Beautiful Nintendo Medley Performed with Traditional Japanese Instruments, Includes Zelda Theme
Posted on January 09 2015 by Rod Lloyd
Nintendo fans have always had the amazing talent to take the familiar themes we all love and translate them beautifully into unexplored musical genres. About a month ago, Japanese group Famikoto released onto YouTube a Nintendo medley arranged entirely with traditional Japanese instruments. The group performs a number of classic Nintendo tunes — including the Zelda main theme — and captures an essence of class that we haven’t seen in the songs before.
Famikoto performs the medley with a collection of three different Japanese instruments: kotos, shamisens, and shakuhachis. In addition to the Zelda main theme, the group also plays the Zelda flute theme and selected themes from Fire Emblem and Super Mario. They even slip the Famicom startup jingle in there, which makes me very happy.
I found that the Zelda and Fire Emblem tunes fit more appropriately with the Japanese instruments than the noticeably jazzy Super Mario themes. The classical nature of those two series simply makes their music more fitting for traditional instruments. If I had a choice, I know I’d want Famikoto to rearrange an entire Zelda soundtrack with these instruments. Just imagine how great they would fit with Wind Waker‘s music.
Rod Lloyd is the Editor-In-Chief at Zelda Dungeon, overseeing the news and feature content for the site. Rod is considered the veteran of the writing team, having started writing for Zelda Informer in 2014 as a Junior Editor. After ZD and ZI officially merged in 2017, he stepped into the Managing Editor role and has helped steer the ship ever since. He stepped up to lead the writing team as Editor-In-Chief in 2023.
You can reach Rod at: rod.lloyd@zeldadungeon.net
