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

The Eastern way of the blade

In Clock Town our hero will also have the opportunity to join an Eastern Dojo, allowing him the honor of being the only Hylian of any era that ever mastered both the art of historical European martial arts—presumably the way of the sword in Hyrule— and the conglomerate of Japanese sword arts known as kenjutsu (well, technically the placard reads that this is a kendo academy, which would be way too modern for Termina, but hey, they also have electricity so everything is possible). Basically, kendo is to kenjutsu what Olympics rules fencing is to Historical European Martial Arts. Kenjutsu schools often have a well-preserved lineage, unlike their European counterparts. Because of this, we know a lot more about how the samurai used their weaponry in battle than we do about how actual knights and men-at-arms of Europe used theirs.

The sensei of this school is a famous swordsman arguably so powerful that he claims not even a falling moon would be a threat to him, he can cut it in half with his blade. He will allow Link to train here even though the hero owns only his medieval Kokiri sword—He will refuse to train Link in his Deku form though, remarking that he is just a mere child. And if anybody has seen the film Groundhog Day then you know why the Hero of Time ended up becoming the best swordsman in the series.

Musical Analysis

Structure: Section 1

Time Signature: 4/4

Tempo: 70

Melodic and Harmonic Profiles: C Atonal

Big, giant, ultra loud drums and Japanese martial arts combine just like the organ and baseball. Both China and Japan had a tradition of going to war accompanied of huge drums that frightened enemies and pumped their troops. In Japanese, the term taiko refers to any kind of drum, but outside Japan, it is used specifically to refer to any of the various Japanese drums called wadaiko; and boy does taiko drums have become popular. being almost omnipresent today in the modern film landscape to raise the action and epicness level of any scene. Armies march to the beat of a drum, martial arts tournaments give expectation with them. All in all they are engraved with the concept of a duel. In modern times playing them involves a lot of choreographed movement which many identify with Japanese martial arts, so using them for any Eastern setting is as obvious as one can get.

The timpani found on this swordsman’s school are of course meant to represent the big ol drums from martial arts and kendo sword fighting. They are accompanied by the jingle percussion, which in Japan are called the Suzu bells, used similarly in all kinds of religious and physical activities—it doesn’t need to be said that martial arts are tied deeply and also place emphasis on religion, ethics, and human values in general.

Kondo is using a music production technique known as ‘layering’, which is one of the secrets audio engineers use to enhance the sound of any instrument; more than just raising the volume, equalization, or compression, which novice producers tend to gravitate as a first resort, layering is usually the best technique used to make anything sound bigger, more exciting and more powerful. It is just as simple and straightforward as “two things playing together sound better than just one” only make sure that the sounds complement each other in meaningful ways.

With all this said, although there is low timpani and high timpani playing together, they are meant to represent just one huge taiko drum or perhaps an entire ensemble of taiko players. You can see here the type of drum Kondo would have in mind:

Sometimes big is indeed better

Or here used at an actual kendo combat:

All sportsmen and women benefit from some pumping up music

The pattern is repetitive in its rhythmic profile, but in each of the phrases there is enough variation to create the sensation that these drums and suzu are speaking some kind of martial arts code throughout the piece—funny enough, there is an actual gong on this place but it’s not used on the track; if Goron Link punches it, it sounds the sample of the chau gong that accompanies Majora.

At the end of the third day, it turns out that the teacher of the school was just a hack; another victim of denial. If Link goes after the midnight of the final day, he can find the sensei covering in fear of the impending doom.

But is this impending doom everyone seems to be talking about even real? On his second day on Clock Town, Link will see for himself that there is truly reason to worry.