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OCR02315 - *YES* Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 'Healing Majora'


DragonAvenger
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Remixer name: C7

Real name: Adam Prack

website: www.adamprack.com

userid: 31563

Submission Information

Game arranged: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Individual songs: Song of Healing, Majora's Theme

Comments:

I've always felt that Majora is a truly magnificent enemy. Though he does not appear in the game, his influence is enough to make for one of the largest threats in a Zelda game. There's such a level of savageness in the way Majora controls things in the game that I wanted to portray that musically. Majora's Theme, which serves as much of the background music in the game's locales is both foreboding and merciless. This is in stark contrast to the soothing, though off-setting, Song of Healing. It serves as the counter to the deep conflicts in the game. This juxtaposition was my starting point for the remix.

I wanted to use instrumentation, orchestration styles, dynamics, and anything else I could to create this juxtaposition in a musical manner. This ranges from piano and choir representing Healing at times to crass, harsh, and dissonant brass and strings playing Majora. I also take that same brass and smooth things out for Healing. This was no source for a simple on-off switch; it needed depth and complexity. The percussion played a large role in either creating atmosphere throughout or driving rhythms. I wanted the piece to sound as organic as possible, despite being primarily computerized, so I stuck to only non-synth style instruments throughout. Liberal use of extended techniques helped round things out with a little bit of electric guitar accompaniment. I wanted to save the completion of the Song of Healing for a more climactic point in the piece and added my own trumpet playing to the mix to try to sell the emotion of the piece.

Working on the piece was a rollercoaster for me (yay, life!), and the piece is a rollercoaster of emotions. Healing Majora comes as a result of both my love for the game's world and the under-representation of the game's soundtrack on OverClocked (though it's getting better!). I've had the remix in the oven for a while, and, thankfully, Majora's Mask remixes have increased during my production of my own remix. It was a difficult mix to make, but I wanted to thank chthonic for being such an advocate. I wanted to take the themes in interesting directions as the conflict spun, which involved some good, old-fashioned development. Though ever-present, the themes shift focus between foreground, middle-ground, and background. Here's a breakdown to help out a bit:

Thematic Breakdown:

0:00 - 0:20: Piano notes are Song of Healing beginning backwards.

0:20 - 0:38: Brass parts are Majora's Theme straight through, verbatim but with changed rhythm. Song of Healing interjections.

0:39 - 0:55: Song of Healing chords

0:55 - 1:10: Song of Healing melody harmonized

1:12 - 1:57: Majora's Theme, pretty straightforward statement

1:57 - 2:10: Development of piano motif, based on Song of Healing

2:11 - 2:38: Majora's Theme inverted

2:38 - 3:02: Strings are tapping Song of Healing

3:03 - 3:23: Piano is playing Song of Healing, but repeating each melodic unit.

3:23 - 3:30: Brass is playing around with Majora's Theme melodic material

3:30 - 3:58: Bass line is Majora's Theme, unchanged

3:58 - 4:19: Trumpet is playing second part of the Song of Healing

4:19 - 4:27: Brief Majora use in brass

4:27 - 4:42: Strings are playing the beginning of Majora's Theme with an added note

4:42 - 4:54: Combination of the starts of both themes in the strings (I don't expect anyone to notice)

4:55 - 5:16: Majora's Theme with Healing interjections, ends with Song of Healing

5:20 - 5:46: Song of Healing, Both the piano repetitions and the single notes of the melody (omitting a few) interspersed in piano.

Enjoy!

----------------

- Majora's Theme

- Song of Healing
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The complexity of this arrangement is ridiculous. In a good way. Thank goodness for that breakdown, though, because I would have missed about half of what's going on here. The amount of time you spent on this is very obvious, and I love this treatment overall.

That being said, there are some issues on the production side of things. Most of it feels like a balance issue to me, where the parts you want to come through just aren't cutting as well as they need to. I think you also could have done a little more with dynamics overall, which might help the balance issue as well.

Despite the issues, I think the arrangement more than makes up for it. I'll be curious to see what the other judges think.

YES

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

omg, I remember hearing this as like a 30 second wip.. did not realize it was finished. :D

extremely competent arranging going on here, and with good samples and production to boot. though I agree that the balance just seemed a little off, like there was more space you could have filled in the soundscape at points, and the melodies could have been brought forward a bit. really captures the mood of the game and original song well though. though they were used somewhat liberally at times, I didn't have any trouble recognizing the melodies.

epic stuff, definitely a pass imo. cut off at the end bugs me though, if we could get a fix, that would be nice. nice work. :nicework:

YES

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  • 5 weeks later...

Even with your breakdown, I was having a hell of a time picking the source out of this. In fact, with the breakdown, I can roughly see the connections you're trying, but there's a lot of material - too much - that gets far off the beaten path. Aside from a few uses of Majora and the Healing melody, I thought this was too liberal. The connections are barely recognizable as the source in some places; in others, they are marginalized against the much louder original writing. Shame too, because the arrangement is quite a package.

NO (resubmit)

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