The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - Tal Tal Heights [Revision]

Hello gamers, I hope you all have been enjoying the new Zelda! 

Today's revision was a lot of fun. The original was released over 4 years ago on Mar 9, 2019! Feels like an eternity ago. Looking back, I honestly really liked how I arranged this piece. Something about Zelda covers brings out the creativity in me I guess. :p

This new version will be following in my original arrangement's footsteps quite a bit, but there are some things I wanted to highlight:

@0:13 - Two things immediately:  

• A new addition to this cover is the bass! I'm hoping it's subtle enough to not completely take away from the orchestral nature of the piece, but I thought it really helped with the driving feeling this song has. I don't know why, but to me fretless bass, mandolin and dulcimer are an instant recipe for music depicting mountains or sky.  
• I know I use that woodwind figure a lot in my Zelda arrangements, but it's just so good at driving the action! And compared to my other pieces it might be the most appropriate for this arrangement's setting. 

@0:25 - Very consistently throughout my Link's Awakening arrangements I've used bells (specifically crotales) to represent Koholint Island existing in a dreamlike state. I think it's most prevalent in my older "Link Awakens" Arrangement. Crotales are just... weird. It's hard to justify using them in a lot of situations but whenever I can I rush to it because I love them. 

@0:27 - Ah yes, the bane of every sample library's existence: runs. Samples have come a long way, but there are some things they're (lovingly) not very good at. In this case here, I'm using partially modeled woodwinds (Infinite Woodwinds, the best WW library existing right now in my opinion). Modeled instruments are much, much better at runs and fast legato sections than any sample library I've ever seen, but to me it's still not perfect. Often times, knowing this limitation I just opt not to include runs at all. But the original cover had them, so I will be brave and include them here too. The strings I'm using are sampled one-shots. Will the wait for a very good modeled string library finally end this year? Who knows. 

@0:47 - I don't know why I included this flute solo here, I just thought it was cool.

@1:06 - When I started this revision the first thing that popped into my head was how cool the legato would sound between the solo horn and bassoon at the end of this passage. (approx. 1:11). 

@1:19 - I ended up playing this percussion section up way more. That's 3 snares - regular concert, piccolo and field drum. I don't think anyone knows this yet, but I got my start playing percussion! (Surprising, considering I am very, very quiet and introverted). I found it to be really, really helpful for understanding the foundations of rhythm, and also knowing how to write percussion parts (which seems to be a blind spot for a lot of arrangers, judging by the supremely weird things I had to play back in the day). 

@1:29 - It wouldn't be a Link's Awakening arrangement without shoehorning in Ballad of the Wind Fish! Cut me some slack though, the Wind Fish's egg is on this mountain so it makes sense!

And that about wraps it! I hope you all have been enjoying these little write-ups I do! Let me know and I'll keep doing them. :) In the meantime, thank you for taking a moment to listen to this and feel free to get back to Zelda-ing! <3