Music in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, part four

This post, the last in the current series, comes in two parts.

First, some trends I’ve found while analyzing the twelve ocarina songs, along with a few miscellaneous observations that didn’t fit in anywhere else:

Seven of the twelve songs use D as their tonic — “Epona’s Song” and “Prelude of Light” are in D major, while “Song of Storms,” “Song of Time,” “Serenade of Water,” “Requiem of Spirit,” and “Bolero of Fire” are all in D minor or D Dorian.
Three songs use tonics that are not part of the five-note trigger motive palette (D, F, A, B, D): “Zelda’s Lullaby” (G major), “Saria’s Song” (C major), and “Minuet of Forest” (E minor).
The other two songs are special cases. “Nocturne of Shadow” has no functional triadic harmony until the end, when it suddenly cadences in D♭ major. ~~“Sun’s Song” is never harmonized and has no obvious tonic.~~ See part six for more on “Sun’s Song”!
All six of the warp songs end on major chords, despite the fact that only one of them (“Prelude of Light”) is actually in a major key. The others use what’s called a Picardy third to create a major ending to a minor piece.
“Prelude of Light” is the only song that doesn’t end on a triad. (It ends on a major seventh chord.)
Five songs have trigger motives consisting entirely of the pitches in a D minor triad (D-F-A): “Sun’s Song,” “Song of Storms,” “Song of Time,” “Requiem of Spirit,” and “Bolero of Fire.” Of these, “Sun’s Song” is the only one that isn’t actually harmonized in a D minor mode (owing to the fact that it’s not harmonized at all).
The Lon Lon Ranch theme and the Hyrule Castle Courtyard theme, based on “Epona’s Song” and “Zelda’s Lullaby” respectively, are the only pieces of the twelve that modulate.
The guitar part in the Lon Lon Ranch theme is swung but the vocal part is not, so the two don’t quite match up. This sort of rhythmic clash has occasionally been exploited in popular music; see, for example, “Girl” by The Beatles. Also, the Lon Lon Ranch theme is the only place swung eighth notes are found in the entire game.
Even though it’s in the key of G major, the Hyrule Castle Courtyard theme only actually has one G major chord — and even then it’s during the modulatory C major section, so it’s functioning as a dominant. The piece therefore has the odd distinction of never using its tonic chord “normally.”

Second, a bit about the in-game ocarina as an instrument.

As you’ve probably noticed, the music in Ocarina of Time is all synthesized, meaning that the sounds are all generated by the game and not recordings of actual musicians. (If you haven’t noticed, go back and listen to the “voice” in the Lon Lon Ranch theme again.) As it turns out, whoever designed the in-game ocarina had a little fun blurring the line between electronic and real instruments.

Below is a picture of the joystick on my Korg DW-6000 analog snythesizer:

Moving this joystick left or right bends the pitch of the note(s) you’re playing; moving it up triggers an oscillator, and moving it down triggers a filter.

Flip the x and y axes and you’re pretty close to the in-game ocarina’s “secret” controls. While playing the ocarina, up and down gives you pitch bend, while side to side gives you a vibrato-like oscillator. Both, to my ear, sound hilariously exaggerated and inappropriate for an ocarina. It’s a great Easter egg, and even better when one considers the software synthesizer that’s actually creating the sound.

The addition of pitch bend, of course, has another implication — even though I’ve made a big deal out of the five notes that correspond to the controller buttons, it’s actually possible to play other ones. The joystick can raise or lower the pitch by a whole step;¹ similarly, the R and Z buttons will raise or lower the pitch by a half step, respectively. Combining these two features gives you all the notes in between the five default ones, for a total of one and a half octaves:

There’s not any practical use for this, of course. To be honest, it’s tedious enough that there’s barely an impractical use for it either, but that hasn’t stopped anyone…

I hope you’ve all enjoyed this series. I’ll be back with more music analysis soon.