1:59

And if you become a patron

2:01

right now, that means you can be listening to the Tears of the Kingdom

2:03

episode right now. All patrons have already heard

2:05

it, if they want to hear it. So, if that

2:08

sounds good to you, go to patreon.com

2:10

slash strongsongs and sign up. Alright,

2:13

enjoy this bonus episode. I'll see you next week

2:15

for the Tears of the Kingdom episode, and thanks

2:17

as always for listening. So,

2:27

it's time for me to hand it off to my past

2:29

self to take over. As you all know, I made

2:32

an episode last year all about the music

2:34

of The Legend of Zelda. And as you can

2:36

imagine, there was a lot of music that I didn't

2:39

get to, and I wanted to take the opportunity,

2:41

use this little bonus feed as

2:43

a way to just talk about a few other Zelda pieces

2:45

of music that I really like, and some other

2:47

cool little musical tidbits, some of

2:49

which I was planning to put into the main episode

2:52

and just didn't have room for, and some just kind

2:54

of felt like extra, little extra things that

2:56

might be fun to talk to you all about. So,

2:58

for starters, I want to mention a piece that I did

3:01

manage to mention a little bit in the

3:03

episode. I gave it a shout out because I just

3:05

couldn't imagine making an episode of

3:07

a podcast about Zelda music without mentioning it, but I didn't

3:09

really get too in-depth on it, and I wanted to talk about it

3:11

a little bit more, and that is, of

3:13

course, one of my favorite pieces of Zelda

3:15

music. The Song of Storms

3:18

from Ocarina of Time, a widely

3:20

beloved piece that's very simple and

3:22

very short. So

3:36

what you just heard, that's the entirety of Song

3:39

of Storms, but this piece of music is so well-written

3:41

that it makes a real impression, despite the

3:43

fact that it really is just this one

3:45

melody that plays over and over again.

3:56

So this piece of music has this kind of cycling,

3:58

very atmospheric vibe. vibe. Some of that

4:01

is the time signature. This is a waltz, so it's

4:03

one, two, three, one, two, three, which gives

4:05

it a very certain kind of a wilt, a kind of a bounce

4:07

to it. A lot of it though is the chord progression,

4:09

so this is in D minor, and it just

4:12

goes kind of up the first three notes of a D

4:14

minor scale. It starts on a D minor,

4:16

then it goes up to an E minor, the second

4:18

degree, and then to an F major from

4:21

the third, that minor third, the F major, and

4:23

then back down to E minor. So it's doing this

4:25

just kind of up and back down thing that

4:27

gives it this nice kind of cyclical

4:30

feeling. And that's also enhanced by the fact that

4:32

you first hear this, I believe it's inside of a windmill

4:34

in Ocarina of Time, if I'm remembering this correctly,

4:37

then there's this guy kind of playing on a hurdy

4:39

gurdy on some kind of a funny instrument,

4:42

and he's standing inside of this cycling

4:44

windmill, which adds to that kind of feeling

4:47

of cycling. So it goes through those three chords,

4:49

then it goes up to a B-flat major, and

4:52

then down to an F, then back to a B-flat

4:54

major, and then it goes to an A, an A major, the V

4:56

chord, which really leads back around to the D

4:58

minor. That's really a very simple chord

5:01

progression. The magic of this though is in the melody,

5:03

and the way that the melody uses chord tones, in particular

5:06

the major seventh, so set against that harmony,

5:09

against that chord progression, in a way that sounds

5:11

really evocative, really beautiful. The

5:13

trick that Koji Kondo really did on this melody

5:15

is that he repeats each phrase two times,

5:18

and each phrase gets to have a second meaning

5:20

because the chords change on that second repetition.

5:23

Let me show you what I mean. So that first statement

5:25

is a D and F and a D. Pretty simple,

5:27

right? And in D minor, I mean a D and F and a

5:29

D. That's about as simple as I guess, but then

5:32

he plays the same thing over E minor, which is actually

5:34

a little bit weird. There's an F in there, it's a flat nine. Wouldn't

5:36

normally sound good, but because it's

5:39

a repetition of a phrase that already happened, it has

5:41

a kind of a different valence, it has a different weight

5:43

to it, and it works just fine over that E minor.

5:45

So that first repeated phrase sounds like this.

5:50

And the melody is just sitting up on this D, so

5:53

it goes up to an E. Now

5:56

I mentioned quite a bit how much Koji Kondo likes

5:58

a major seventh in that E. So

8:04

there's another one of my favorite Zelda melodies that I

8:07

didn't have a chance to get into on the episode that actually

8:09

does something harmonically very similar

8:12

to Song of Swords. It's a way of seeing

8:14

kind of inside Koji Kondo's toolkit

8:17

because it's a really similar kind of a harmonic

8:19

idea used in the service of a very

8:21

different kind of tune. So

8:24

this has always been a piece of music that I've

8:26

really liked. It's been stuck in my head for so

8:28

long. I didn't even realize the impact that it had on

8:30

me until I heard it again several

8:32

decades after I first heard it with a different instrumentation.

