Art by George Butler.
This episode was written and produced by Casey Emmerling.
Music is a quintessential part of the Zelda series. And some of Zelda’s most iconic melodies go all the way back to the original game, on the Nintendo Entertainment System. These tunes were born in an age of 8 bits, and 5 lo-fi channels of audio. But those limitations forced composer Koji Kondo to make them as distilled and powerful as possible. Featuring Thomas of Thomas Game Docs, and Kirk Hamilton of Strong Songs.
MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE
Original music by Wesley Slover
Silent Night (Smooth Jazz Version) by One Man Quartet
Fair N Square by William Benckert
Bozz by William Benckert
Back to Business by William Benckert
Blue Lantern by Yi Nantiro
Sweet Violet by Yi Nantiro
Helios by Lexica
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View Transcript ▶︎
[music in]
It's Christmas morning, 1987. I’m seven years old, sitting in my living room, rocking my favorite He-Man pajamas. It’s the best Christmas ever, I just don’t know it yet. This is the year that Santa brought me a mysterious Nintendo game in a golden cartridge... It’s something called The Legend of Zelda.
I slide the game into the console, press it down, close the cover, and push the power button. Then, I hear this.
[clip: Zelda NES Title Theme]
The screen shows the game's title, underlined by a sword. In the background, a waterfall cascades down a rocky mountain.
Suddenly, the screen goes dark. Then, text begins to scroll up from the bottom of the screen, almost like the opening crawl of Star Wars. It tells the tale of a Prince of Darkness named Ganon, a princess named Zelda, and a magical power called the Triforce. The text tells me that I’m on a quest to find the eight pieces of the Triforce, and save Zelda from Ganon.
That's how I was first introduced to the Zelda series, and that title sequence pretty much blew my seven year old mind. It was the perfect introduction to this world of magic and adventure. And a huge part of what made it so powerful was that epic music.
But my first introduction to Zelda was almost completely different.
Because, for a long time during the game’s development, composer Koji Kondo used a different song for that title screen. It was originally a rendition of Maurice Ravel's famous piece Boléro. Here’s a recording by the London Symphony Orchestra.
[clip: Boléro]
Now obviously, it wouldn’t have sounded like that. On the hardware of the original Nintendo, it would have sounded more like this.
[music in]
Koji Kondo felt like Boléro was the perfect fit to introduce the game, and he thought that he could legally use it. Apparently, the way it works in Japan is that musical compositions go into the public domain fifty years after the composer dies. But shortly before the game was set to come out, Kondo realized that Ravel had actually died forty nine years ago—meaning that Nintendo would have to wait an entire year before they could use it.
There was no time to delay, so Kondo pulled an all-nighter to make a new piece of music. He decided to rearrange the theme that he had already composed for the game’s Overworld. It’s the music you hear the most as you play the game.
[clip: Zelda NES Overworld theme]
Kondo slowed the piece down to make it feel like a proper introduction, like you’re turning the first page of an ancient book of fairy tales.
[Overworld theme transitions into Title theme]
The result is something that feels far more epic than the stately elegance of Boléro. Zelda’s creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, has compared this theme to the music of a spaghetti western. Here’s the theme from a 1968 western called Pray to God and Dig Your Grave.
[Title theme transitions into Pray to God and Dig Your Grave]
You’re listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.
[music in]
Music is a quintessential part of the Zelda franchise. In each new game, many of the classic melodies from earlier titles get reimagined, with new sounds and new arrangements. This gives every game a sense of nostalgia, while also feeling fresh and exciting.
[music out]
As much as I loved that first Zelda game, the one I played the most as a kid was A Link to the Past, which came out a few years later on the Super Nintendo. So the Zelda theme that I remember best is this version. It used synthesized orchestral sounds like horns, strings, and drums.
[clip: ALttP Title Theme]
But someone who's a few years younger than me might remember the variation from Majora's Mask, on the Nintendo 64. In that version, Koji Kondo added an interesting countermelody, which you can hear in the right channel.
[clip: MM Termina Field Theme]
If Wind Waker was your first Zelda game, then your introduction to this theme would have been the elegant version that plays in the game's prologue.
[clip: WW Title Theme]
My daughter is a Nintendo Switch kid, so she grew up playing Breath of the Wild. That means the version she’s heard the most is the song that plays when you're riding a horse at nighttime in the game. It's a pretty radical change from what came before, but in twenty or thirty years, it'll probably be the one that gives her the most nostalgia.
