The huge secret hidden within Zelda's music

today i want to tell you about a really strange trick that's used within a huge number of zelda songs from ocarina of time to twilight princess and even more you almost certainly never noticed it before but once i point it out you'll never be able to unhear it let me tell you about the secret hidden within zelda's music [Music] it all begins around 1995 shigeru miyamoto had started working on his new project the 3d zelda game which would eventually become ocarina of time this new game would be unlike the flat zeldas from before it would be immersive and atmospheric and that went for the music too miyamoto told long time series composer koji kondo what i'd like you to do is to create a totally realistic atmosphere for example if you went to a dungeon you could almost smell it but that was easier said than done truth be told condo was a little stuck how on earth was he meant to create this new atmospheric sound he asked some of the other developers working on the team for advice but they were mostly younger than kondo and so felt too intimidated to give him any real suggestions so out of ideas and without a clue of where to go from here condo left his office at nintendo to go for a stroll around the local city of kyoto perhaps something there would catch his imagination and that's when he saw something that turned his plans upside down [Music] a small shop nestled away in amongst a hundred similar looking stores suddenly grabbed his attention it looked like some kind of music store for some reason and kondo himself wasn't exactly sure what it was he decided to go inside and take a look but what he found surprised him the shop had cds from all over the world jazz funk pop disco this little music store had it all and tucked away in the corner there was a section of sample cds these cds contained tons of short 10 second loops there were ethnic sounding flutes bongos and even chanting the shop had a listening station so condo could listen to it all right there inside the store he later wrote i've been able to hear tons of things i've never heard before i go there a lot and so condo grabbed a stack of these sample cds checked out and returned to his office at nintendo right now it was time to return to the task at hand this new zelda soundtrack before he'd been stuck for how to write something unique original and above all atmospheric but his visit to the music store had given him a big idea rather than writing the songs from scratch he could use pre-existing loops and samples to give the music an original sound and so i figured it might be fun to compare some of these original samples to the final tracks from ocarina of time plus a few other zelda games too which used the same technique little did i know tracking down some of these cds would be a huge pain in the ass and most of them were produced over 30 years ago i even emailed one of the companies who created these cds and they were like yeah no we haven't produced the cd for decades you definitely cannot buy it in the year 2020. but eventually through the use of some slightly dodgy looking websites i managed to track down a handful of the original cds that kondo bought back in 1995. i loaded them up on my computer with the help of some super old and clunky looking software but look it's all here all the sounds that kondo bought all the way back in 1995 and so finally we can compare condo's music to its original source let's go first is the great deku tree it's the very first temple you experience in ocarina of time and it has this nice ethereal almost otherworldly music in the background now condo's original sample for this one was from a cd called distorted reality you might not recognize the original sample if i play it normally [Music] [Applause] see sounds completely undecu-like but listen to what happens when i slow it way down [Music] see now you can hear it in the deku tree music right [Music] but there are actually much more obvious examples from the game's soundtrack like the iconic forest temple theme for example it's so instantly recognizable especially the part with this sort of fluty echoey rhythm well let me play you a sample from another condo cd this time called just ethnic those flutes should be sounding extremely familiar right here's where they show up in the forest temple theme once more [Music] but that's by no means all another slightly more subtle example is hidden within the music for jabu jabu's belly later on in the song there's this kind of percussive thunk that plays a few times well from the album a poke in the ear with a sharp stick great name here's the original sample or take the shadow temple theme it has these drums running throughout the background of the tune take a listen and those drums are from a cd called ethnic flavors here's the original sample [Music] but by far the best example has got to be from the fire temple this song is infamous because in the original version of the track it featured an islamic call to prayer in later versions of the game it was replaced with a similar sounding synthesizer because nintendo did not like including religious references in their games but here's something really interesting that original call to prayer sound that too came from a sample cd that koji kondo bought in that little music store in kyoto the cd is called voice spectral volume 1 by a company called best service and on track 76 we hear the following [Music] sound [Music] but condo didn't stop at ocarina of times soundtrack only a few years later nintendo developed the sequel majora's mask and kondo made use of his sample cds there too in fact this game has some even more in-your-face examples like in the woodfool temple there's this ethnic sounding vocal cool [Music] [Applause] and that too was lifted right off condo's old favorite ethnic flavors but the best example comes not inside the dungeons but instead in the overworld majora's mask is famous for its three-day repeating cycle the music for each day gradually grows more and more frantic until at the end of the third day we watch as the moon crashes into termina and the music for this part of the game is suitably sombre it's great but check this out the basis for the final hours piece of music comes from that very first cd distorted reality there's a track there called iceland and just take a listen [Music] [Music] now majora's mask was the last zelda game that kondo wrote the soundtrack for on his own but his influence can be seen in every game following it and this extends to the music sampling technique too [Music] like take twilight princess where link transforms into a wolf this song which plays while you're in wolf form is a sort of hodgepodge of a number of samples from different cds once more there's this orchestra hit sound from the cd gigger pack [Music] then there's an upbeat folk music like loop from a cd called new world order and then finally serving as the base for the whole track there's a sample from one of koji kondo's original cds from distorted reality here's the sample solia so all of this is pretty incredible to me i mean we get a look behind the scenes at some of these songs in a way we never normally could but i think the coolest part is this the whole thing started purely by chance koji kondo just happened to encounter that one store on that one day in kyoto if he had chosen a different street to walk down then none of this would have happened zelda's music would have had a completely different sound to it but because of that store he noticed and the cds he bought ocarina of time was given a unique atmosphere and this had a lasting influence on the zelda series up until this very day i wonder what condo would have thought back in 1995 if you told him all of that hey this video was made possible by my amazing patrons some of whom are appearing on screen right now if you want updates on the channel and stuff you can follow me on twitter at thomas g docs and uh subscribe for more videos like this if you want i'll see you next time bye

Channel: Thomas Game Docs

Views: 329,647

Rating: 4.9389877 out of 5

Keywords: gaming, Zelda, Legend of Zelda, Behind the Scenes, Koji Kondo, Nintendo, Breath of the Wild

Id: FQQeVnd2VEk

Length: 11min 34sec (694 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 04 2020