8:35

And that's because this is a piece of music from 1992's

8:38

A Link to the Past that I then heard again

8:41

many years later in 2013's A Link Between Worlds.

8:44

We recorded with a full ensemble

8:46

and that was when it really sunk in for me

8:48

how much I liked this piece of music and how well I think

8:51

it worked. So if you remember from the main episode,

8:53

2013's A Link Between Worlds is a sort of spiritual

8:55

successor, sort of semi-sequel

8:58

to 1992's A Link to the Past. And as

9:00

a result, the soundtrack has a lot of music

9:02

from A Link to the Past, but it's been reimagined

9:05

and re-recorded with live musicians in the studio,

9:07

so you get to hear these really fleshed out, really

9:10

exciting versions of a lot of classic

9:12

tracks from the 1991 game. So

9:14

as you can maybe imagine from the name, A Link to

9:16

the Past involves some dimensional shenanigans

9:18

and some time travel. You spend

9:21

all this time exploring the verdant green

9:23

fields of Hyrule and you hear the main theme

9:25

music play as you do so, but then a little

9:27

ways into the game you unlock a portal

9:30

that leads you to a new, much more scary

9:32

version of Hyrule, the Dark World.

9:35

And of course, that version of Hyrule

9:37

gets its own theme music.

9:50

Now, the Dark World theme from A Link to the Past is one of my

9:52

favorite Zelda themes, in part because of the music, but

9:54

also in part because I'll just always associate

9:56

it with seeing the Dark World for the first time, and

9:59

this music perfectly underscore is that moment.

10:08

Just got that kind of driving martial dramatic

10:11

feel and harmonically it's actually doing something

10:13

very similar to what Song of Storms was

10:15

doing as you'll see when we kind of get into our analysis.

10:17

It's doing the same kind of chordal

10:19

movement, but it sounds very different. It's not a waltz.

10:21

It's not really going for a dreamlike vibe and

10:24

just the energy is completely different despite the

10:26

fact that it looks kind of similar on

10:28

paper. So we're in C minor this

10:30

time and we start out it goes from one

10:33

to four then up to one and up

10:36

to four using chord inversions to

10:38

give it a sense of constant decline even

10:40

though it's actually cycling back and forth between

10:42

the one and the four. The actual chord progression

10:44

is really nice. We go from this C minor

10:46

up to the four chord up to F. Then

10:49

we go to an A flat which has a major

10:51

seventh there in the melody which just sounds really nice

10:53

that G in the melody is a major seventh

10:55

in the key of A flat. Then we go to a B flat

10:57

the flat seven chord which leads us back to C

11:00

minor very common chord progression one

11:02

to four to flat six to flat seven. It's

11:04

a really dramatic chord progression and it gives a nice

11:07

feeling of darkness and drama which is what

11:09

the dark world should really have. There's also

11:11

a really cool sequence where it modulates. It does

11:13

this big long modulation up to

11:15

the key of G and it repriezes the whole

11:17

thing that like pedal tone with the moving one

11:19

to four to one in the key of G. You

11:21

can hear it happening underneath me. It's this really

11:24

great whole sequence that leads us eventually

11:27

into a whole new key.

11:35

Like I said, I love this theme but I also

11:37

always just associate

11:37

it with my memories of first experiencing

11:40

the dark world. I think that it sounds

11:42

good but I also think you can really hear Koji

11:44

Kondo bumping up against the limits

11:46

of what even the Super Nintendo could do. He's

11:49

got this kind of snare drum giving himself percussion.

11:51

He's got a lot of nice different tones

11:54

in flying. Sort of a small group

11:56

this kind of exciting small chamber

11:58

ensemble, but it's strong of a composition. as

12:00

it is, I always kind of felt like it could

12:02

benefit from a larger, more fleshed

12:04

out recording. And in 2013,

12:07

when Link Between Worlds came out, oh man,

12:09

that game really showed me just how

12:11

good the Link to the Past Dark World music

12:13

can sound if you give it to a really good

12:16

band. So I was going around exploring the nice,

12:18

verdant overworld, and then I traveled

12:20

through a mirror to the Dark World, and

12:23

all at once, this music began

12:25

to play. It

12:29

was so good

12:30

it almost killed the momentum of the

12:32

game for me.

12:38

I

12:41

just sat there for like five minutes,

12:44

with this huge grin on my face, just listening

12:47

to the music.

12:51

There's

12:51

no denying that the original chiptune

12:54

versions of a lot of classic video game

12:56

scenes they have this incelible charm,

12:58

they have a unique sound, but there's also

13:00

no denying that some chiptune compositions

13:02

just really benefit from being played by live

13:04

musicians.

