You have done a magnificent job with the compositions. This game had for the era one of the most complex and original scores, for sure an almost underrated game changer in chip music.

A collection of tracks from across the Zelda series; including arrangements and covers based on dungeon music and other unsettling tracks.

Dread of the Hero

This album is free to download. Consider supporting me on www.patreon.com/thesecondnarrator to support my future works!

Update 3/20/2015 - adjusted the EQ on the piano, fixed some of the tempo so it sounds smoother.

This is highly experimental. As a pianist turned composer, I was looking forward to a piano-centric piece to do. The articulations I settled on using are in many cases too fast for me to play, but if you are a world renown pianist, feel free to have fun with it. Nevertheless I thought it was important to preserve as much of the "performance" as I could, so for parts too hard for me, I would play the left and right hand parts separately, and in other cases, I would record the midi notes at slightly slower tempo then speed it up. A lot of the rhythms and riffs came from previous piano pieces I enjoyed playing and are far superior to this track. Check these out.

La Campanella "Little Bell" - Franz List (for the crazy high note trills)
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 - Franz List (for the insane single note repetition)
Grande Valse Brillante in Eb Major - Frederick Chopin (for the repetetive notes leading to arppegios)
Polanaise in Ab Major - Frederick Chopin (the octave ostanatos that will destroy your left arm)

My interpretation is accomplished by creating three main versions of the original track. I imagine as the bottle level, there might be a factory somewhere or massive warehouse to deal with all the bottles coming in and out. That's where the orchestral middle section would fit. The beginning pure piano translation would be used for rooms and areas surrounding it. The final piano cadenza section was where I went crazy and just added whatever came to mind. Remember that one room where you're supposed to kill the enemies in a certain order? During my very first playthrough I was stuck in that room for weeks before I figured it out. The piano cadenza in some ways portrays the frustration I felt.

Bottle Grotto - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Orchestral Arrangement

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Update 3/20/2015 - Reworked the finale portion. Adjusted the trumpet levels, added some counter-phrasing in the horns.

I felt Kanalet Castle deserved a more romantic and grand theme than just four repeating arpeggios. You have this king Richard who was ousted from his castle and forced to hid in his villa. Did the moblins just show up and push him out? No, it was much worse! All his soldiers fell in battle, his family and friends were massacred, and the grand history of his kingdom was destroyed. I imagined Link roaming through the hallways while glancing at the paintings and statues, imagining what was once a proud legacy. I haven't given the brass section much love in recent tracks, so I tried to use them here in grand fashion. I pulled phrases from various tracks from the soundtrack of "For the Frog the Bell Tolls" and used them in constructing the noble melody. The theme swells in a crescendo until the very end, where it hangs unresolved. Link's eyes snap back into reality as he realizes the past glory is over.

Of course, this is just a dream island, so probably none of that happened.

Kanalet Castle - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Orchestral Arrangement

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Update 3/20/15 - Re EQ'ed

The original version features a juxtaposition of loud ominous phrases and light staccato bells. I interpreted that to be the atmospheric "cavern" part contrasted with the jingling "key" sounds. In my version, I basically stuck to the same format, using heavy brass for the cavern, and a variety of metal percussion instruments for the key. In addition, I experimented with a lot of changing articulations in each section. This, along with the tense chord progressions, makes the song altogether unpredictable and creepy.

Key Cavern - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Orchestral Arrangement

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Update 3/20/15 - Re EQ'ed

I had to control myself here lengthwise, as the dream shrine in the game is only four screens large, and the player only needs to come here once. In keeping with the tone of the original, I kept the instruments mostly in the higher registers. I also experimented with various reverbs and panning automations to move the instruments around in the physical space of the chamber. This leaves the listener a bit disoriented. For maximum effect, listen to this piece with headphones!

Dream Shrine - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Orchestral Arrangement

This album is free to download. Consider supporting me on www.patreon.com/thesecondnarrator to support my future works!

Update 3/20/15 - Added an extra drum in the beginning.

