Why the Temple of Time's Theme in Ocarina of Time is such an Amazing Piece of Zelda Music

the perfect atmospheric song in a video game doesn't exist [Music] the Temple of Time one of the most solemn and sacred places in all of Hyrule and one that you'll likely find yourself returning to more frequently than most due to its Central position on the world map being a Teleport song location and of course these spots to actively transform between young and Adult Link the Temple of Time wears its inspiration on its sleeve taking its architectural influences from Romanesque Christian churches and the music here is no different getting its inspiration from Gregorian chant a style of music with extremely humble beginnings whose creation and study have helped pave the way that we read and understand music to this day but just what led the development team behind Ocarina of Time to design the Temple of Time this way and what led Koji kondo to write one of the most simple but brilliant songs in the game well I did the research so you don't have to today I present to you why the Temple of times music is so brilliantly written if you enjoy this video please considering grabbing for more content starting out Christianity was kind of an underground scene and so Christian churches were by and large simple rectangular buildings in structure the typical layout featured a Nave the main area for the congregation with Isles on either side usually separated by supporting columns which allowed churchgoers to walk into their seats at the front of the church was an area called the choir which led up to a raised area known as the apps and featured the building's altar which of course would be reserved for the religious leader to conduct a mass and hey in the original version of Ocarina of Time yeah it's simple but you can tell the team did a pretty good job of getting this to line up with the actual design of the Temple of Time it's kind of funny because I didn't notice until doing research for this video but there is actually a tiny bit of space you can walk into behind the pillars creating an official aisle however in the 3DS remaster this is expanded upon greatly AJ aunuma the lead director of most of the Zelda games has said that the changes from the original were mostly to get the game in line with the team's original Vision with the increased power that they had on the 3DS and yeah the increased number of columns an additional space behind them seems to bring the design more in line with a traditional Church structure and for most of the architecture segment moving forward I'll be referencing the Temple of Time in the way that it appears in the remake since it gives me a bit more to work with with the expanding reach and power of the Catholic Church throughout the first Millennium Church buildings grew in both extravagance and purpose the term Cathedral really only pertains to church buildings where a bishop a higher ranking church member with authority and oversight operated out of But as time went on these buildings became used for more than just worship and housing a bishop they began to be used for the crownings of kings and queens and even feast days were celebrated in them and yeah I could easily see the crowd from the hybral Town Square moving into the cathedral to celebrate a holy day giving worship to the Triforce goddesses of Hyrule in addition to Cathedrals some churches are known as basilicas which don't house an important member of the church but a sacred holy artifact such as the Shroud of Turin believed to be the cloth that Jesus was wrapped in after his crucifixion or Saint Paul's chains Basilica is housing these holy relics were usually popular stopping places on a pilgrimage to a holy site and while hylians really only have two settlements in Ocarina of Time I could also Envision the people of kakariko taking a trip into town for goods but also stopping to pay respects at the Temple of Time while there previously in the video I mentioned that the Temple of Time was inspired by Romanesque architecture what does that mean well I'll try and keep this as brief as possible because I did so much research on the topic and I think even somebody who's very into architectural history such as myself will have a hard time not finding some of this a little overly clinical basically there are several periods of time in church architecture which are designated by names you're probably most familiar with the term Gothic architecture and you'd be forgiven for assuming that it applies here Gothic architecture came out of Romanesque architecture and one of the most prominent changes is the height Architects discovered whoa pointed arches vaulted ceilings and buttresses do a lot to help support the building so we can go way taller with it and since churches were such an important part of European communities they were often built as the tallest building in those communities heck even in Ocarina of Time you can't even see the tallest part of the church from the Town Square this also made room for very large Windows which allowed for maximum lighting into the church and since this was pre-electricity apart from candles and torches natural light was the only thing you had to go on these windows were also prominently stained glass which created a beautiful multi-colored effect obviously the Temple of Time doesn't have stained glass though I think it would be really cool to see and actually this has been done in later depictions of the temple such as in Twilight Princess and in fact there are stained glass windows inside ganon's Castle later in Ocarina of Time itself so if I'm saying the Temple of Time is not Gothic what makes it more Romanesque Romanesque design has several notable features which are definitely present in the temple outside we are greeted with a relief over the entrance doors which is commonly found in Romanesque churches often featuring a religious figure and here we are greeted with the Triforce itself a representation of the three goddesses the temple is two stories tall separated by a string course which is basically just a line to show people hey this is where the first story ends the new one begins despite