The article is written by the pianist, Torby Brand.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time first came out on the Nintendo 64 in 1998, and on 5 November 2026 it's back as a full remake on Nintendo Switch 2! Often regarded as the best game of all time, this classic returns with an orchestrated but faithful soundtrack. In this article, I'll be using my own piano arrangement to show what makes its opening music so mysterious and magical, almost thirty years on. Let's start with its legendary composer, Koji Kondo.
Koji Kondo and the Music of Zelda
Koji Kondo joined Nintendo in April 1984, and by his own account he was the first person the company ever hired specifically to make music for its games. He was responsible for the music in Super Mario Bros. and the very first The Legend of Zelda, and he went on to write the music for Ocarina of Time. Speaking to Nintendo Power in 2005, he explained what sets Zelda's music apart from Mario's:
“Mario's an action game, so it's vital that the music sync up directly with game control. In Zelda, however, it's more important that music match up with each environment and create the atmosphere of each location.” — Koji Kondo, from a 2005 interview with Nintendo Power
Title Theme (1998, Ocarina of Time)
The Title Theme is an apt example of Koji Kondo's concise analysis. Imagine you're in 1998. There's no Dark Souls, no Skyrim, no Witcher. In fact, 3D games so far have mainly been focused on action or pure fun, such as Doom or Super Mario 64. You boot up the game, a huge field fades in, and melancholic piano chords start playing. The moon sets, and a lone rider gallops across the field as an ocarina begins a mysterious melody. No fanfare, no heroics.
It's a perfect contrast to what came before, and yet it's breathtaking (for its time!), and captures the spirit of Zelda that was present in the earlier 2D entries. The ocarina part even originated from the recorder theme in the first The Legend of Zelda!
A Harmony That Breathes
The piece is in C major, in a slow 4/4 at roughly 72 BPM. The piano harmony simply rocks back and forth between F major and C major (the IV and I chords). It's the same motion as the “amen” at the end of a hymn, and it makes the music feel like it's breathing.
After a two-note pickup on D and E, the melody leaps up to a high D, slips down through C and comes to rest on B. Over a C chord, that B is the major seventh, so even the home chord never sounds completely settled. From there it steps down to G, and a quicker D and E pickup carries it straight back up to the top. The chords are full of added notes like this (sixths, sevenths and ninths), which gives the whole thing a soft, hazy glow.
Why It Sounds So Mysterious
My favourite thing about this piece is how mysterious it sounds. It's neither uplifting nor dark, but mysterious and magical, and the theory shows why. In the opening, the F chord carries a D, so a whole D minor chord sits inside the F major one: bright and dark at the same time.
And the music never takes the usual way home. In the middle section, the accompaniment thins out to bare fifths on F and G, and the melody stretches out into long, held notes.
G is the chord that normally leads you home to C, but here it never does; it always steps back to F or climbs onwards. This creates a sense of foreboding or expectation, as if a grand adventure is about to begin.
Finally, the bass climbs step by step from F and G up to A♭ and B♭. Neither of those chords belongs to C major. They're borrowed from C minor, and for two bars the music turns bittersweet before it settles back onto F and C as if nothing happened.
My Piano Arrangement
On the original Japanese soundtrack, the theme is only about a minute and twenty seconds long. My arrangement plays it through twice, the second time with a fuller texture, and ends on the same soft chords it began with. It's mostly faithful to Kondo's original, apart from some added flurries.
Final Thoughts
Ocarina of Time was already getting old when I was growing up, and The Wind Waker was much more fun to play for me as a seven-year-old. However, that soundtrack and that imagery stayed with me, and they still do to this day. Every time I play it, it brings me back to a simpler time. And it all started with those soft chords, and that mysterious ocarina.
My piano arrangement of the Title Theme is available on mymusic5, so if you'd like to play it yourself, give it a try! It's not hard to learn, even for beginners.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll enjoy your trip back to Hyrule!
Title Theme (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time): https://www.mymusic5.com/torbybrand/68769
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Sheet Music Collection (30% off for a limited time): https://www.mymusic5.com/package/12588
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