Wind Waker's Boss Themes are the Best in the Series

[Music] the boss themes from The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker are the best of the series I'm not just saying that try to hum the music from the big black teeth monster boss fight in Skyward Sword see you can't even though you had to do that like 12 times in the game but now oh [Applause] [Music] oh there's something special about these six boss themes composer Hajime wakai one of Nintendo's veteran composers has always had this way of writing music that simultaneously feels Perfectly Natural and completely bizarre his work on Wind Waker boss themes harnesses a ton of musical chaos but hangs it all all on these Rock Solid melodic structures that keep everything together ending up with fantastic tracks that feel cathartic and intense while still having this great melodic sense about them for reference let's look at the Boss music from okarina of time we get a fast driving rhythm in the snare drum and a low pounding piano part that plays a hectic line that sort of evokes an E minor sound but all of the chromatic movement obscures exactly what kind of tonality it's going for [Music] some very dissonant wandering brass Parts float in over top further obscuring any sense of key and refusing to go where you might expect them to all of this together creates this feeling like you're going insane while you listen to [Applause] it if it's a great Vibe very dark and it gets at that butt clenching feeling the game is going for when you find yourself up against an enormous beast but rather than washing the whole music over with this aggressive dark Rhythm and dissonance Wind Waker boss themes tend to make choices that are more strange than dissonant gma's theme from Wind Waker fire temple hits us hard right from the beginning with each beat alternating bass notes and big brass hits to give the feeling of a great lumbering Beast it's not as quick or as dissonant or as Relentless as oakarina of times Boss music but it does feel just as aggressive and the way the brass and strings move up and down chromatically respectively introduces some of that same chaotic [Music] energy both themes feel perfectly fitting for a boss fight but the biggest difference between the two is that okarina of times is trying to lose the listener while G's theme is trying to make sure you can follow along the brass melody in okarina of times boss theme was designed to feel completely unpredictable shifting keys and rhythms to keep you from ever being able to tell what was coming next G's theme gives us a lot to grab on to right at the beginning the way the brass runs up to emphasize these three strong beats makes this part feel like a distinct and recognizable Motif and the way it repeats note fornote gives the music a chance to stick in the listener's head and that is why as we keep moving through the piece it becomes so disorienting when the music starts to unravel a bit the following phrase moves from our key of pretty much F minor to a g flat augmented chord the sharp Fifth and natural 9th creating a dissonant trone interval on top while the Bas leaps up from the root to the sharp fourth for a different dissonant trone interval on the bottom this moves to a G7 sharp 11 flat 9 chord next the melody outlining the same deed a flat trone while the bass outlines another new trone between G and [Music] C the melody here is centered around these jarring trone intervals too and really hammers home this feeling of what the hell is going on but not in the same kind of atonal oppressive way we saw from okarina of time as the piece develops the small 16th note Jabs at the end of each main Motif become their own Motif that keeps the piece together the trone base leaps under this trone heavy g flat to G section are a clear transformation of this same idea and the last eight bars of the loop throw this idea back and forth between different voices as we shift between different tonalities the music is always Meandering around to new strange places but this Motif keeps everything feeling like an extension of the same thought rather than a chaotic barrage of [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] notes [Music] [Applause] [Music] that last big chord buildup just kills me I guess it's technically a g flat sharp 11 flat 9 decadent if we look at a link to the past the game that set the musical tone for the franchise the Boss music feels pretty quaint by comparison like the Ocarina of Time theme we have a driving snare part underneath a repeated figure that uses chromatic notes to introduce dissonance into the music specifically here we have the main A5 chord shifting up to the flat 2 and down to the raised [Music] 7th it's not to the same degree as oan of times Boss music but we're getting at the same kind of feeling a pounding Relentless intensity in a minor key using the flat second and raised 7th are perfect choices to inject some of this threatening dissonance into your music k a demos the boss for wind wakers Forest dungeon uses these exact two notes as part of the main motif of its theme too the bases give us this Motif hitting the root 7eventh and flat second of our tonic B minor chord in this short short long pattern once again again repeating the figure to cement it in your mind in a very melodic [Music] way now If This Were A Link to the Past boss theme it would probably continue like [Music] this that's kind of what the structure of the melody and the general conventions of Boss music would predict but this is not what we actually get instead of a simple four bar phrase in four4 time this theme stretches that last bar into two bars of three and the melody shifts into outlining a dsh diminished sound while the viop phone comes in with this little flittering chromatic line on Top This spirals into a new four bar phrase where the flutes and picado strings Veer around a descending line that follows basic no harmonic sense [Music] [Applause] [Music] whatsoever this music isn't pounding or Relentless or even that dark it's not afraid to pull the bases out completely for this answering phrase but again getting strung along like this we get this feeling of