Musical Musings: Listening Closely to the “Emptiness” of Breath of the Wild’s Hyrule Field (Day)

Music is a defining feature of The Legend of Zelda series, so much so that it becomes its own character. The soundscape molds Hyrule around Link and his friends, giving character to those he interacts with and helps the player connect with them on an emotional level. The awe-striking music from The Legend of Zelda played a significant role in why I chose to pursue Bachelor’s Degree in music, and it is why I have decided to take an in-depth look at different tracks throughout the scores that inspire me as a musician. I thought a good starting point would be Breath of the Wild, one of the soundtracks that I am least familiar with. Now, seeing as Breath of the Wild has a little over 4 hours worth of music (that’s 211 tracks, wow!), I figured I would start with working my way through the Sound Selection CD included in all limited editions of Breath of the Wild’s original release.

Manaka Kataoka, head composer and music consultant for Breath of the Wild, was intent on taking the score for the game in a completely different direction than what fans would be expecting. Instead of the intense, colourful, often boisterous tracks that underlie our favourite Zelda moments, Kataoka has filled (or rather, emptied) Breath of the Wild’s enormous world with distance and wonder. This is evidenced, perhaps, no better than by the track from the Breath of the Wild: Sound Selection we will be looking at today.

Introducing the Piece

Track 2, ‘Field (Day)’, is one that anybody who has played Breath of the Wild is immediately familiar with. This seemingly empty track somehow manages to fill the vast expanse of Hyrule as Link traverses the many mountains and valleys while the sun is up. This piece of music is composed solely for piano, and I mean solely. Not only is the piano the only instrument utilized in the piece, it is also performed with an immense amount of soul. The weight of every disembodied chord can be felt, and it truly helps the player immerse themselves into the world of Breath of the Wild.

General Analysis

The main goal of ‘Field (Day)’ is to convey the sense of exploration and wide open landscape of Hyrule. The piece accomplishes this by creative use of space, the key element of this track. In fact, there is more silence than there is active motion in the melody, sometimes spanning up to 13 consecutive seconds! When there is actual movement in the music, it’s sparse and almost exclusively in the higher registers, as heard at about 0:17 in the video:

The rare instances of lower notes are very low and serve mostly to complement the higher notes, most perfectly demonstrated by the first measures (0:00):

This style of composition leaves the middle range rather… empty… just like the world Link is traversing on his quest.

Theoretical Analysis

This piece is much less akin to a classically composed piece of music. This piece analyses much more like a 20th century impressionist piece, where the focus is much more on creating atmosphere and moods, rather than concrete pictures. The piece is written in Bb Major, and does not sway from it’s starting key, giving the whole track an uplifting quality, whilst not making it too interesting, thus distracting the listener’s ear as they explore Hyrule. As mentioned earlier, the piece is essentially all silence, but, according to an arrangement by Jacob Williams, is in fact 102 beats of half, quarter, eighth, and thirty-second-notes, and 397 bars of rests. This makes the piece essentially three-quarters of silence! That practically rivals John Cage’s ‘4’33″‘ (a fantastic experimental piece, which I encourage you to encounter). Most of the motion happens in the treble clef, soaring up to a Bb7, leaving the bass clef nearly empty, but still reaching all the way down to Bb1. That’s a 60 note range, utilizing almost the entire 88 note range of the piano!

Other than that, the piece is very straight forward. Though most arrangements are written in 4/4 time, it is likely that the majority of the actual score was written in rubato (meaning ‘robbed time,’ where the performer is free to shift the tempo as they like) and likely in no time signature. Instead I imagine the separate phrases were placed on the page for the performer to play at their fancy, like this:

Matt’s Musings

I have had so many conflicting thoughts and many different feelings provoked by this tune. My first few hours of running through grasslands in Breath of the Wild disappointed me somewhat. I had just come from playing Twilight Princess HD, which has a phenomenal track for Hyrule Field, so this sparse, low-key track kept me wondering “where’s the music?” I often found myself turning off the sound and listening to some ‘Dream Theater’ (the band I was super into at the time) instead of listening to the void of nothingness. It wasn’t until I was deep into hunting all 900 Korok seeds (yes, I did it) that I realized the brilliance of the ambiance. I remember thinking “If it were some epic tune, I’d be really bored by 50 hours in!” Now I see the track as something soothing to keep you calm while you look for 30 Hightail Lizards for that armour upgrade, or finding the perfect seasoning for your next dish. However, I still recommend turning on some ‘DT’ if you’re going on the hunt for those elusive Koroks!

What were your first thoughts on this piece? Did you like the way it framed Hyrule Field, or were you wanting a more exciting tune? Let me know in the comments below!

Matt Pederberg is part of the Writing Team at Zelda Dungeon, holds a Bachelor of Music, and has used that knowledge to develop his love of excellent music in excellent video games!