Everything about Ocarina of Time is downright iconic, right down to the title screen. Many fans (is “Ocarinuts” a term?) have the title music etched in their memory, as it played as a prelude to each gamer’s return to Hyrule. The ocarina line that plays over soft piano and strings has become one of the most recognizable melodies in the Zelda series. While most Zelda fans likely associate the riff with Ocarina of Time, it’s title music was not the first or last time this melody appeared in a Zelda game, nor is Zelda the only Nintendo franchise in which it has played.
Link first plays the melody on the recorder he obtains in the original Legend of Zelda. The recorder has several uses, including summoning a whirlwind to fast travel across the overworld, drying up a pond to reveal the entrance to a dungeon, and shrinking Digdogger to make him vulnerable to attack. Since wandering across the map facing constant enemy barrages can become tiresome, making warping desirable, players of the original game likely heard the sound effect that would inspire the Ocarina of Time title screen music many times before the latter was released over a decade after the former.
The melody’s second appearance was not in a game but in the Legend of Zelda animated series. In the fifth episode, “Sing for the Unicorn” (check out our retrospective on the episode), Link obtains a magic whistle after defeating a Lynel. Towards the end of the episode, Link plays the magic whistle to summon a tornado to transport him and his friends to safety. Sound familiar? Turns out even the song Link plays on the whistle is taken right from the first Zelda game.
There is one more performance of the classic line before Ocarina of Time, and it’s not even in a Zelda property. That’s right, it’s time for another Zelda/Mario crossover! In Super Mario Bros. 3, three warp whistles hide across the Mushroom World. Discovering and utilizing these whistles will cause Mario to play the same melody as the recorder from The Legend of Zelda, summoning a tornado to transport Mario to Warp Island (I’m sensing a theme here). Mario can then select a level to warp to. It’s things like this that stoke theories of the coexistence of the Mushroom Kingdom and Hyrule.
Now we arrive at perhaps the most famous rendition of the melody: The title screen of Ocarina of Time. This is the fourth time the riff has been used up to this point, though only the second in canonical Zelda. The riff is played slowly on an ocarina (fitting) over relaxing piano and strings and is expanded upon, but there is no mistaking that it came from the recorder in The Legend of Zelda. Is this a subtle hint that said recorder is somehow related or could even be the Ocarina of Time? Or is it just a neat reference? Oddly enough, none of the songs Link learns in Ocarina of Time resemble the melody in the title screen, including those that warp Link to another location.
The next appearance came unexpectedly in The Wind Waker. After visiting the Forest Haven and Great Deku Tree, Link travels to the Forbidden Woods to rescue Makar. The Forbidden Woods music is atmospheric and not really something you can sing along to, but there is a bassoon line that sounds like a variation on the recorder melody. I thought this was fairly random until I remembered how Link got to the Forbidden Woods: via whirlwind (and the Korok Leaf). Whether this was intentional remains a mystery, but the melodic similarities are undeniable.
The melody returned twice in The Minish Cap. It plays in the music of the Wind Ruins, this time taking on a Middle-Eastern flair. This makes sense, as it is in the Wind Ruins that Link finds the Fortress of Wind, where he obtains the Ocarina of Wind. Playing the Ocarina of Wind results in the second occurrence of the melody, this time as a sound effect like in the original Legend of Zelda. Link’s toots on the newfound instrument summon Zeffa to carry him to any of the Wind Crest’s he has discovered. Play melody, transport Link. OK, this time no wind but close enough to fit the pattern.
The last variation to date came in Breath of the Wild. Players had 120 chances to hear this version of the melody because it plays in the music of the shrines scattered across Hyrule. At a few points in the track, a bagpipe-sounding instrument chimes in with variants of the theme. I cannot think of why the melody would play in this context other than as an ode to its importance in the series, but if you have any theories as to its significance, please leave a comment.
While the Ocarina of Time title screen music might be the most famous version, the featured melody traces back to the original Zelda and has played numerous times over the years, including in Nintendo’s flagship franchise. It is not unusual to hear the same or updated versions of music and sound effects in the Zelda series, but it is interesting to note that this may be the only time where a sound effect was adopted into actual music, including as the focus of a title screen soundtrack. I am looking forward to hearing where the melody warps to next.