wait what the hell is going on this sense of confusion is balanced out by the motivic consistency that gives us something to hold on to as we take this ride these random high notes follow no logic of key or chord but they do follow the Rhythm and melodic Contour of the last part of the main melodic phrase and so it feels like an extension and development of the initial idea instead of feeling completely random although we do get the emotional effect of Randomness from the individual note to note choices and dissonant leaps between them this is brilliantly riding the line between coherence and confusion to get at a totally different kind of butt clenching feeling than the feeling of butt clenching that our other Zelda examples were shooting for in both of these Wind Waker examples we see the melody contain two ideas the main idea and then a second idea that's used to wrap up the melodic phrase one that seems almost like an afterthought in both cases though it's this easily overlooked secondary idea that's used to feed the musical developments that follow becoming a huge part of the DNA of the piece by the time it's over this trend continues with the theme for the hel morok King which pushes the strangeness to the Limit while justifying it with rhythmic structure the melody is full of eyebrow raising moves like starting on the major 7th moving down to the flat 7th or moving from this fifth to the flat fifth before diving down to the route just to sneak a trone jump in there not not to mention the harmony shifting from alternating D sus and D Minor chords to an E flat minor major 7 chord and then to alternating e suus and C sus chords the key of the piece is completely up in the [Music] [Applause] [Music] air but the whole thing is tied together with a super solid melodic Rhythm this figure with two 16th notes running into a quarter note triplet isn't the kind of Rhythm that you hear very often so it stands out and repeating it as much as this melody does hammers it into your head if we break down each four bar phrase we can see that we get this one bar rhythmic statement and then a repetition of the same rhythm with new notes and then a two bar long variation of the same idea that trades out the quarter note triplet Rhythm for Rising eighth notes leading into this final flourish that secondary afterthought type idea I mentioned this one maintains a relationship to the main Melody by keeping this rhythm of 216th notes running into an accented [Music] [Applause] beat like the other examples this fourth bar becomes its own separate idea that develops throughout the piece this wild transition figure between sections feels like a barrage of notes but the top part is based on the rhythm of that fourth bar figure outlining a chromatic descent from D to B the inner string part that fills in the rhythmic space left by the top line with these chromatically descending trone intervals is what makes this feel so hectic the two lines combining together to make a series of chords that make no real [Music] sense ending on a c minor major 7 chord as a way to get back to D is absolutely insane but it totally works the next main section of Melody the most headbanging part of the song sees the whole ensemble coming together to blast out these big spread major Triads in a new 64 time signature all of a sudden in the key of F [Music] major if you look closely at the second half of the melody you'll see these two Rising eighth notes leading into a held B major chord it's stretched out from 16th notes to e8th notes and shifted down a whole step but this is the exact same figure as in the last bar of the previous [Music] Melody it's the sort of thing you'd never notice as a casual listener but that subconscious iously affects how you hear the piece it makes everything feel like one coherent piece of music in spite of the Frantic key shifting and unorthodox melodic choices jalhalla the Earth Temple boss isn't quite as liberal with his note choices as this last example but he certainly balances dissonance with a sense of melodicism in the same way the general Vibe of the piece is chaotic as we feel right from the start with this busy 16th note xylophone part and chromatically sliding accordion cord stabs the xylophone part follows a two beat pattern crossing over the bar line to Loop every two bars of three four time and the notes used in both this pattern and the accordion part are the root Fifth and major 7th of artonic B minor these notes are played as a cluster with the root and 7th a semitone apart from each other and then the accordion lowers these two notes both by a semmit tone for a different cluster chord in the middle that is absolutely atrocious you don't often see the flat 7th and major 7th used over a chord at the same [Music] time try to explain that one with a music theory principle other than I tried to make it sound gross the melody hinges on these little rhythmic chirps these repeated notes kicking off each melodic phrase and also sounding off in the brakes between melodic phrases penetrating the chaos of the surrounding instruments every couple of [Music] bars [Music] the melody here is pretty simple after these memorable 16th note chirps it flings itself up to the tonic B and octave higher with this decorated B minor arpeggio and then it walks down the B minor scale back to the lower B note once again these two basic melodic ideas the initial Rhythm on Beats 1 and two being the first and the smoother scaler motion being the second are developed in the tunes B section although the order is flipped from how we first heard them the B section starts off with the horn taking a longer more fluid Melody line that basically decorates a b Minor triad with scalar motion this accompaniment breaks into a new rhythmic feel accenting beats one and the end of two while the base opens up with eighth note lines that wander up and back down to the route every two bars note the chromatic descent from the raised sixth to the flat 6th to the fifth in the melody as well as the use of the Flat 6 than flat second in the base part refusing to stick to a standard scale or modal sound let alone make sure that your layers aren't using