[clip: BotW Title Theme]
Dallas’ Daughter: I hear this sound a lot.
That's my oldest daughter, who's ten.
Dallas’ Daughter: Mm-hmm, when you're riding a horse really fast. But it's also got part of the original Zelda song put into it. So basically, it can basically tell you, “You're playing Zelda.”
[music in]
It's pretty amazing that more than three decades after it was composed, the Zelda theme music is still going strong. And that's a testament to the genius of composer Koji Kondo.
Thomas: Koji Kondo is probably the most famous video game composer from the entirety of the medium.
That's Thomas, who runs a Youtube channel about video game history called Thomas Game Docs.
Thomas: He wrote the Mario theme.
[clip: Mario NES Overworld theme]
Thomas: He wrote the Zelda theme.
[clip: Zelda NES Overworld theme]
Altogether, Kondo has written hundreds of video game tracks, including dozens of classic themes from Mario and Zelda.
Thomas: But I think he doesn't get enough credit for also being all of those early games' sound designer as well. So he created all of the sound effects that you hear in Mario...
[Mario sfx]
Thomas: And Zelda…
[Zelda sfx]
As primitive as these sounds may seem today, creating them wasn't easy. And that's because of how sound was produced on the Nintendo Entertainment System, better known as the NES.
[music in]
Kirk: Well, It was kind of a musical instrument on its own. It had built-in synthesizers.
That's Kirk Hamilton, a composer, musician and host of the Strong Songs podcast.
Kirk: So it had a sound module that composers would have to write for. So you would be writing a form of music notation, though it was much more complicated and difficult to read than music notation.
This musical code was stored in the game cartridge, and read by the console.
Kirk: Which would then produce the sounds using onboard synths in real time.
You can think of it like a player piano.
Kirk: So every time you play a Nintendo game, it's actually performing the music for you right there in your living room.
As impressive as that is, it meant that the range of sounds that the NES could make was extremely limited.
Thomas: All of the different notes that you can produce from the NES just sound like slightly different varieties of electronic beeps.
[clip: four NES beeps]
These beeps and boops were made using one of the console's five sound channels.
Thomas: One of them can play short samples, like recorded audio samples, but because of technical limitations, they sound terrible and they're very rarely used. In the Legend of Zelda, it's used a couple of times for like enemy kind of roar noises.
[sfx: Zelda NES roars]
And here's a vocal sample of the word Ghostbusters, from the NES game.
[sfx: NES Ghostbusters bite]
Tiny soundbites like these were the only bits of audio that were actually stored on the cartridge. All of the other sounds and music were generated on the fly, in one of the other four channels.
Thomas: There's one sound which can just produce white noise.
[sfx: white noise]
Thomas: So that's used to sort of loosely approximate the sound of like drums and high hats.
[sfx: Zelda Ending theme white noise]
There are three channels that can generate actual notes.
Thomas: One of them is a triangle wave, which is typically used for bass lines.
[sfx: Zelda Ending Theme triangle stem]
Thomas: And then the other two are called pulse waves.
These are usually used for a melody line, and a harmony.
[sfx: Zelda Ending theme pulse stems, panned]
Put these channels together, and you get that classic 8 bit sound.
[Zelda NES - Ending Theme in]
This is the theme that plays during The Legend of Zelda's end credits. If you listen closely, you can clearly hear the four channels: percussion, bass, a melody and a harmony.
But in one part of the world, the console's audio capabilities didn't stop there. In Japan, the NES was called the Famicom, which was short for Family Computer. And over there, Zelda was actually released on something called the Famicom Disk System.
[music in]
Thomas: So the Famicom Disk System was a add-on or peripheral device which you connected to the Famicom console, and it allowed it to play games off disks instead of cartridges.
They basically looked like floppy discs. Compared to the regular cartridges, these discs could hold more storage, and were cheaper to make. But the Disk System had another benefit: an extra sound channel.
Thomas: One in which you could draw your own sound wave. So you had a lot more freedom in trying to recreate the sound of different instruments.
In Japan, Zelda was a launch title for the Famicom Disk System. And because of that extra channel, many of the sounds in the disc version of the game sound slightly different than they do in the cartridge version.
Here are a few comparisons. First up is the sword beam sound. Here it is on the NES...
