Breath of the Wild Soundtrack Analysis: Day 7
*insert crazy piano solo*
“RUN IT’S A GUARDIAN!!!!!”
Yeah…if you’ve been reading these posts for a while now…you already know that’s the part I’m least impressed with. Let’s talk about dance music today. Specifically waltzes.
I’m not kidding. It takes two to waltz, so join me on this journey. Let’s go!
Track 9: Guardian Battle
Genre: Waltz
Featured Instruments: Piano, Strings, Synths, A lot of other stuff
Compositional Techniques: Minimalism
Takeaways for Developers: All music within a certain context does not need to be what people expect for them to like it.
Takeaways for Composers: There’s room for all styles of music for any situation. Finding these unique opportunities allows for new musical experiences.
In my very first post about Breath of the Wild back when I first started this blog, I talked really briefly about this track, and it all definitely applies still. But today we’re gonna go much deeper.
Originally, we talked about the piano solo, a sense of fear and the staying power of the music in relation to battle. So really quickly, let’s review.
The piano solo that everyone always talks about is truly a good piano solo and is brilliant writing, but it’s only around for a couple seconds then it disappears. This first solo I described as “skittish” and establishing a sense of fear. This still holds true. The skittishness mirrors the movement of these large guardians, which in contrast to their smaller counterparts, is very sporadic and unpredictable. The piano brings to mind instantly that these are enemies that can kill us with one hit, maybe two if we’re geared well. And after this, you get a lot of repetition, which we’ve come to know as minimalism in certain settings.
If you’re joining us for the first time now, Minimalism is a technique that features repetition in music with incredibly minor changes overtime. But I wouldn’t label this piece minimalist in genre necessarily. Rather it uses minimalist ideas instead of building a minimalist piece. I don’t think it features enough variation to warrant the genre being minimalism.
Regardless, this repetition gives us staying power, and overtime it begins to sound a little hopeful. As this unsettling rhythm begins to fall to the back of your mind it’s likely to instill a sense of bravery.
Okay review done!
So, how does the music accomplish this? This track is pretty different in structure to other battle music in Breath of the Wild, even when compared to the shrine battle music. Again, we need to focus on the visuals to start our discussion.
This has a much thicker sound to it. The natural reason for this would be because this guardian is bigger….? Right?
Nah, it has more to do with the strength and fear factor of the enemy, and the fact that it’s much harder to fight fairly. You’re likely to have your shield up, hoping to get that laser reflection. The two of you will probably be circling around each other, looking for an opening. You’ll be doing this dance for a while, especially if you don’t know how to fight them.
And there we are. To me this fight is a bit like a dance. And the music? Well, as I’ve said a few times now, the music is a traditional waltz, although it doesn’t sound like it at first pass.
So, lets break away a bit from Zelda to talk about exactly what a waltz is. If you have a broad knowledge of music, you’ll likely know that a waltz is a piece of music with a feeling of three. Specifically, this is 3/4 time, meaning that for every bar (segment) of music, there’s three beats. Normally you feel this time in three beats (duh), but waltzes are generally felt in one because they’re usually at a pretty brisk pace. You’ll feel a very strong beat first, where the notes that come after feel more relaxed, or maybe floating away. Then right away you’ll feel that strong beat again. If you were to say, “One two three one two three one two three.” Putting a small emphasis on the bolded “one” you would now be saying a basic waltz feel. The dance is marked by this strong initial beat.
So, let’s look back over to the track in question. Immediately after the piano solo, this really synth heavy rhythm enters that’s honestly a bit hard to figure out. It might be tough to grasp hold of the rhythm or feel of it, but we do know one thing immediately. There’s a strong accented beat from a kick drum. If we focus in on this, we can find the primary beat pretty easily.
Boom..Boom..Boom.
And in between these strong beats, we get two more notes that feel lighter, that are harder to notice.
Bah dah. Bah dah. Bah dah.
Occasionally the dah part has an extra note in it, but never makes the rhythm feel longer.
Bah dah. Bah dah. Bah dahdaht.
Let’s put it all together.
Boom bah dah. Boom bah dah. Boom bah dah. Boom bah dahdaht. Boom bah dah…….
Remember, that each bolded word gets a bit of emphasis, and the others feel a bit lighter.
This is the basic feel right after the piano solo, and is the staying rhythm of the entire piece. This is a waltz feel, and it’s incredibly easy to miss not only in gameplay, but listening to the track as well. The music is very hectic, and honestly this rhythm does not have a lot of time to get established before your attention is yanked away. But no matter what enters, this “Boom bah dah” is what has the staying power previously mentioned.
As a waltz, this feeling directly mimics the idea of a human squaring off against a huge mechanical monster dancing together in combat. Waltzes take two to dance. The instrumentation used as well as rhythmic variance makes it hard to notice the waltz, almost like it’s lopsided. It mirrors the movement of the guardian, but not necessarily Link. Overtime though, this rhythm falls to the back of your mind, and it becomes not as noticeable. Now you’re likely feeling like you’ve got a chance.
Now you’re dancing in battle together.
With that said, this isn’t all that’s happening. Over this waltz feeling we’ve got a melody on solo violin. This is an agitated melody, one that feels skittish just like the piano solo, but has a bit more reason. This feels as if it’s in a different time in comparison to the waltz, and it almost feels like a melody that you would hear in a tango, a different type of dance. However, it fits perfectly into the time if you listen closely, and there are many things that this melody could be considered to represent.
Me? Well, I think it’s neat to think of it as Link. Dancing to a different beat, but still within the boundaries set by his opponent.
Overtime, this staying power turns into something entirely different. Here we get remnants of the piano solo, the waltz beat, different rhythms, and honestly a lot of different ideas all coming at once. It’s like all of the ideas are coming together for a brief moment. And just like that…it’s gone. You’re back to the death waltz again. But this time the waltz isn’t a thing of fear. I find it more a waltz of courage.
You’ve survived this long. Maybe you’ve got a shot.
So, what does this talk of dances, movement, music, sound, and melodies all mean?
It’s about establishing a unique, appropriate, yet contrasting feel to music. Guardian fights are different from every other encounter in the game. And they’re drastically different. They were made to be different from the very first footage of Breath of the Wild. If you were watching the game awards like I was, seeing a huge robotic, futuristic enemy come out of nowhere randomly shooting lasers was one of the coolest yet most jarring things I’ve ever seen in Zelda. From the beginning, guardians were made to be different. The music has to accompany this. As we’ve already talked about, the other battle music in the game does things differently as well, but they all share similar ideas (As we’ll talk about in the next post.) Generally, you’re fighting one enemy in guardian fights. In a game where most enemies move in groups, that singular enemy is a variance.
That enemy is your dance partner. Let the music accentuate that.
Let’s break it down.
…did that turn into a dance pun this time?
Takeaways for Developers: Find moments in your game that you want to have a distinct feel, and let composers know when you need sections to have a different sound. Music impacts gameplay and player emotions even if we don’t notice it.
Takeaways for Composers: All musical styles have a purpose in games. Keep in mind situations and differences in gameplay and characters. Capitalize on these ideas to not only provide fitting music, but variance in your score as well as gameplay.
All music has a place in games at some point or another. Break expectations, smash boundaries and find ways to make something new, especially if we’re wanting to stand out.
Next time, we fight a different battle.
