Wednesday, June 11, 2025

MIDI Week Singles: "Dragon Roost Island" - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (NGC)

 


"Dragon Roost Island" from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker on the Nintendo GameCube (2002)
Composer: Kenta Nagata
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo EAD


I decided to use this theme for several reasons.  First and foremost, this is just a fun and upbeat song that I easily remember from the last time I played Wind Waker, probably 20+ years ago.  It's easily recognizable, it's hummable/whistleable, and therefore more likely to leave a lasting impression.  Lastly, it was featured on an episode of 8-Bit Music Theory two years ago.

What I enjoyed about that episode, and most of the videos on that channel, is that I can kind of follow along as the dive into music theory goes so much deeper than you might expect.  It also goes to show that music composed for video games is more than ones and zeros on a computer.  The videos also make me feel like every song I've written is just utter trash because I guarantee you that I've never put that much thought into the intricacies of chord progressions and what business do I have even being around a piano, let around a blank sheet of notation paper?  What business do I have even writing about video game music once a week in a way that doesn't do a deep analytical dive into the inner complexities of the song itself to say why I've included it beyond, "I like this song and thought it was good."

But then, after such an in-depth analysis, the question of why this is such a catchy at memorable melody for this particular location at this point in the game remains.  "It's kind of hard to say how this piece of music relates to the island as a whole, though. [...]  To me, it seems this is just a really solid piece of music written by someone who really knew what they were doing" (source).  And sometimes, that's just enough for me too.


~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental

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