Review of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Abstract

Review| October 01 2021 Review of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: A Game Music Companion by Tim Summers (Intellect, 2021, 314 pp, $113.50) Sarah Pozderac-Chenevey Sarah Pozderac-Chenevey Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of Sound and Music in Games (2021) 2 (4): 55–57. https://doi.org/10.1525/jsmg.2021.2.4.55 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Sarah Pozderac-Chenevey; Review of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: A Game Music Companion by Tim Summers (Intellect, 2021, 314 pp, $113.50). Journal of Sound and Music in Games 1 October 2021; 2 (4): 55–57. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jsmg.2021.2.4.55 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentJournal of Sound and Music in Games Search Keywords: ambient music, earcon, Koji Kondo, Nintendo 64, world music The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998; hereafter OoT) is a frequent source of examples for ludomusicological concepts, and for good reasons: in addition to using music in a variety of ways, it was and is an extremely popular video game. Tim Summers acknowledges the importance of both aspects in the introduction to his new monograph, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: A Game Music Companion. He also confronts the topic of canon formation at the outset, stating that he “is not interested in claiming that the game’s composer, Koji Kondo, is a ‘genius’, nor that Ocarina of Time has some quality of ‘greatness’. The study is instead motivated by Ocarina of Time’s popularity and the game’s novel use of music rather than belief in its quality in any universal sense” (2). Summers sets... © 2021 by The Regents of the University of California2021 You do not currently have access to this content.