their potentially not being a second floor churches of this time often feature tall towers which were often the highest part of Romanesque churches allowing them to be seen for miles and on the side we can see some buttresses which would Aid in providing support for the taller ceiling another common feature in Romanesque architecture is arched Windows which often come in pairs separated by a little pillar inside a larger Arch which can be seen prominently on the front of the Temple of Time it's important to note that many churches of the time took so long to build that they would often incorporate elements of multiple Styles into the architecture for example one lead architect might start the project building a Romanesque church and before finishing a more modern Gothic style seeps into the culture and boom you've got buttresses and vaulted ceilings inside the Temple of time we can also see Romanesque design with a Clara story a segment with Windows allowing light in on the second level as well as a tall ribbed ceiling and the groin vaults and I want to take a quick second once again to give massive credit to the 3DS remake of the game for really going above and beyond with a temple of time this version really brings the temple interior so much more in line with classic church architecture with all the little details it adds and of course I can't talk about the temple without mentioning the chamber that the master sword is stored away in this room is incredibly symmetrical with only one window Shining Light down into it the major thing of note is that this room has a massive Dome ceiling domes at least those found in church structures existed as far back as the 5th Century but really came into their Prime with the Baroque Period which came some 150 years after the height of Gothic architecture with more and more advanced technology and knowledge of architecture churches started featuring domes that were absolutely massive these domes were often painted with elaborate designs featuring a depiction of heaven and in general were designed to draw the audience's view upward towards God one Theory this leads me to speculate is that the master sword chamber was constructed last and added onto the Temple of Time solely to house the sword which was sealed away with the only way to gain access to it by collecting three spiritual stones from the other races of Hyrule coming together this is 100 editorializing on my part but the idea of this being constructed as a pact between the Hyrule royal family and the three other races living here sealing away their most powerful weapon against a force of evil feels like a really nice diplomatic gesture and adds nice context to Link's quest in the game which involves him visiting each of these three groups to gather their Stone to help save the land hope you're still with me because after all that talk of architectural history it's finally time to talk about music history music has been involved in Christian worship for a long time the Last Supper an incredibly pivotal Moment In the bible where jesus sits down with his disciples for the last time before his eventual crucifixion mentions the group singing A Hymn and this led to singing being an integral part of Christian worship however early churches weren't unified so the Music performed was different at each church for a very long time it's said that Pope Gregory the first reportedly heard music from Angels taking the forms of doves and these Melodies became what we now know as Gregorian chant later Charlemagne made Gregorian chant the official music of the Holy Roman Empire now sometimes simply called plain chant or Roman chant and Scholars nowadays mostly credit the name Gregorian chant less to Pope Gregory and more is a weird Fusion of gallican chant and Roman chant an aspect I find fascinating to think about is that music notation as we think of it today did not exist at all at the time people were using a system called numes and it was wild and bad mostly existing as a source to help people remember the music but not something you'd be able to understand by just looking at it eventually somebody named guino dorezo came up with the system to at least Mark where F and C were in relation to other notes allowing for actual sight reading but still a far cry from our current system and this was mostly how music was recorded for hundreds of years until the Council of Trent in the 1500s said hey these sung texts aren't clear enough and demanded a Reformation of the chance and then in 1582 we finally saw New Catholic chant books which for the first time contained note values it's hard to stress just how much of written music as we view it today really came out of the church's incredible power and reach which thankfully saw music as an important part of worship so it funded many composers and music historians to help build the structure that we used to this day alright so what exactly is Gregorian chant well the temple of Times theme is such a perfect example of Gregorian chant I'm going to break the piece down while also talking about the genre itself starting off by mentioning that Gregorian chant is traditionally very simple I mean comparing the sheet music for this song to just about any other song I've covered in this series and it's plain to see that's because Gregorian chant is monophonic meaning that there is only one Melody and no Harmony everyone is singing in unison which not only serves to create a feeling of unity amongst the singers but also makes it easier to memorize remember they weren't looking at sheet music while they sang this was mostly from memory and hey the Temple of Time theme does exactly this it's just one singular track and no Harmony another major aspect of Gregorian chant is melodic smoothness meaning there aren't really any major leaps in Pitch mostly staying within seconds or thirds or two notes up or down interestingly that's not always the case within this track however kondo had a bit of a handicap imposed upon him while writing the Temple of Times theme which is that it's very much based on the song of time an Ocarina tune that link can play in the game which makes up the melody of the first