavors to really impart that exotic, quasi-Middle Eastern flavor that the piece has. The theme was clearly inspired by the great-grandpappy of the guitar, the Arabic Oud, a fretless instrument that has access to more notes than the Western system, things like half flats and such.

Well, to achieve that musically, without playing the Arabic Oud, we tend to work within some limitations.

Anyhow, let's explain the intervallic structure of these scales.

Harmonic minor is the easiest, and it's easiest to understand how it relates to natural minor.

Natural minor has these intervals:

1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7.

That is, our root, major second, minor third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, minor sixth, and minor seventh.

Problem is, if we were to harmonize this scale and build chords from it, the fifth chord would be a minor chord, which doesn't give a satisfying cadence, especially when resolving to the chord built off the first note.

You can try this for yourself, assuming A is the tonal center, play an E min chord and an A min chord. Those two chords sound nice, but they don't yield a great, satisfying cadence like your Dominant chord should.

So what we do is change that chord to a major chord, giving us a satisfying cadence, and in effect, this raises the seventh note of the minor scale up a semitone, creating a leading tone, which leads to your Dominant chord moving to your Tonic chord sound so satisfying.

You can try this for yourself, again, assuming A is the tonal center, now play an E maj chord and then an A min chord. They'll sound more satisfying because you have that G# of the E maj chord moving to A in the A min chord, creating a satisfying resolution.

And this is at the heart of why harmonic minor is called harmonic minor. It has nothing to do with the altered note, but more to do with the fact that the altered note gives us more satisfying and interesting harmony than the natural minor could.

Thus, harmonic minor's interval structure is:

1 2 b3 4 5 b6 7.

There's a major seventh instead of a minor seventh. Really important to harmonic minor's sound.

Now, if we start on fifth note of harmonic minor, and play the scale up one octave, we'd be playing the fifth mode of harmonic minor, Phrygian Dominant, one of the tonalities used in this piece.

Phrygian Dominant is noted for its rather exotic and, to me, Egyptian style sound, and since the quality of the scale is major, that means over major chords, Phrygian Dominant can crash the party and go all exotic.

Its interval structure is:

1 b2 3 4 5 b6 b7.

It's basically the Phrygian mode with a major third instead of a minor third, and for that reason it's got a few other names like Phrygian Major, Mixolydian b9 b13, and so on. I prefer Phrygian Dominant, because it's so related to Phrygian, and when you harmonize the scale and build a chord off of it, you get a dominant 7th chord, which blends so nicely with the scale itself.

Let's run back to harmonic minor for a moment, if we play the harmonic minor, but then have a leading tone leading into our fifth note, we'd be playing Hungarian minor. In fact, having that leading tone going into the fifth note of the scale creates a tritone.

Hungarian minor's interval structure is:

1 2 b3 #4 5 b6 7.

It's basically harmonic minor with a tritone. Because of that #4 interval, that gives the scale an even more dramatic, exotic, and spicy flavor. In fact, many people elect to call it the Snake Charmer scale for obvious reasons. When you hear it, it sounds like it could charm a snake.

Now, if we start on the fifth note of Hungarian minor, we'd be playing its parent mode, Double Harmonic Major, which goes by a few crazy names like Byzantine, Super Turkish, and such.

Its interval structure is:

1 b2 3 4 5 b6 7.

Notice how close Double Harmonic Major is to Phrygian Dominant, and that should clue you in to the sound. Because of the two leading tones this really ups the exotic and spicy feel.

Now, after all of that, why is this important?

Because in the span of four phrases, the Spirit Temple theme moves from Phrygian, which is already one of the spicier modes of the major scale, but still easy to understand, to Phrygian Dominant, to Double Harmonic Major. It gets progressively more dark, more interesting, more exotic, and more complex.

In fact, when you feel the piece going more dramatic, notice that the more exotic scales start showing their character more, and when the piece goes more melodic, the exotic sound and spicy flavors mellow out.

Let me tell you, by just altering two notes in the melodic lines in the piece this piece went from easy to understand to complex and interesting and exotic and back again.

And that's why it's still my favorite Zelda piece. Not only because it utilizes the cooler, more exotic sounding tonalities that I use on a near daily basis in my own music, but because it shows how much the harmony of music changes by just altering one note at the right time and at the right moment.

Cheers!

:)
 
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Dio

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OOT has a soundtrack that perfectly compliments it with every piece of music taking you away to wherever it is you are supposed to be. The ice cavern music makes you feel like you are in an icy cave just by ear, Jabu's belly theme sounds organic with the beat sounding like a heart and the groaning incorporated into the track its hard not to think of a living being when listening and of course the spirit temple music whisks you away to a desert structure warm and full of mystery. If you played these tracks for someone without seeing the game I am sure the sound alone would allow them to guess the type of location each piece is supposed to represent.

Perfect as some of the pieces are you certainly won't catch me listening to Jabu's belly for enjoyment. It's an atmospheric piece like quite a few of the dungeons but don't function as an enjoyable song outside of the context of playing the game. The spirit temple however is still an enjoyable listen on its own and there are a couple of covers people have done of that theme that I really like.
 

Mikey the Moblin

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Here's my question;. The tonalities in this piece vaguely remind me of those in the Lanayru Mining Facility theme, but there are slight differences that could be attributed to key, mode, or even instrumentation. Does Lanayru Mining Facility follow similar Phrygian chord progressions?
 

TheGreatCthulhu

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Here's my question;. The tonalities in this piece vaguely remind me of those in the Lanayru Mining Facility theme, but there are slight differences that could be attributed to key, mode, or even instrumentation. Does Lanayru Mining Facility follow similar Phrygian chord progressions?

Different overall key signature, but the movements and melodic structure has me thinking Phrygian as well. It doesn't sound like it's going as exotic as the Spirit Temple, but a similar sort of Phrygian motif.
 

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