Inside The Score - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Inside a House

A musical motif that takes the series back home

A staple of The Legend of Zelda series since its inception here in Ocarina of Time, the house theme motto is familiarity, not only in style but also in relation to the concept the developers were presenting.

This will be the track we hear when we are for the first time in control of Link, the character protagonist of the story. Players familiar with previous Zelda games would be accustomed to the top down view of 2D Zelda, so the developers make them feel at ease, setting up the surprise by starting the game in this 2D view from above, making the moment when they first see the Kokiri Forest more special. This will be also the cue that will welcome players each time they start the game during the beginning portion of the game, so a sense of comfort was to be created. When Navi, the fairy arrives, the game gives you the control and shows you what ‘safe’ and ‘home’ sound like, the whimsical starting point that contrasts with the musical explorations to come.

This is a type of recurrent track in the game that is tied to a specific set of locations as opposed to a single one. In the case of this Zelda, fairy fountains, shops, mini-game places, grottoes, potion shops and houses all share their own type of cue no matter where in the Hyrule’s geography you find them, allowing you to notice where you are and connecting the similar places across the game world.

Musical Analysis

Structure: Section 0 / Section 1 / Section 2

Time Signature: 4/4

Tempo: 147

Melodic and Harmonic Profiles: D Ionian/Major (Section 0); D Lydian, C Lydian, Bb Lydian, D Ionian/Major (Section 1 / Section 2); D Aeolian Dominant (Harmony)

The music also has this job to do, tying the past and the future by using the ‘Zelda chord progression’; The Zelda cadence, a harmony framework that could be dubbed the ‘major Andalusian cadence’ in contrast to the well known Andalusian cadence used in flamenco—The music of Spain is a core influence on the Zelda main theme and Kondo also wanted to use bolero, a piece inspired by a Spanish dance, for the opening of the first game— this harmony progression dubbed a cadence and usually found in flamenco music, consists of four descending chords descending stepwise; a iv–III–II–I progression with respect to the Phrygian mode (descends a tone each chord except for the last, which is a semitone). But the one found all over the Legend of Zelda is heroic and triumphant, making all the chords major: IV–III–II–I. In the normal major profile it would be I – bVII – bVI – V It means Zelda aurally; the closest profile to this would be what is known as the Aeolian Dominant, which is a scale that has a major tetrachord head with a Phrygian tetrachord tail, so it is like it starts as the major scale but ends in the same way as the natural minor. Style appropriate for such swashbuckler films as the Mask of Zorro.

This can be found right here on this cue, for players to immediately feel and identify that this is the new Zelda game, using the progression played in fifths by the pizzicatos. The intro or Section 0 starts with a Dsus2 chords that goes to a descending arpeggio of the dominant A chord. The standard progression is:

D5 – C5 – Bb5 – A5

The piece contains clear textures and continues the playful feel introduced with Navi’s flight, using modal mixture to stray from more simple major profiles by employing the Lydian note of each chord.

The melody is quirky and jumpy, going along with each chord change while transposing the same motif, a figure harmonized in thirds. After the flute enters, what was the melody magically becomes an ostinato, a repeated pattern that serves as the bed where the new instrument can improvise freely. It is characterized by the quick exchange between the on-beat bassoon and the off-beat clarinets. With all the instruments made of wood it captures also the setting of Link’s house adequately, a living space carved into the trunk of a giant tree.

Secure, unthreatening, and well defined, the first gameplay cue we hear is the song accompanying every humble home across Hyrule, a reminder of the roots to both the hero of time and the seasoned player of The Legend of Zelda Series. Link usually begins his adventures in a sleeping state, signifying the awakening of both him and the player to the game’s world. We are about to enter it.

And if you wanna see that any piece can be epic with the right orchestration and mindset just listen to the version in Hyrule Warriors that decided to give the more heroic treatment that the pice already had latent thanks to the Zelda Cadence:

Since this Link is an actual soldier on a military payroll, it is fitting that his dorms have this music on repeat