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Inside The Score – The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – Temple of Time

Before the organ, there was the human voice

The most pure form of worship. Using the fleshwind instrument that God packaged into every human being, people have been using this most basic of the tone producing methods probably since the beginning of the species. Being so universal, it is no wonder it is the most used to reach the divine or for courtship or for practically anything. Even other animals use it.

Just stepping right on the garden outside the temple, you know this is an important, serious place. The look is immediately recognizable as an European Catholic cathedral, the music immediately fades away even if you are technically still close to the market, and only the sounds of nature remain, already marking this building as something more solemn. It is after all the resting place of the sacred sword and the most important relic for Hyruleans, the Triforce; you will need the access key from all races to enter. As soon as you step in, the enormity of the building and its music unquestionably let’s you know there is also a sacred dimension to the world of The Legend of Zelda. You will spend quite a lot of time here hearing this cue since it will become the staring point every time you reset your game for the adult portion of the adventure.

Ocarina of Time cemented the foundational mythos of the series showcasing its pantheon of goddesses, the Triforce origins and with its main temple dedicated to the concept of time, not only one of the main game mechanics around which the story revolves but also likely the property that concerns the goddess Hylia which would appear later in the series—in truth she was just a great fairy that mined timeshifting stones thus making people see her as a goddess but people are not ready for this conversation yet. Still, the Christian influences from the earlier entries manage to reappear due to the medieval European fantasy heritage; it is the main religion of that region after all. So we may not have an omniscient, omnipotent Triforce anymore and Link will not carry a Bible, cross and a crusader shield anymore but we can still partake in the musical and architectural influences in order to make this world more believable and connected with our real world experience; if it weren’t for the N64 limitation we would probably have gotten some Latin or pseudo-Latin chants in here. The developers did travel to Europe to study its locations after all.

Official artwork from the early entries showing how Zelda wore its influences on its sleeve, mainly due to the developers wanting to tell a standard medieval European tale and the influence of Christian tinted literature such as The Lord of the Rings which permeates modern fantasy
The closest equivalent to a real Temple of Time. And to prove it, it has what appears to be two clocks. Check-mate Zelda

The imposing cathedral design feels like countless church scattered across the world but it is actually quite distinctive; though the building has influences from kind of Romanesque, pre-gothic architecture with those bricks, arches and windows like the central circular rose window, it also retains some castle-like design in the way that the central tower pillar is the tallest. In churches normally the side towers are the ones above the rest. Entering the church, Link is welcomed by what feels like an immense setting (where is even the celling on this thing!?). The 3DS version expanded on the romanesque design, with appropriate windows and columns. It is a cathedral through and through but it also has that chess-like floor usually found in castles and palaces of the renaissance era—also why Mario 64 and Super Mario Bros. 3 castles have this floor.

The Temple of Time cue, another location track based around one of the ocarina melodies, captures the sublime divine simplicity of the transcendental via the ancient plainchant tradition combined with the sacred Dorian profile.

Musical Analysis

Structure: Section 1 / Section 2

Time Signature: 4/4

Tempo: 75 (ritardando at the end of phrases between 60 and 44)

Melodic and Harmonic Profiles: D Dorian

Your steps reverberate through the high walls, a sound that will probably remain in the minds of players throughout their lives; you probably can recall it if you played through the game. The brief silence setting the mood for the sense of gravitas that this place commands. This is where the titular Ocarina of Time will fulfill its main role. You should respect this place. You certainly should not roll screaming with Link!. Savour its ambience, walk to the altar.

You are accompanied by a male choir singing a monophonic line—it is likely non-diegetic but there is a possibility this is actually sung at the temple. You can’t do wrong going with plainchant for a church setting. Gregorian chant, named after pope Gregory, is the central music tradition of the Roman Catholic Church—the same guys who popularized the magnificent cathedrals the Temple of Time is based upon— the church wants people to feel God through their five senses, and accordingly, have a developed aesthetic sense for each sense (yes, even smell), this includes music. cultivated throughout the ages. its development around the ninth century usually serves as the mark where Western classical music starts (as a cool fact, the first composer whose biography is known, was a Catholic nun and founder of scientific natural history named Hildegard of Bingen). Since you need consistency to praise God, the earlier chants had to be standardized somehow and preserved; religion is all about contemplating eternal values after all. So it was mostly through the influence of this institution that the continent developed progressively better methods of doing and preserving science, academy, architecture and art. There is a reason why the renaissance was kickstarted in Italy (if you want to imagine what a world without its influence would look like…you don’t need to, there was a separate continent isolated by an ocean that had a different conception of the world). Music benefited by evolving its written form, which allowed to preserve compositions for posterity. Monophony was the natural starting point.

