Since before in this area of the forum I discussed weapons, but really my first love is music. I've been a guitar player for close to 20 years, and I'm constantly studying and learning new things about music.
When people ask me what my favorite video game music is I routinely cite the Zelda series alongside the Ace Attorney series, as well as Halo and Monkey Island. The Zelda series is especially prominent in its use of music, and each theme people have fond memories of, and is so varied.
So this new series is more of a celebration of the music of Zelda, as well as analyzing the individual compositions at a deep level to find out what makes these compositions so awesome.
This first one we're discussing comes at the request of @Princess Niki, and it's the Gerudo Valley Theme from Ocarina of Time. A very popular and well loved composition of music.
Since you've likely heard the video game MIDI version a thousand times already, I'm going to start this example off with two Australian dudes playing a fantastic version of it:
Two talented dudes that's for sure, and I myself prefer the sound of real instruments. There's something about a real human playing a dynamic instrument that really makes a composition sound far better than intended.
So let's analyze this piece of music shall we?
MUSICAL INFLUENCES:
No prizes for guessing that this composition was based from Spanish flamenco pieces and mariachi bands. The trumpet in the original is also part of these types of musical groups.
The "guitar" parts we hear in the original piece are outright classic Spanish flamenco style guitar. Right down to note choice, the chords used, the harmonic structure, the rhythm, the tone, everything is straight up Spanish guitar.
For example, here's a classic Spanish guitar piece:
I can see why the Zelda team wanted to use this for Gerudo Valley. Spanish guitar sounds cool.
It is a bit of an odd choice, considering that Gerudo Valley is in a desert, so I'd imagine more Middle Eastern or Egyptian type flair if I was to compose a piece of music for this, but because it's so unique, people remember it.
RHYTHMIC STRUCTURE/TIME SIGNATURE:
We have nothing special in terms of time signature. Most Spanish guitar falls in the realm of 4/4 time or Common Time. Because, I'm sure you have gathered, Spanish style guitar requires heavy rhythmic emphasis, and 4/4 time has a very strong downbeat on count 1, and another not as strong downbeat on count 3.
This works for Spanish guitar seeing as how dynamic and rhythmic it is, and it totally works for this piece.
The rhythm on the chords are supposed to represent a Spanish guitar player strumming them with 16th notes, or four notes per beat, using traditional technique. You do this by striking and strumming the strings with your forefinger very aggressively. Doing it this way causes your thumb to naturally hit the body of the guitar, falling into a natural rhythm.
Such subtle nuances are impossible to capture in MIDI, which is why I much prefer listening to a human being playing real instruments, as you get more interesting subtleties that can't be replicated by a computer.
KEY SIGNATURE:
The composition is in the key of F# minor. Now, most people would suspect that due to the general "upbeat" nature of the music, it'd be in a major key. However, it's in a minor key, which gives it that sadder, darker edge while retaining the upbeat nature of the piece.
The chords used, for those interested, are:
F# minor, D major, E major, and a C# major with an F in the bass, or in shorthand, C#/F.
In other words the chord progression would be: i, VI, VII, V. A very common Spanish guitar chord progression.
MUSICAL ANALYSIS:
It's common in many genres of music that when you're composing music in minor keys, that the V chord is a major chord.
Traditionally, in a minor key, the fifth chord would technically be a minor chord. What we musicians commonly do is replace that minor fifth chord with a major fifth chord. This creates more tension and thus, more pull towards a resolution. It can really take a composition over the edge.
This way of playing with chords relates to chord function. In each piece of music, chords have specific functions, to give a sense of resolution, to add tension, and so on. We typically call the chords that give a sense of resolution Tonic chords. They sound nice and resolved. The chords that are very tense and add lots of tension are called Dominant chords, and chords that are kinda in the middle are called Sub-Dominant chords.
By playing with the listener's expectations on how chords function, you can even create a dynamic, tense, and satisfying piece of music just by yourself with a guitar and playing nothing but chords. That's the power of knowing chord function.
Thus, this is the reason for why, in the Gerudo Valley Theme, the V chord, which is typically the dominant chord anyways most of the time, is a major chord. It creates more tension and pulls harder towards the tonic.
The composition has an even amount of time between each chord, which is perfectly reasonable.
For the most part, this composition sticks very close to F# minor, but in the melody lines, there's several chromatic notes that don't fit within the key sprinkled all over the piece.
This is common in Spanish guitar, jazz guitar, metal, blues, and pretty much every genre of music. These notes actually are serving a harmonic purpose and because they're used as passing tones, they highlight the chord tones much more heavily, making the melody lines not only stand out, but the background music to stand out.
On top of that, the line is easily singable, a hallmark of good melodic sense. The best melodies are memorable, catchy, and interesting.
CONCLUSION:
Those are the reasons why I think this piece of music is so memorable to people, it's harmonic structure isn't too wild, it has just enough of the strange and unique due to the Spanish music influence and quirks, while also having a catchy and memorable melody with enough spice to be interesting.