several lines of the Temple of Times theme I mentioned this because on the N64 controller the Ocarina could only play five notes so kondo wasn't able to work with a full scale over the course of the whole game kondo had to make about 12 individual Ocarina Melodies that were easy enough to be remembered while also distinct enough that the player wouldn't feel like they were playing something too similar heck half of these songs are a repeated three note pattern typically featuring a longer Melody to finish off the original Three note phrases quote in all there are 12 Ocarina Melodies I only had five notes to use for the Ocarina Tunes because of button limitations be they upbeat major or sad minor songs making composing difficult and yeah kondo only had d f a b and another D in octave Up All In All making a D Minor six chord it's unclear if kondo wrote the song of time or the full Temple of Time first but he'd have to at least be aware that the first six notes of the song of time had to be within these limitations so I'd venture to Guess that he wrote the Ocarina song first and then fleshed out the Fuller table of Time theme but returning to the concept of melodic smoothness the three note phrase in the song of time starts with a fifth drop from the first note a to a d and I adventure to guess it's because otherwise he'd really only be able to go up in a pattern down in a pattern or up and down repeatedly on the whole though kondo mostly sticks to this rule of melodic smoothness Gregorian chant is also known for its free-flowing rhythms again hearkening back to the discussion of the history of music notation time signatures which we use to indicate Tempo in a piece didn't exist combining this with the nature of memorizing the music and the rhythm of Gregorian chant was kind of something you just had to feel which led to most music sung in the style to sort of flow and have few or no pauses with very little short or staccato notes and singers of a specially long phrases in Gregorian chants will sometimes take short breaths while the rest of the Ensemble continues to sing so the voices never seem to stop another common aspect of Gregorian chant is that it's melismatic meaning that you sing several notes over one syllable and this is a practice that's still popular in church music today and while the sound font used just has male voices singing on one syllable anyways it's not too hard to imagine someone singing over top this melody while only changing these syllables very little and one final thing I want to note about the piece and how well kondo has incorporated the style of Gregorian chant is how he uses Dorian mode no matter which of the three phrases of the song you're singing it always comes back to this final note a huge Concept in music theory is the idea of modes which stem from music theorists all the way back in the Middle Ages now I'm not delving too deep on modes here but know that this piece is in Dorian mode which tends to feel like a minor key and has this sense of mysteriousness to it heck 8-bit music theory did a whole video on the subject so if you're interested in that he explains it better than I ever could but in church modes you tend to have what is known as the final and the co-final basically the final is a note that every phrase ends on and the co-final is a note usually a fifth up from the final that you often find yourself landing on think of it as a common resting place which helps you Orient yourself within the song and yeah every phrase in the temple of Times theme ends on D and often we find ourselves landing on a which is a fifth up it's simple but brilliant much like the song as a whole and looking at the entire piece there's only three unique phrases in the temple of Times theme the first of which is taken wholesale from the song of time and is repeated twice [Music] the second phrase which does this cool repeated section but it changes two notes on the second playthrough which messes with what the listener's brain expects from the song surprising them and putting them a little off balance before returning to the familiar d [Music] here [Music] and the third and final phrase which sits up on a high C while alternating pitches below it does a nice walk down to a lower seat before propping up a shorter slightly different alternating section and once again resolving with the final constant d [Music] it is a fantastic piece and while remarkably more simple than most of the work condo has put into the other pieces we've covered on the channel That Simplicity is by Design and kondo has once again proven that he's done his homework in researching how to create a piece that matches the tone and even historical context that his music is going to be the backdrop for [Music] thank you so much for watching this video I know it's been a hot moment since I've released one of these but getting back to doing this video really reminded me why I like doing video essays in the first place and hey if this video does big nubbies I Won't Wait an entire year before putting out another so give this a thumbs up or comment down below to help signal boost it and get it in front of more people and a huge shout out to the folks who support us financially on patreon.com savedata team if you'd like to join them as well I'll include a link to that down below where you can get your name included in this patreon song [Music] [Music] [Music] don't forget [Music] traveling in a box and snow cat Conjuring spreads your croissant fulfill of written word jada punishers [Music] thank you [Music]

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Keywords: Temple of Time Music, Temple of Time Theme, Temple of Time, Ocarina of Time Temple of Time, Temple of Time Theory, Temple of Time Explained, temple of time ocarina of time, temple of time ocarina of time ost, zelda ocarina of time music analysis, ocarina of time music theory, legend of zelda music analysis, zelda music analysis, save data team, save data team zelda, save data team music analysis, temple of time music, temple of time theme, the temple of time

Id: UF-NWkqmoIk

Length: 18min 28sec (1108 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 15 2023