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 finger on a white key, and 5 finger on the white key F and G.
So you start here and you go:
1 3 2 2 3 4
So those two parts together starting from the first time that you cross your 3 finger over.
You play your 1 finger.
Alright now the next part looks like this:
So if you notice I still have my 2 and 3 finger on those black keys,
but when I play my thumb on C, I'm going to take those two fingers off the black keys
and shift them to the white keys above it.
I know I say above and it looks like it's below, but I mean up on the piano. That's above.
Okay we have E-flat, D-flat, then you take them off the black keys.
Skip to your 5 finger, your pinky.
That means you don't play that finger yet, and you come down to your forefinger.
Okay, that was a lot.
We're going to start from the halfway through the song where we were starting this whole section again.
So pause, review anything you need to. Come back when you're ready.
If you're ready, get in position.
We start with 1 finger.
3 2 1 1 2 3
Okay, let's do that one more time.
Same speed.
Pause and review as you need.
We're going to play it from the beginning now.
It's going to be slow the first time, then we'll speed it up the second time.
F position.
Here we go.
shift
How did you do?
If it was hard, that's just because well the song is a little tricky.
And that's okay. It just takes a few extra tries.
If you don't get it the first time that's expected almost, and it's good because then you're learning something new.
When you're ready, we're going to speed it up.
Ready?
1 2 3 4
Okay, congratulations on learning the right hand.
If that was pretty tricky for you,
that's great. You might want to stick with just the right hand.
But if you're looking for an extra challenge, then we're going to add the left hand. So stick around.
Your left hand will be in G-flat major position.
One octave below middle C.
Your 3 finger starts on B-flat.
You're going to be playing half notes, but they're fast half notes.
And you play four of each, and then change pitch
for almost the whole song. Actually yes, the entire song.
I'll show you what I mean.
The first note B-flat with your 3 finger you're going to play one, two, three, four, then shift down a step.
One, two, three, four, shift down a step, one, two, three, four.
And then you'll notice the note goes up quite a bit. It goes up a fifth to your 1 finger.
One, two, three, four, step down to C-flat.
One, two, three, four.
Down to B-flat, one, two, three, four, then your 2 finger's going to shift from C-flat to C natural.
Then jump up to F with your 1 finger to finish the song.
Okay, it's quite simple on its own, but putting hands together will obviously be the harder part.
It's really important to feel the beat while you're playing the right hand because every half note pulse
is going to follow along with the beat of the song. So let's try to pat the beat with both hands. I'm going to play the melody so you can hear they sound together, but I want you to just pat your knees while I play.
I'll be patting here with you. 1 2, ready go.
So you notice that sometimes I play a note in between pats.
Look at the second measure. We start here, but then on the second measure there's a rest for the 1st beat
where you play the left hand note.
You play that B-flat, and then your right hand plays the B-flat at two octaves above.
And then you step down.
So sometimes the notes happen in between the left hand.
It might be helpful for you to actually say the word left when you're putting hands together. Say left, right. Whatever helps you best.
So, from the beginning.
Left
Then in this section the right hand starts with the left hand.
And then we have the right hand playing without the left hand.
So even in that section you can see where the left hand lines up with the right hand and where it doesn't.
Going on to the next section there are three phrases that all have the same short rhythms.
It goes TA TI-TI TWO-OO
TA TA TA TI-TI TWO-OO
TA TA TA TI-TI TWO-OO TWO-OO
4 and another 4.
So you notice it's the same rhythm over and over again. Different notes but the same rhythm.
You'll play that first note when your 3 finger crosses over and C-flat with your left hand at the same time,
then you play the next two notes with just the right hand.
And then those two notes are together.
Make sense?
So it'll be the same thing for this whole section.
Together, right hand.
Together, right hand.
and then you end together on f's.
Okay, now let's play this hands together from the beginning.
If you need to pause before we do this and practice hands together on your own,
that's totally expected and you should.
All right, once you've practiced that a few times and you feel comfortable playing hands together,
come join me and we'll play it at the same time.
Position.
1 2 3 4
Great. We're going to play it a little faster this time.
Position.
1 2 3 4
Thanks for learning how to play "The Legend of Zelda" with me.
If you had fun, be sure to like this video and subscribe to our channel to see more piano tutorials like this one.
Have fun on your quest, and happy practicing!