ZD Gallery: Music of the Goddesses

Welcome to the ZD Gallery, where each week we feature an artist and their creation(s) in tribute to the Zelda franchise. This week, we’re veering off the path of fan art and tackling a different artistic area that is highly influential in the series. Music. Covers, more specifically, and today I’ve got the perfect candidate.

YouTube user Tom Winter not only plays his own music, but also has a plethora of videogame music videos- played on his acoustic guitar- on his channel, including a few Zelda favorites. Some are done simply by him playing his guitar, but Winter also has a couple covers composed almost a cappella style by overlapping a few tracks of different parts played on the guitar to create one song.

Make the jump to see his videos and to check out our interview with him!

ZD: When did you first become a fan of the Zelda series?

Winter: The first Zelda game I played was Ocarina of Time on Nintendo 64 and I instantly fell in love with it. I have fond memories of renting it from Blockbuster (when that was a thing) and playing it non-stop. I don’t think I got very far into the game since I was pretty young, but I just enjoyed riding Epona around Hyrule Field and generally exploring and immersing myself in the world. Oh, and I played the fishing mini-game for many hours too trying to catch the elusive loach. I later decided it would be wise to just buy my own copy since I was renting it so much. Needless to say, I’ve been a huge fan ever since.

ZD: What is your favorite game?

Winter: That’s always a very difficult question for me as I love so many games for different reasons and to compare them would be unfair. However, the ones that spring to mind are Chrono Trigger, A Link to the Past, Banjo Kazooie, and of course Ocarina of Time.

ZD: What compelled you to play covers of the music heard throughout the franchise?

Winter: Well, I’ve played VGM (videogame music) on guitar ever since I started learning to play at thirteen years old. I vividly remember trying to play ‘Gerudo Valley’ when I was just starting out and failing horribly. I’m glad I revisited it ten years later and finally managed to get it down, haha. It was just something I’ve always done for fun and never really thought about making it an official thing. Before I started the VGM Acoustic series, I predominately wrote original music for solo acoustic guitar which I still have on my YouTube channel.

I think it wasn’t until I discovered Smooth McGroove doing his a cappella arrangements that something clicked and I thought “Hm, what if I multi-tracked myself playing every part of a game tune using only the guitar? Playing everything from the melody to the bass to the drums. That’d be pretty cool…” Before that I had arranged the ‘Title Theme’ for Ocarina of Time for solo finger style guitar as well as the ‘Great Deku Tree Theme’. I then later experimented with a duet version of ‘Kokiri Forest’ before finally settling on what I do now which ultimately sounds the best I think. I’ve just realized I’ve gone on a bit of a tangent… To answer the question; my adoration of the Zelda soundtracks.

ZD: How do you usually compose your music and put together your videos?

Winter: The process for arranging a tune goes something like this: choosing a song, working out the notes/arranging it, learning to play it, changing my mind (revert to step one), recording it, mixing it, shooting the video, editing the video, and finally hating it after having listened to it so many times. There’s a surprising amount of work that goes in to making just one video which is probably in the region of 20-30 hours. It varies from song to song, though, really.

ZD: Of the selection of songs you’ve performed, which is your favorite?

Winter: Probably ‘Great Fairy Fountain’, which is ironic because it’s the one I probably spent the least amount of time on. I had to transpose the entire song down by an octave to suit the register of the guitar which initially seemed like it would cause problems by making it sound “muddy”. However I feel it ultimately gave the arrangement a real depth that you don’t get with the original register of the song.

ZD: Do you have any plans for future Zelda covers?

Winter: Definitely! In fact, I regularly have to refrain from doing back-to-back Zelda tunes as I don’t really want to be known as “the dude who does Zelda guitar covers”. That and I want to try my hand at other franchises that I perhaps hadn’t thought of doing before. There will absolutely be more Zelda covers though, I already have a few fully arranged which are ready to record whenever I build up the nerve to tackle them.

And there you have it! If you’re interested in following Winter and his AGM works, below are some links in which you can do so.

YouTube, Facebook, Bandcamp

And the following list is of all the sites in which you can purchase any of Winter’s creations.

Loudr, iTunes, Google Play, Amazon MP3

What do you guys think of Tom Winter’s covers. As he said in the interview, he does have plans for more, but what would you like to see him perform next? As always, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below!