Check Out This Percussion Quartet Arrangement of the House Theme from Ocarina of Time!
Posted on June 03 2024 by Connor Butler
When the fan community comes out to show their talents, they always give forth something special. From visual art, to dioramas and crafts, to music, the Zelda fan community is one creative bunch of people. As fun as it is to create fan content for the heck of it, it’s doubly impressive to create content that also helps further your career! In the case of YouTube Partner and percussionist V-Ron Media, they’ve done both.
As classical percussion goes, the art form of percussion music is fairly new. Music written for just percussion has only emerged within the last 100 or so years. Because of this, the amount of music available for percussionists is small, but is growing rapidly. Unlike jazz or classical music, which has centuries’ worth of standard pieces of music, percussion music has to establish itself somehow. To that end, video game music comes to the rescue! With simple, singable melodies and pleasant-sounding harmonies, this music is perfectly adaptable to the keyboard family of instruments in the percussion world, as seen in V-Ron Media’s cover of the House theme from Ocarina of Time.
This arrangement was written for a percussion quartet, and is scored for two marimbas, a vibraphone, and a xylophone, which are instruments that are set up similarly to pianos. Marimbas are large, made of wood, and are hit with softer yarn mallets. Vibraphones are slightly smaller, but are made of metal, and are struck with harder yarn mallets. Vibraphones also come with a pedal that allows the player to make the bars ring for longer, creating a sustain effect that the other keyboards don’t have. Finally, the xylophone, like the marimba, is made of wood, but is smaller and is struck with hard plastic mallets, giving it a bright and cutting sound.
As far as the arrangement goes, V-Ron Media has written an amazing arrangement that perfectly captures the fun and playful energy of the House theme, with the melody bouncing around between instruments — an amazingly put together arrangement with a snappy and fun video to go with it!
If, like me, you’re interested in more percussion-based video game content, check out V-Ron’s YouTube Channel, where you can find more fantastic arrangements, like this arrangement of “Inside the Deku Tree” from Ocarina of Time, this arrangement of “Astral Observatory” from Majora’s Mask, or this gorgeous arrangement of “The Great Fairy Fountain” from the series at large! If you’d like some non-Zelda content, this arrangement of “Beware the Forest’s Mushrooms” from Super Mario RPG is killer! If you want to help support their channel, you can become a Patron here. Additionally, if you, like me, want the sheet music for these arrangements, you can find it here! Lastly, if you want to check out more of their material, you can head to their website.
What do you think of this awesome arrangement? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: V-Ron Media
Connor is an avid Zelda fan and Musician currently obtaining his degree in percussion performance from Western Carolina University. His favorite game in the Zelda franchise is a toss up between Breath of the Wild and Ocarina of Time, but he has a soft spot for the Wind Waker.