13:25

Also speaking of Zelda music and Zelda themes

13:27

being reinterpreted or rerecorded

13:29

years later, I wanted to talk about another

13:31

bit of Zelda music that I wished I could have found

13:34

space for in the episode, but that just, I

13:36

couldn't quite make it happen. But this really kind of

13:38

amazing thing happened just a few

13:40

years ago in 2018 that I wanted to

13:42

mention on this bonus episode, because I didn't get

13:45

to it in the main episode. So one

13:47

of my favorite Zelda pieces is

13:49

the Gerudo Valley theme from Ocarina

13:51

of Time. And again, this is one that I really briefly

13:54

referenced on the episode because I couldn't leave it out entirely,

13:56

but I couldn't really get into it either. It's really

13:59

fun, kind of flamenco.

19:14

So

20:11

a lot of you probably know Fantasy Imprompto,

20:13

one of the most famous solo piano pieces of all time.

20:15

Man, listening to someone play it, that's Arthur

20:17

Rubinstein playing it. Man, it really makes you appreciate

20:20

how much technique Chopin wrote for it. That is

20:22

a difficult piece to play on the piano.

20:24

So anyways, Joseph, you are totally

20:26

right. You're hearing what I would have to

20:28

think is a conscious quarter, certainly an influence

20:31

on Koji Kondo when he wrote this melody, because the

20:33

very next part of Fantasy Imprompto

20:35

goes into a melody that's extremely close

20:38

to the Great Fairy's fountain theme. So let's listen

20:40

to that theme from Zelda first and get

20:42

that in your ear just in case it's been a minute since you

20:44

listened to the episode. This is what that sounds

20:46

like.

21:04

All right, so you did listen to the episode and you probably remember

21:06

it. You don't need me to do a whole harmonic analysis,

21:08

but the Great Fairy's fountain theme revolves

21:10

around this one motif, right? These four notes,

21:13

la da da da,

21:15

where it kind of walks down and has that little half step slide

21:18

at the end. La da da

21:20

da, la da da da da

21:22

da da da. Really beautiful

21:24

motif. And that's the whole thing. I mean, it's all

21:26

built out of that motif, as I illustrated

21:29

on the episode when talking about this piece. Well,

21:35

let's see what Chopin has to say about that. Let's go

21:37

back to Fantasy Imprompto and listen

21:39

and see if you can hear something that sounds

21:42

seen. So

22:00

that is so cool, great ears, just if you're

22:03

totally hearing it, and it's really, I mean, it is

22:05

very, very similar. So we're in the key of E

22:07

here, and this is, man, it's such a

22:09

similar sound. It's a four chord, so this goes

22:11

from an A chord to a B major

22:14

to an E major, and that's where it resolves. And

22:16

this starts on a four chord playing the major

22:18

seventh, and it moves in the same melodic

22:21

shape. So just up on from that A up to a G

22:23

sharp, down to F sharp to F, just

22:25

the same shape. There's a four chord on the major

22:27

seventh, exactly identical to

22:29

the Great Fairy Fountain theme, and then it just kind

22:31

of walks the slightly different shape to the end of the phrase.

22:34

But man, that's so similar that I have to think that Koji

22:36

Kondo at the very least heard that or was consciously

22:39

invoking it, and they both have that same kind

22:41

of ethereal, beautiful quality as

22:43

well. The music sounds very similar. So

22:46

good catch, Joseph, that's definitely a similarity,

22:48

and man, this Chopin piece is beautiful.

22:51

Let's all just sit and let Arthur Rubinstein and Frederic

22:53

Chopin take us home. Thank

22:56

you. Alright,

23:40

that'll do it for this Zelda bonus episode. Just

23:42

a little spillover because there's always so much

23:44

to say about the music of The Legend of

23:46

Zelda. Speaking of that, I hope you all enjoy

23:48

next week's episode on Tears of the Kingdom. I

23:50

think it came out pretty great, and I hope that you

23:53

agree. And hey, if you've been thinking about becoming

23:55

a patron of Strong Songs and supporting me as

23:57

I make this show, this entire listener support

24:00

show. If you needed a nudge, you

24:02

can go sign up at five dollars a month or more

24:04

and you can hear that Tears of the Kingdom episode right

24:07

now. Or you can just wait and you'll hear it in the main feed

24:09

next week. No big deal. Thank you

24:12

so much as always to everyone who supports

24:14

this show in any way and to all of you who listen

24:16

as well. I really really appreciate it. I love

24:18

making strong songs and you're all the reason

24:20

that I get to keep doing it. Alright, take

24:22

care, keep listening, and I will see you next

24:25

week for more strong

24:27

songs.