[sfx: NES sword beam]
And here’s the Famicom…
[sfx: FDS sword beam]
Next is the bomb explosion. NES…
[sfx: NES bomb blow]
Famicom…
[sfx: FDS bomb blow]
And here's a door unlocking on the NES…
[sfx: NES door unlock]
And on the Famicom…
[sfx: FDS door unlock]
There are differences in the music, too. Here's that title theme, in the NES version.
[Zelda NES Title Theme]
Over on the Disk System, that theme includes an extra layer of chime sounds.
[Zelda FDS Title Theme]
But for most tracks, the music was the same in both versions. For instance, here's the theme that plays as you explore the game's mysterious dungeons.
[clip: NES Dungeon Theme]
It turns out, there's one particular song that might have inspired that theme. You see, when Koji Kondo was in high school, he played keyboard in a band that covered songs by prog rock groups like Deep Purple and Emerson Lake and Palmer.
[clip: ELP - Tarkush]
Kondo seems to have brought some of that prog rock influence into the dungeon theme. Here it is again.
[clip: NES Dungeon Theme]
And here's a 1969 Deep Purple song called April.
[clip: Deep Purple - April]
[music in]
Dungeon crawling makes up a huge portion of The Legend of Zelda, so it was crucial that Kondo got that song just right. But he also needed sounds for some of the key things that happen inside these dungeons. One sound for when you open a treasure chest, and get a crucial new item. And another sound for when you solve a puzzle, or reveal a hidden secret. These might be the most iconic sounds in the entire Zelda franchise.
That's coming up after the break.
[music out]
MIDROLL
[music in]
In the mid 80's, Nintendo was hard at work on two seminal games. On one side was Super Mario Brothers. It was bright, cheerful, and linear, with the player always moving from left to right. On the other side was The Legend of Zelda, which in many ways was the opposite of Mario. Zelda was mysterious, even treacherous, with an open map that forced players to find their own way.
[music out]
Koji Kondo was the composer of both games. And he made sure the difference was reflected in the music. For Mario, he wrote bouncy, upbeat tracks like the sunny waltz of the Underwater theme.
[clip: Mario NES - Underwater Theme]
For Zelda, he wrote grand, epic pieces, like the ominous theme to the final dungeon inside of Death Mountain.
[clip: Zelda NES - Death Mountain]
[music in]
As a player exploring these dungeons, you often come across puzzles.
Thomas: So you walk into a room and there'll be some grid of boxes on the floor, and you know you have to push them in a certain direction and you're not sure which way they're meant to go. And then there'll be some map on the wall, and you'll look at it, and then you'll suddenly realize what you're meant to do. And you push the boxes where they're meant to go and the door will unlock.
And just as the puzzle is solved, you hear a very specific sound.
[sfx: NES Secret Unlocked]
That was the NES version. On the Famicom Disk System, it's an octave higher.
[sfx: FDS Secret Unlocked]
That melody is often called the Secret Unlocked sound.
[clip: LA Eagle’s Tower theme]
And if you've ever played a Zelda game, it probably gives you a little dopamine hit every time you hear it.
[sfx: LA Secret Unlocked]
Kirk: It creates this Pavlovian response, in me anyways, when I'm playing a Zelda game. It makes me feel rewarded. It's kind of the, "Congratulations, you did it!" jingle that accompanies me feeling very smart because I just solved a Zelda puzzle.
But the sound isn't just supposed to make you feel rewarded.
Kirk: It's also meant to make you feel excited about pressing forward.
[sfx: LA - Secret Unlocked 2]
Like any good video game score, every piece of music you hear in a Zelda game helps support what's happening in that moment.
Kirk: Some pieces feel really placid and like they're kind of, you know, staying put.
For example, there's the Fairy Fountain theme.
[clip: SNES Fairy Fountain Theme]
In Zelda, Fairy Fountains are peaceful hideaways where gentle fairies heal your wounds. And the music reflects that perfectly.
Kirk: That's this really cyclical chord progression, and it makes you feel like you're kind of in this nice relaxing place. This is a safe place and you're floating.
Another example would be the Song of Storms, from Ocarina of Time.
[clipn: OoT Song of Storms]
Kirk: That's this kind of spiraling sound. It's in three four, and it sort of spirals and you're inside of a windmill when you hear it. So it kind of makes you feel like you're spinning, but staying still.