More Zelda musical analysis to come!
When people ask me what my favorite video game music is I routinely cite the Zelda series alongside the Ace Attorney series, as well as Halo and Monkey Island. The Zelda series is especially prominent in its use of music, and each theme people have fond memories of, and is so varied.
So this new series is more of a celebration of the music of Zelda, as well as analyzing the individual compositions at a deep level to find out what makes these compositions so awesome.
This first one we're discussing comes at the request of @Princess Niki, and it's the Gerudo Valley Theme from Ocarina of Time. A very popular and well loved composition of music.
Since you've likely heard the video game MIDI version a thousand times already, I'm going to start this example off with two Australian dudes playing a fantastic version of it:
Two talented dudes that's for sure, and I myself prefer the sound of real instruments. There's something about a real human playing a dynamic instrument that really makes a composition sound far better than intended.
So let's analyze this piece of music shall we?
MUSICAL INFLUENCES:
No prizes for guessing that this composition was based from Spanish flamenco pieces and mariachi bands. The trumpet in the original is also part of these types of musical groups.
The "guitar" parts we hear in the original piece are outright classic Spanish flamenco style guitar. Right down to note choice, the chords used, the harmonic structure, the rhythm, the tone, everything is straight up Spanish guitar.
For example, here's a classic Spanish guitar piece:
I can see why the Zelda team wanted to use this for Gerudo Valley. Spanish guitar sounds cool.
It is a bit of an odd choice, considering that Gerudo Valley is in a desert, so I'd imagine more Middle Eastern or Egyptian type flair if I was to compose a piece of music for this, but because it's so unique, people remember it.
RHYTHMIC STRUCTURE/TIME SIGNATURE:
We have nothing special in terms of time signature. Most Spanish guitar falls in the realm of 4/4 time or Common Time. Because, I'm sure you have gathered, Spanish style guitar requires heavy rhythmic emphasis, and 4/4 time has a very strong downbeat on count 1, and another not as strong downbeat on count 3.
This works for Spanish guitar seeing as how dynamic and rhythmic it is, and it totally works for this piece.
The rhythm on the chords are supposed to represent a Spanish guitar player strumming them with 16th notes, or four notes per beat, using traditional technique. You do this by striking and strumming the strings with your forefinger very aggressively. Doing it this way causes your thumb to naturally hit the body of the guitar, falling into a natural rhythm.
Such subtle nuances are impossible to capture in MIDI, which is why I much prefer listening to a human being playing real instruments, as you get more interesting subtleties that can't be replicated by a computer.
KEY SIGNATURE:
The composition is in the key of F# minor. Now, most people would suspect that due to the general "upbeat" nature of the music, it'd be in a major key. However, it's in a minor key, which gives it that sadder, darker edge while retaining the upbeat nature of the piece.
The chords used, for those interested, are:
F# minor, D major, E major, and a C# major with an F in the bass, or in shorthand, C#/F.
In other words the chord progression would be: i, VI, VII, V. A very common Spanish guitar chord progression.
MUSICAL ANALYSIS:
It's common in many genres of music that when you're composing music in minor keys, that the V chord is a major chord.
Traditionally, in a minor key, the fifth chord would technically be a minor chord. What we musicians commonly do is replace that minor fifth chord with a major fifth chord. This creates more tension and thus, more pull towards a resolution. It can really take a composition over the edge.
This way of playing with chords relates to chord function. In each piece of music, chords have specific functions, to give a sense of resolution, to add tension, and so on. We typically call the chords that give a sense of resolution Tonic chords. They sound nice and resolved. The chords that are very tense and add lots of tension are called Dominant chords, and chords that are kinda in the middle are called Sub-Dominant chords.
By playing with the listener's expectations on how chords function, you can even create a dynamic, tense, and satisfying piece of music just by yourself with a guitar and playing nothing but chords. That's the power of knowing chord function.
Thus, this is the reason for why, in the Gerudo Valley Theme, the V chord, which is typically the dominant chord anyways most of the time, is a major chord. It creates more tension and pulls harder towards the tonic.
The composition has an even amount of time between each chord, which is perfectly reasonable.
For the most part, this composition sticks very close to F# minor, but in the melody lines, there's several chromatic notes that don't fit within the key sprinkled all over the piece.
This is common in Spanish guitar, jazz guitar, metal, blues, and pretty much every genre of music. These notes actually are serving a harmonic purpose and because they're used as passing tones, they highlight the chord tones much more heavily, making the melody lines not only stand out, but the background music to stand out.
On top of that, the line is easily singable, a hallmark of good melodic sense. The best melodies are memorable, catchy, and interesting.
CONCLUSION:
Those are the reasons why I think this piece of music is so memorable to people, it's harmonic structure isn't too wild, it has just enough of the strange and unique due to the Spanish music influence and quirks, while also having a catchy and memorable melody with enough spice to be interesting.
More Zelda musical analysis to come!
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