Since the original version is just a faster version of the caves music, I gave myself more flexibility in arranging it. Again I mostly kept to the higher registers, but I used softer instruments to carry that feeling of wetness throughout. For the piano articulations I borrowed heavily from the piano piece, "Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este" by Franz Liszt, which roughly translates to "Water Games at Villa d'Este." I could never figure this stuff out on my own. That, combined with the other instruments allow me to portray various aspects of water: dripping water, water running down the walls, light splashes, ripples, footsteps on wet ground.

Angler's Tunnel - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Orchestral Arrangement

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Update 3/20/15 - Re EQ'ed

I had promised to do another version of the boss theme, and here it is. The modern Zeldas since N64 all had multiple boss fight music, but two for Link's Awakening (or maybe three? wink) is enough for me. The great challenge in this version is to make an action version of Ballad of the Wind Fish. This boss theme also describes a story. I am the second narrator after all! If I were to describe the atmosphere of the second half of the game, the bosses have become more desperate. They must have heard through the grapevine of an intruder making his way through all the dungeons stealing the instruments, and they now fear that the end of the world is near. When I played this for the first time, I felt a bit of sympathy for them, but the important thing to remember is that a sleep is meant to be woken up from. All inhabitants, both good and bad, are destined to die, and if Link had decided to just live in blissful ignorance, he himself would also face early death.

In the first version, the theme utilized elements from A Link to 
the Past, but now Link wields the true solution to defeat the nightmares, the Wind Fish song, hence the action variation. The bosses are still represented by the four note motif from the original, but I made it much flightier to describe their weakness and dread. Changing it to a major key also gives it a sense of irony. The boss fights aren't even that hard, possibly even easier than before. Link may be conflicted with compassion, but he has to remain firm and put them to eternal sleep. 

Boss Theme ~Act 2~ - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Orchestral Arrangement

This album is free to download. Consider supporting me on www.patreon.com/thesecondnarrator to support my future works!

Update 3/20/15 - Re EQ'ed

Even though the fairy is accessible near the beginning of the game, I pushed its placement much further in the album. One reason was to evenly pad out the amount of tracks between each dungeon, and another was that it provided a fitting narrative context in the big picture. The adventure is much more dangerous near the end with tougher enemies and bosses, so Link would most likely suffer more damage in the late game rather than the beginning. Discounting the fact that you only have 3 heart containers in the beginning, you would more likely actually go heal yourself when you have the level 2 sword and want full health to be able to shoot it!

Link's Awakening is one of the few Zeldas where the Fairy Fountain music (as well as the select screen) is a different tune. I guess it wasn't until Ocarina of Time when Koji Kondo decided to make the music from A Link to the Past standard for all Zeldas. Though this one still has a harp, I wanted to go for more mystery and wonder in my version.

Fairy Fountain - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Orchestral Arrangement

This album is free to download. Consider supporting me on www.patreon.com/thesecondnarrator to support my future works!

Update 3/20/15 - Re EQ'ed

The last dungeon of the game deserves an epic sendoff. The original track consists of a repeating 4-note motif and a couple of low staccato beats to intensify the tension. The "melody" never really resolves, and I decided to be bold and go crazy in a direction new to me. I went with impressionism era music, mainly Debussy. I had never really appreciated the use of whole-tone scales until now. It sounds oddly optimistic, while at the same time unsure of itself, and I think this fits the dungeon rather well, as the environment design is just absurd (in a good way), having both molten magma and ice together. It's typical for each progressive level to sound more epic. Going with a lighter, more mischievous tone throws the player off, as it creates uncertainty. Whether the original composers planned for this I don't know, but I still applaud them for this design choice.

It's funny to think that Debussy's music all sounds very dream-like, and I should have borrowed some ideas much earlier for this album. My big challenge was to create a melody and harmonic progression that complements the original track completely without any alteration. That sequence is heavily influenced by Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy.

