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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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, adjusted some of the piano tempo

After going through numerous tracks with more lighthearted tone and different genres, I was finally excited to return to a more traditional classical intense piece. Usually my version is slower, but in this instance I really ramped up the speed. After the first four dungeons, I treated the fifth as the start of a darker second act of the game. The theme is no longer a variation of the Caves melody.

In this dungeon, Link is under the sinister gaze of the skeleton warrior. You have to be on your toes for most of the first half because he could show up in any screen. However, by the end you realize that the warrior is actually afraid of you. You are the one actually chasing him down, and reclaiming the treasure. Whereas the first half of my arrangement is a faithful recreation of the original theme, the second half represents the raw emotion Link (hopefully) and the enemies display: dread, fear, determination, resignation. The rhythm is broken up, and the dungeon progression transitions from a chase to a slaughter.

Catfish's Maw - 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 creep factor in this piece is less about the mellow tone of the piece itself (although the melody never resolving is creepy enough), but the fact that a melodic "baroque prelude"-type melody is suddenly placed as a dungeon theme, when we were accustomed to more intense atmospheric pieces. This almost suggests either a deep back story behind the dungeon, or just the lingering traces of Link's emotions as he continues in his quest, knowing the truth. While in the Southern Face Shrine, the theme was characterized by deep lows and soaring highs, in the Face Shrine, the melody stays locked in the mid section. Although I still went high up with the violins, I at least left out the Cello and Basses, so the endless drone of the clarinets can remain distinct. I also deliberately left out the variation of Ballad of the Wind Fish here, and used an original tune here to build on top of the repeating phrase. This was inspired from the soundtrack to Let the Right One In.

Face 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 - Adjusted piano level, changed notes on some background ostinatos so it sounds more harmonic

Merry Christmas! I used a similar set of instrumentation as Kanalet Castle because just like the castle, the Eagle's Tower is one of the few dungeons that exists above ground. I imagine the interior of the tower has high ceilings and long corridors, which is why I increased the reverb a whole lot. I also used a lot of wind sound to really sell the echo-y elevated atmosphere. This dungeon is my favorite in the game, with the fantastic multi-tiered, dynamically changing level design. The penultimate locations seem to always be better than the final ones. I added a soaring romantic melody in the middle just to provide an extreme contrast to the creepy tone of the rest of the song. When the harmonies don't resolve at the end, it makes the listener feel even more unease. The long notes are reminiscent of Jeremy Soule's style in his Guild Wars 2 soundtrack, which I am a fan of.

Eagle's Tower - 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 - 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

Dread of the Hero

Miggs