Both of those songs feel like they could loop along forever while you take a nice long nap. But the Secret Unlocked sound is different.
Kirk: So Secret Unlocked, it goes down and then up.
[sfx: NES Secret Unlocked]
Kirk: And it ends in this really unresolved way. So even though you feel really good when you hear it, because you just solved a puzzle, it doesn't feel super settled. It feels very forward looking.
Thomas: It makes me feel like the game is like, "Yes! Well done. You passed this puzzle, but the dungeon still looms ahead of you. There's enemies and there's monsters and..." I dunno, it's an interesting sound.
To understand how a melody can feel both satisfying and unresolved, we need to dig into exactly what’s going on with these eight little notes.
Kirk: It's kind of moving between two different tonalities, I'd call them. It goes between diminished and augmented, which are, if major and minor are the Coke and Pepsi of tonalities, augmented and diminished are kind of like second tier. They're like Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper maybe?
Kirk: So it goes down [piano example] this very diminished sound that is [piano example] It just has two half steps in it. [piano example] So it's kind of close and dissonant sounding. And then it goes up [piano example] an augmented triad, just straight up. [piano example] And that's much more open. It's like a [piano example] major triad, but [piano example] with a sharp five.
Kirk: So it's [piano example] just, it's kind of got like an elbow sticking out, is how I always think of it. It's a little sharper sounding. It's a little rougher. And it doesn't sound settled, like that, [piano example] that's not a very settled sounding chord to me. So it's not like a relaxing thing, even though it's very positive and kind of rewarding.
Kirk: But it makes you want to see what it is that you unlocked. Since a lot of times when this plays, [sfx: OoT Secret Unlocked] you'll see a door open up [sfx: OoT Door Bars] and you're onto the next part of the dungeon, but you don't know what's beyond the door. So it's a little bit enticing in that way, I think.
Sometimes, what's behind that locked door is a tough, angry miniboss.
[clip: LA miniboss fight]
So you muster your courage, and give it everything you've got.
[sfx: LA fight]
After a fierce battle, you finally defeat it.
[clip: LA - Angler’s Tunnel theme]
Once you do, you're usually rewarded with a large treasure chest that contains an important item to help you on your quest. When you open the chest…
[sfx: LA - chest open]
...Link holds the item triumphantly over his head, and you hear some version of this.
[sfx: LA - Treasure Chest]
Thomas: So the version of the Treasure Chest Sound Effect from the original Legend of Zelda is only like a couple of seconds long…
[sfx: NES - Treasure Chest]
Thomas: …but I think it's very effective. It's like a little "Well done!" before you get back to fighting monsters.
Musically, the sound is bright and happy. In the NES version, it's just two notes separated by a major third.
[sfx: NES - Treasure Chest]
On the Famicom Disk System, the sound also includes the perfect fifth.
[FDS - Treasure Chest]
This makes it end on a nice major chord.
[sfx: piano chord]
That cheerful sound works well for getting a new item, but it's not as musically interesting as the Secret Unlocked melody is... yet.
[music in]
Just like the Overworld Theme, the Secret Unlocked and Treasure Chest sounds get tweaked or reimagined in almost every new Zelda game. Each variation reflects the ideas and themes of the specific game that it comes from. And each sound can tell you a lot about how Nintendo's consoles have evolved, and what they wanted from this franchise at any given time.
That's all coming up... next time.
Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. Find out more at Defacto Sound dot com.
This episode was written and produced by Casey Emmerling, with help from Grace East. It was sound designed and mixed by Joel Boyter.
The 8-bit version of Boléro was created by a pixel artist and chiptune musician named DragonDePlatino. Check out more of their work by following the link in the show notes.
Thanks to our guests, Thomas and Kirk.
Thomas’ Youtube channel is called Thomas Game Docs. His videos are consistently fascinating and well produced, and the video he made called Zelda's Most Iconic Sound Effect was a big inspiration for this episode. That's Thomas Game Docs, on Youtube.
Kirk's podcast is called Strong Songs. In each episode, he breaks down an iconic piece of music, to figure out what makes it work. He even did an episode about the music of Zelda, which dives a lot deeper into the music theory that we couldn’t cover here. Subscribe to Strong Songs right here in your podcast player.
I’m Dallas Taylor. Thanks for listening.
[music out]