clashing seconds adds a type of discomfort to the music that we're really not used to it's not a discomfort of the sort we heard in the oakarina of time boss theme with lots of pounding Jagged dissonances but more of a sense of confusion as these different layers refuse to quite fit together [Music] nicely [Music] after this phrase we get back into a choppy rhythmic feel with the melody using that initial chirpy Rhythm but breaking it out of its loyalty to beats one and two of the measure and pairing it with these huge leaps outlining a C major 7 sound this is the flat two chord of the key the Bas Rhythm shifts to pounding out each beat and this combined with the harmony switching chords for the first point of the piece helps to delineate these two phrases as a call and response between the smooth and mournful horn and the erratic and mischievous [Music] OBO each boss theme feels so different from the others and captures the personality of the specific boss it's written for beautifully these chirping rhythms and cheeky dissonances give Jala's theme a goofy element mixed in with the chaos that's just perfect for a big fat rolly pully ghost monster if we're talking about melodic structure though we have to bring up what is definitely the most popular of these Boss themes mola's themes bouncy and singable Melody is made up of two motivic parts this super strong and recognizable rhythmic bit dancing down the minor scale and the strong conclusive figure giving us straight eighth notes leading up to our tonic e the first idea dances around the second of the key and the second idea gives a clear resolution to artonic creating a nice satisfying push and pull between them the melody starts off with two barong phrases built from these two ideas but moves into one bar phrases moving that first rhythmic idea down the E minor scale before concluding the larger eight bar phrase with one one final return to the second resolving [Music] idea structurally this melody is bulletproof it reminds me of a limeric structure where shorter repeated phrases are woven into the larger pattern to give some momentum that leads towards a satisfying conclusion the first time through the melody we have only percussive accompaniment but as the arrangement builds up in intensity more and more counter lines come in and flesh out the harmony these string stabs and Horn pads that come in give us F and C notes to make the tonic E minor chord into an E minor 69 chord giving the harmony a Sharper Edge the base walks up the minor scale from E minor to B minor underneath this melody squeezing the flat 2 chord F between our home E minor and the F minor chord that [Music] [Music] follows this flat two chord foreshadows our move into the following section the initial bouncy melodic idea is taken and stretched out keeping the recognizable Rhythm but altering the Contour of the line and extending it into a four phrase that shifts between flat 2 and one [Music] chords these little interjecting tin whistle phrases are super fun and wouldn't you know it they set up a new melodic idea in the following section as we begin our build towards the piece's climax a new Melody comes in that takes the basic rhythmic idea from those interjections an eighth note followed by two 16th notes and stretches it out into a longer phrase running up the a minor scale as we move higher and higher in range the piece's initial melodic ideas are reintroduced and flipped around with the second resolving idea used to lead into that first bouncy rhythmic idea culminating in this massive five chord at the end of the [Music] phrase [Music] [Music] just when we expect a resolution though the rug is completely pulled out from under the arrangement and we're left back with just percussion underscoring these held super high hole notes in the strings the bottom part moves down chromatically from the fourth of the key to the flat second sitting on this flat 2 for the last four bars before our opening Fanfare brings us back to to the start of the [Music] loop I love the way this tune takes such a gradual build to a climax and then immediately snatches that Climax from us stripping the piece down to Bare Bones and breaking out of the key with the sinking chromatic part there is just so much going on in this piece it's so deep and meticulously crafted there's no wonder that of all these great boss themes mulgara is commonly viewed as the standout if you're looking at the runtime of this video and growing pale at the thought that I might conclude this video without talking about the last of the game six boss themes I have good news and bad news for you the bad news is that I am going to to conclude this video without touching on the last boss theme but the good news is the reason why I'm doing so there was just so much to talk about in this last theme that I've decided to cut out his section and turn it into its own full video please be excited for a deep dive into goon's boss theme coming in early April 2024 as great as all Zelda Boss music is Wind Waker boss themes are really something special they have a completely unique Sonic aesthetic compared against the rest of the series rather than going for maximum dissonance they have a Controlled Chaos that stays relatively light to match the aesthetic of the game while still capturing that mixture of anxiety inducing and exhilarating that makes it so fun to take on the challenge of a final boss taking care to create a distinct rhythmic identity for each piece and craft a rock solid structure for each gives them all room to experiment with chaos in the other musical elements as always thank you all so much for watching full transcriptions of these boss themes will be available on my patreon for $5 an up supporters and I'll see you all in the next [Music] one

Channel: 8-bit Music Theory

Views: 70,598

Keywords: wind waker, the legend of Zelda, boss themes, how to write boss music, hajime wake, gohma theme, gohdan, kalle demos, Zelda bosses, molgera, helmaroc king, jalhalla, how to write music, weird music, cool music, 8-bit Music Theory

Id: WTj9cL48a2A

Length: 23min 22sec (1402 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 19 2024