Exploring Music in Context Section 1: AOI 3

Analyzing Video Game Music: Breath of the Wild’s Main Theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPWBG6_jn4Y

The music I will be analyzing is Breath of the Wild’s “Main Theme”, simply listed as “Track 1” in the official soundtrack. Composed by Manaka Kataoka in early 2016, this was initially written for Breath of the Wild’s trailer at the E3 of the same year. This is a super unique piece that I’ve never heard anywhere else, and is one of my favorite video game themes to this day. Although it utilizes an European orchestral theme, modern synthesizers and ancient traditional instruments, such as Shinobue and Ehru, are also blended into the composition. 

The piano opens and closes the piece; European orchestral instrumentation such as strings, horns, and percussion are also present in the tune. There is some special instrumentation, with the Shinobue, a Japanese flute is traditionally made of bamboo and characteristically gives off a sweet, high registered sound, and an ehru, a double stringed Chinese fiddle, being present. An example of percussion being used are the crashes and rises used throughout the piece as transition effects. The music also swells in tone around 0:55, leading to a dramatic buildup at 1:07, which is cut off at the end by a little break; meant to symbolize Link’s first breath after slumbering for over 100 years. Being in ¾ time, the BPM is 101. 

The piece is very unique in the fact that it switches between keys so frequently. It also is not always clear what key the song is in, which represents a lack of tonality. The presence of “borrowed chords,” or a chord borrowed from the parallel key, provides harmonic variety throughout the song, and accentuates the lack of tonality throughout the piece. An example of a harmonic shift is present at 1:16 in the theme (listen 10 seconds before for context). The song also uses both minor and major keys, and switches between several keys (starts in D minor) in order to represent different environments / nature. 

The theme also primarily uses a “call and response” structure: for instance, 

 

For example,  in this section, this acts as the call, which is later followed up with:

 

… which acts as the response.  


There are many examples of the same structure during the piece, so I won’t be covering them all. For the last part of the analysis, I’ll primarily be focusing on the accidental featured at the end. When first hearing the theme, most people are not expecting this chord to be played, so I analyze it. From the beginning of the piece, and near the end of the melody, the song is in D Minor. However, there is a B-natural being played in the last chord of the song, which is an accidental in the key of D Minor. This ties into the concepts of borrowed chords that were brought up later, and the effect on the listener is that they listen to a “stab,” or a jarring chord. As previously mentioned, this also represents a “breath of life:” in context with the game, Link has been slumbering for over 100 years, and this represents his first breath. 


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