In this project I intend to write a guitar piece for a videogame sound track. My main influences in this project is Koji Kondo, widely known by his work with Nintendo in games such as Donkey Kong, Super Mario and The legend of Zelda. On this research I will focusing on The legend of Zelda: ocarina of time (1998). "An entire generation grew up around the explosive popularity of the game in the late 1990s, which explains why mash-up producers feel compelled to slap Clipse over “Lost Woods,” or why countless symphonic orchestras tour their own reinterpretations, and why a genre named Zeldawave exists at all" (Szatan, 2019).
The songs and the tunes are extremely important to the game once in some part of the game-play player should play the melody in an ocarina instrument to cast the spell. The notes of each different melodies are selected by pressing buttons in the Nintendo 64 controller. However, it putted some restriction in Kondos writing once there was limited buttons in the controller so that all different melodies just contain 5 different notes. "The five notes in question are D, F, A, B and D. I have to imagine those notes were chosen really carefully to allow as much flexibility as possible in the writing process and truthfully it's pretty genius" (Rodgers, 2021). During an interview to Nintendo Koji Kondo talked about the challenges he had write some of the melodies in these soundtrack and how it helped him to increase as a composer: "In all there are 12 ocarina melodies, I had only five notes to use to for ocarina tunes, be they upbeat major or sad minor songs, making composing difficult" (Kondo, 2010).
One of the greatest songs in this sound track is Zora's Domain theme a calmly, satisfying and dreamy song. The piece is mid tempo (80bpm), it uses 6/4 time signature. The rhythm of the main melody is based on 8th and 16th variations and there is no tuplets being used in order to create a stable rhythm which is essential to support the feeling and vibe that is being transmitted by the song. The piece is mainly in G major and in some parts of the theme it modulates to G Lydian, using a augmented 4th instead of the perfect 4th interval, so that Koji Kondo created an instability and built tension, which is resolved in a G major chord. That chord progression result in a really satisfying, dreamy and peaceful song.
Koji Kondo – The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time Sound Track
Rodgers, A. (2021). How Creative Limitations Shaped Ocarina of Time’s Best Music. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SeY_Gss2CY [Accessed 27 Oct. 2023].
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