It was inevitable that monks singing in Latin would come to identify divine power, spirituality, mystery and death in different kinds of media. And the Temple of Time, where the path to the Triforce lies, is the most sacred place in all of Hyrule. Koji Kondo says that working on The Legend of Zelda presents him with the opportunity to study different styles and cultures from around the world, and he certainly did his homework in adapting the specifics of plainchant.

The melody is taken from the Song of Time Link learns later in the game. It exhibits a slow, dynamic tempo, where each phrase seems to go with its own meter and starts and stops without paying attention to a time signature; it sounds very natural and faithful. The melody covers all the notes from the D Dorian mode (basically, all the white piano keys from D to D) a popular mode to emphasize the plainchant vibe—used again for the Halo series main theme which also starts as a monophonic chant—all phrases end on a D note, cementing the Dorian mode. Similar to plainchant, the piece avoids huge leaps in the melody for the most part; it’s easier to sing monophonically this way in a church with your fellow monks because you can slip to the note even if you don’t hit it right away.

There are just three phrases. The Song of Time repeats twice and then we find a second phrase that exemplifies the question-answer block format of a melody, with the third phrase exemplifying the long form melody format. The main rhythm motif is the slow gallop figure which is featured in all of the phrases (two eights, one quarter note). There is no strict rhythm between the phrases.

The piece is actually composed in a way that would be easy to sing for an actual male choir, augmenting the sense of fidelity. It is a song easy to remember for people in times in which music notation was very rough and with more freedom, just basic guidelines on melodic contour. The use of the Dorian mode for the sacred also calls back to a time before the modern major/minor conception of music; it sounds truly ancient (Ancient Evil = Phrygian Ancient Good = Dorian, the more Middle Eastern sounding a tune, the more likely you are to be on a lava world).

From a sound design standpoint, the huge reverb is created by mixing two choirs panned left and right, with a slight delay to the right choir. All this brings to live the ancient mythology and religious traditions of the people of Hyrule.

Musical Analysis: Door of Time

Structure: Section 1 / Section 2

Time Signature: 3/4

Tempo: 88

Melodic and Harmonic Profiles: D Aeolian/Minor, D Ionian/Major

Ameeeen

Ever wondered what the Gregorian chant heard inside the Temple of Time would sound harmonized? Well ,you don’t need to anymore because the short snippet that plays when you finally put the three spiritual stones on the pedestal of time presents both an harmony and a cadence to mark this special moment in the adventure. In real life monophonic chants lead to the organum which begun the path to polyphony in the Western art music tradition.

The catharsis when Link finally plays the Song of Time with his own hands at the altar of the Temple of Time. The piece that sounds after this stabilizes the rubato rhythm of the original and doesn’t have the time to reach the Dorian notes, staying on the D Aeolian/Minor Profile till the last part, when it goes unflinchingly towards that embellished amen cadence in D Ionian/Major; it could not be any other way inside a church. The same cadence is used for the track “Legend of Hyrule” connecting both with the tradition of the sacred. The piece is written with a descending bass line that mimics the chorale style (except that this time Koji decided to use strings instead of the choirs). It is also hinting the characteristic Andalusian progression that is all over the Zelda series.

The notes suggest the chord progression of: Dm – F – Bb – A – Gsus2 – D. Kind of a plagal cadence. It goes faster than the location cue, showing you that this is an exciting moment that only happens once in various lifetimes at this enclosure.

A pivotal moment in Link’s adventure, after opening the door of time there is not going back, the world is about to change for the worse..

After church, another European standard is the huge fortresses known as castles, where royalty lives, the political power of the kingdom as decided by divine right. You would expect something as mighty and epic as the Hyrule Castle theme from A Link to The Past, but the funny scenes that ensue when trying to reach the princess makes Kondo go for silly cartoonish music to capture the gameplay scene (it is actually the favorite cue for the composer due to how perfectly it captures movement). Time to sneak past the guards as a mischievous child.

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