Inside The Score - The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - Chase

Run for your life

Something really bad is happening. Link Unconscious, at the mercy of the skull kid and his two minions. The imp, having a sense of familiarity with the hero, approaches carefully to inspect the body. Turns out Link is carrying with him the legendary ocarina of time, entrusted with it by Princess Zelda to avoid the events that transpired when Ganondorf managed to get his hands on the sacred Triforce. Now this instrument ends in the very irresponsible hands of Skull Kid. While the thief is distracted playing his new ocarina, Link slowly wakes up, triggering the ding-ding alert of the tinker bell fairies and prompting Skull Kid to take Epona and run away to the absolute limits of the Lost Woods.

Is in this sequence where for the first time we find the chase cue written by Koji Kondo, reused throughout the game whenever Link chases or is being chased, like him with a thief or with ranch bandits. It’s an standard action tune full of adrenaline pumping ostinatos that are transposed, an alarming brass section and loud, frantic percussion; it consists of three sections plus a short intro, each one more desperate and intensely paced than the last.

Musical Analysis

Structure: Section 0 / Section 1 / Section 2 / Section 3

Time Signature: 7/4 (Section 0) 4/4 Section 1 and 2 3

Tempo: 100 (150 section 0)

Melodic and Harmonic Profiles: C# Diminished; C Diminished; D Diminished; D# Diminished; E Diminished

The piece begins with an ascending diminished scale to set the alarm, builds up the suspense by sustaining that minor third interval and then the snare drum enters to inject the adrenaline and the running motion accompanied by the ostinatos. The snare pattern follows closely the melodic accents. The ostinatos go back and forth between two transpositions, one based around C5, the other around C#5, while the high strings are arpeggiating diminished chords.

E dim – G dim – E dim – G dim

F dim – Ab dim – F dim – Ab dim

A bit of that always-prevalent use of diminished sonority to signify danger and a sense of urgency.

Next, it plays an ascending scale reminiscent of the intro, moving the scale up a semitone with each repetition.

The tuba introduces additional dissonance by playing perfect fifths at certain moments that are one tone up from the harmony of the low strings, creating wacky suspensions (C# 6 sus2). shortly after, it sticks to doubling the low strings notes, transforming what was an accompaniment figure into a melodic one.

The dread of the last section is not only caused by the speed of the accompaniment pattern but also from the harmony, now introducing fully spooky tritones; the trumpets adding the high panic at the end by entering and doubling the last four scale runs, all to the noise of the cymbals accentuating each scale beginning.

The cue ends just in time to synchronize with the action happening on screen, when the player is given control, showing that the piece was specifically composed for this scene and then reused later for all manner of persecutions in the game.

Skull Kid takes the upper hand and manages to get rid of Link. it’s now up to him to follow the strange path ahead, jumping through obstacles like a seasoned pro showing off his abilities—the developers certainly made sure to put those platforms at the beginning for this reason— and traversing the characteristic horizontal trunk tunnels of the Lost Woods since A Link to the Past only to find himself at the edge of a cliff. And down the rabbit hole Link goes. On to one of various trippy sequence that means he is not entering a normal world.. His little personal journey is about to include some known faces in an uncanny new form, some detached faces he will be collecting and even a face on an astral body he will likely never forget.