Game:

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000)

Duration: 1:35

1,034 views

11

Music: Cavern
Composers: Koji Kondo
Platform: Nintendo 64 / Nintendo 3DS

Music theory analysis and piano cover visualization project made with the actual audio tracks from the original Nintendo 64 game. Extracted with a specialized audio software, we can now dig inside the score for the first time; offering us a glimpse for how each instrument contributes to the whole.

♫ Support the Channel: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/musictracks
♫ Media files and support for future interactive tools:

https://bit.ly/officialmusictracksmedia

Musical Analysis:

Introduction to the concepts and influences of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask:
https://bit.ly/3NDw753

Structure: Section 0 / Section 1
Time Signature: 4/4
Tempo: 64
Melodic and Harmonic Profiles: Atonal

The spiritual success to Dodongos’s Cavern ( and inside the tombs) but with the creepiness factor turned up a notch. The ambiguously metallic sounds from the Goron mines are replaced with true standards of horror film scoring to create the sense that something very bad could happen to you at any moment you expend on the underground.

First heard on the mysterious trip through the rabbit hole Link falls and then used in all manner of caves and grottos from Termina; the cue is a true noise fest of unsettling proportions.

After being saved of his fall by a conveniently placed flower, the hero finds himself on a series of underground tunnels. The level of surrealism starts to rise as we see a now flying skull kid illuminated by two theatre lamps straight from a circus; his level of power, confidence and evilness now seems totally different from the mischievous child from the surface. The Chinese opera has begun.

For this cavernous track it’s not surprising that it starts with the usual atmospheric wind that accompanied various dungeons throughout Ocarina of Time. For variety, a different ample from those of the previous game was used to create the random wind pattern; it even manages to sound a little bit like very deep voices, giving a more infernal sound to the cue.

The set of horror instruments are composed of ambiguous sounds meant to scare and unsettle. including some huge metal sounds like something has awakened below the earth or the floor is crumbling, some slashing sounds like guillotines are being operated and the ultimate standard of horror, the screeching violins played in a very high register without any musical intention whatsoever. The Psycho" Strings, named after their famous use on the movie from Alfred Hitchcock in the iconic shower scene. From there, composers have taken this disturbing sound to signify danger or something unnatural lurking, just varying the speed depending of how close it is—the sound probably was not even made with an actual violin bow. It is also frequently performed by fast bow strokes below the bridge — the wooden piece that holds the strings up — of a cello. However, since nobody wants to damage a precious, expensive violin, In many horror movies they don't use strings but a waterphone, an instrument that may even be more effective and versatile for these purposes; this beauties might be a sound designer dream acquisition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foSJstDFDfg


By manipulating the speed and pitch of the sounds, Kondo manages to have a broader palette from just a few samples, sounding very different depending of what key is pressed on the controller.

As was said, the cue will be used for all kinds of scary places throughout Termina

Link was without an identity at the beginning of the game. Majora is capable of seeing right through him, thus this lack of identity is about to turn literal for the hero of this adventure.

Sample used for the strings:

Danger Strings - Partition D - DANGER - DANGER [430] from the library Spectrasonics Distorted Reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4mdOgwkXw8


♫ Continue to Blog and Musical Analysis: https://officialmusictracks.wordpress.com

What? But if it doesn't sound anything like the original track!
- There are a couple of reasons that make it impossible to get a perfect conversion between the music from inside the game and the audio files. First, there is the fact that the audio inside the cartridge uses a music sequence format called Music Macro Language, a format that has additional information for the playing in-game; then there is the problem of reproducing the particular reverb effect that the N64 used–even the team behind the sound for the 3ds remake had trouble replicating the effect!– and third we have the audio compression that is absent here and helped to glue the instruments together, affecting the final mix.

#zeldamusic #nintendomusic #majorasmask

Other Statistics