Turtle Rock - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Orchestral Arrangement

This album is free to download. Consider supporting me on www.patreon.com/thesecondnarrator to support my future works!

Update 3/20/15 - Re EQ'ed

The actual real life thunder drum is more of a drone and probably not what the composers were imagining. I went with the literal meaning of the name, and added some massive bass drum crashes to the snares to really make it a "thunderous drum!"

Thunder Drum - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Orchestral Arrangement

This album is free to download. Consider supporting me on www.patreon.com/thesecondnarrator to support my future works!

Update 3/20/15 - Raised the level of the chirimia oboe in the beginning so it doesn't sound unnaturally quiet, re worked the latter epic portion so it doesn't sound overblown

I did not know about the loud and epic second half of the music until just a couple months ago, nearly 20 years after I first played the game. I was never in the labyrinth long enough for the music to reach that section. What's even more amazing is that the motifs used here don't appear anywhere else in the game (not including the flattened Ballad tones).  This kind of reminds me of some of the great songs in the Final Fantasy games, where Nobuo Uematsu composes beautiful tracks that are much longer than the time you are in the area, that you have to literally stop playing so you can listen to all of it.

The first thing I did was restructure the sections of the song. In the original version, there's the quiet section (I), loud section (II), quiet section again (I) and then it repeats, so it goes: I-II-I-I-II-I. I shifted everything to the right, so the intense section appears at the tail end of the piece instead.

For the first section I placed the instruments very close to the listener with almost no reverb, and had them played softly. This increases the claustrophobic atmosphere, as Link has no idea what to expect. When entering for the first time, you might think perhaps this is a new dungeon with puzzles and other enemies, but really there is absolutely nothing. The music seems repetitive, until when the reed instrument appears, you wonder if the nightmares are suddenly going to materialize. But they don't. You continue down whatever corridor you choose, but it's always the same screen. Are you really progressing anywhere?

When the music hits the thunderous second act, I imagine this is the point where Link or the player starts to freak out. You can't see the nightmare, but perhaps it is right behind you, ready to strike anytime. So you run as fast as you can, trying to escape the impending doom. The nightmare is slowly gaining on you, until you glance behind you and see that there's still nothing. What is going on?!

I tried my best to imitate Hans Zimmer with his use of horns and a warehouse full of percussion. I still need to learn how to better mix so many loud instruments together without it sounding muddy.

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - Orchestral Arrangement
Arrangement and fan art by Jeremiah Sun

Original Composers
Kazumi Totaka
Minako Hamano
Kozue Ishikawa

Original Theme by Koji Kondo

You can buy this game for 3DS from the Nintendo eShop

The Wind Fish's Egg - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Orchestral Arrangement

The return of Mr Hulot - Short Movie main theme. Now on Fetchflix

Jacques Tati created in 1953 Mr Hulot, a lightly neuro-atypical, non-pathological character, defined by heightened sensitivity and human warmth, used as a mirror to expose the absurdity of modern society.

This short movie transport Mr Hulot from 1953 to 2026 to show what modern life does to people. Computers, SmartPhones, Social Medias, ATM, Artificial intelligence, Autonomous driving Cars and so on will overwhelm him big time and show how insane things are getting. 

“This story is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental. And for those who did not get it, Fetchflix TV is also fictitious.”

Music: Syrel
Photography: Meta AI

Musical Note: I am not sure but I think my inspiration on this one came from Bernard Herman and Vladimir Cosma. Let me know exactly which movies.

The return of Mr Hulot

Sly Cooper and the thievius Raccoonus 17 - The Dread Swamp Path

1-10. Mother's Canyon: Goal - TEAM SONIC RACING OST: MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE

Planet Wisp: Mother's Canyon: Goal

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD Original Soundtrack

Epona Rodeo

Kakariko Village

Horseback Battle

I am a developer as well as a self-taught composer. My style is creating narratives in music through the use of strong melodies and unique instrumentation.

Primary DAW used: Presonus Studio One

Turtle Rock - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Orchestral Arrangement

The Second Narrator

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