The Legend of Zelda

Hello everyone. I'm Stephanie, and I'm here to lead you on an adventure to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda.
I'm going to teach you my version of the original theme written by Koji Kondo.
The legend goes the game was originally going to open with a rendition of a well-known piece called "Bolero" by Maurice Ravel,
but when Kondo realized they didn't have the rights to use that song, Kondo pulled an all-nighter and composed this stirring call to adventure.
Let's find a piano and you can follow along with me.
First I want to talk about the rhythm in this song.
The rhythm can be pretty tricky, but just keep in mind it should sound like the original song. As long as you play that rhythm,
then you should be fine.
We're going to start with our right hand only.
This song starts in F major position.
So you find your group of three black keys.
Look at the white key on the left side of them. Place your thumb there.
Then lay every other finger so that you don't skip any keys.
Once you have your fingers laid out on the white keys, you're going to bring your 4 finger up to a black key.
It's actually down technically because this note is lower,
but it looks like up when you're looking at the piano.
Okay, we start the beginning like this:
That's it. Just two notes.
4 1
After you played that, your hand's going to shift up
to B-flat major position.
So, this is a tricky position. You put your thumb on B-flat, which is the black key at the top of the group of three.
You're going to skip the next white key. Put your 2 finger there on C.
3 finger on the next white key.
4 finger is going to be on the next black key, and then 5 finger's going to do the same thing. It's going to skip over a white key
and play that F.
See how weird this position is compared to normal pentascales?
But then you're just going to play from your thumb to your pinky.
Now in our version, we've written out the echo in the left hand.
So you're going to play this twice in a row.
If you notice in the original song the left hand it plays the same thing an octave lower
after the right hand plays that scale. So you can choose to play that or you can leave it out if you want.
But for now we're going to play it twice in a row.
Okay, let's go back to the beginning put the first part with the second part.
So that's going to include the hand shift. Start in F position.
Shift.
All right, going on your hand is going to shift again.
So, you're going to be in I guess you could say F position again, but it's quite different than the last position you're in.
Your thumb is on F just like before, but your next three fingers are going to be on the three black keys.
So your 2 finger and your thumb are right next to each other,
and we just play from our thumb to our forefinger.
That's the first phrase. Now if you notice on the music there's a triplet written there.
It's a bracket with a three below the notes.
That triplet means that you're fitting three notes into 2 beats.
So it's going to feel kind of slower than the first two measures before it.
We had these:
Do you hear how that feels slower?
So going on,
we're going to hold that top note for a long time.
That arc above the note is a tie over to the next measure on the next line.
You're going to repeat that note.
Now to break that phrase down, you repeat that top note twice,
you go down to your 2 finger,
you step up,
and then you go down to your 1 finger.
So we have, then
You see those groups of three?
Okay, this would be a great time to pause. Review anything that you need to.
You can even rewind in the video, but I'm going to play from the beginning.
F position, here we go.
Shift
Pause, review anything you need to and when you're ready, play the video and we'll go on.
The next phrase begins in the same position you are already in.
You're going to repeat your thumb, but then you're going to play an E-flat with your 3 finger.
This E-flat. So you're going to cross your 3 finger over to E-flat
while keeping your thumb on F.
So it's just a little tap with your 3 finger.
And then you're going to come back to the position you were in before.
So you start here, you play your thumb, cross 3 finger over.
And here's what it sounds like with rhythm. Okay, so you bring your 3 finger back over,
and your 2 finger plays G-flat just like before.
thumb 3
Okay, now the next phrase looks like this:
So if you notice I shifted my hand that time.
I brought my three finger over, but then I brought my thumb and my 2 finger over as well.
The position you're going to set up in is 1 finger on c,
2 on the next black key, which is a D-flat.
3 finger on this pitch that you crossed over to.
Then 4 fin ...