Xander (@zeldarocks.bsky.social)

Breath of the Wild - Highlands [Great Plateau ~ Mount Hylia] (Cover) Game: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Song: Highlands/Great Plateau ~ Mount Hylia This cover is now up on all streaming services with a little bonus ambience track! Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5qa0JS2O1qTS0973pt3GZt?si=xwdmDLbjTIaMgT5GQ0YbTA Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/great-plateau-single/1749103259 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/albums/B0D5JHS26B?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_8iIrbIbXs1ngvZH6cAXgDrDTG ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's been three years, but we finally decided to enter the Soundole Chillout Contest again (#SoundoleChillOut2024). Unlike last time it took a while to select a song, but Nicole suggested a mountain-themed piece so we could take advantage of our surroundings to film a fun video, and one trip through a mountain VGM playlist later we were reminded of how perfect the Breath of the Wild soundtrack would be for this! The "Highlands" theme is one of the very first songs a player will hear on their adventure, as Mount Hylia is one of the only locations in the starting Great Plateau that has music. Unlike the more traditional dramatic cutscene and combat themes that play earlier this piece really exemplifies BOTW's soft, sparse style of arrangements that are filled in with the desolate beauty of the natural sounds. It also carries another hallmark of the BOTW soundtrack by including small, disconnected snippets of classic Zelda songs, in this case the Ocarina of Time Title Theme and Clock Town from Majora's Mask. With this in mind, we kept the original arrangement largely as is, but for added variety and complexity the second loop includes additional contributions from OoT Title and Clock Town. The core sound of the piece rather comes not from the arrangement, but the incorporation of ambient nature sounds. All of the ambience heard in this track was recorded live at El Dorado Canyon where we filmed the video, and a very large Hall reverb was applied to the overall mix to help the instruments feel like they were being recorded outside too (though practically that wasn't feasible). As for the video itself, we had a lot of fun hiking up the Continental Divide Overlook to film and honestly some of the shots still look unreal to me with how beautiful the state park is. Along the way we tried our best to chronicle the adventure without being too cheesy, so we hope you enjoy the ride. (The stamina wheel segment is cheesy but I spent around an hour editing that in so I wanted to keep it). Special thanks to our friend Calder from the band On the Dot (https://www.youtube.com/@onthedotband) for coming with us on the hike and being a delightful camera man! Despite how sparse the piece sounds it was actually pretty tricky to pull off. On my end, arranging was a challenge as the song lacks any sort of consistent tempo, changing things up pretty much every measure. I was also impressed in the original piece with how intentional every note is, as the arpeggios are slightly delayed by different amounts each time to lend a natural yet weighty feel. The flute also had some technicalities... but I'll let Nicole discuss that. Thanks to all our viewers whether you're here for the contest or years later, and a special shoutout to Soundole and the judges for organizing this contest and reviewing everything! ~ Xander I've never encountered a flute piece that relied so heavily on sustaining one note over time like this one has. To create the feel of a pan flute, I played with a lot of vibrato and also turned the flute's head joint towards/away from me to add fluctuations in the phrasing. Thank you to the judges of this year's Soundole contest for your time and consideration of this track. I hope you have as much fun listening as we did creating this project. ~ Nicole PS - Some folks at the top of the mountain were very disappointed that we were not performing live when they saw our instruments. Original Song by Manaka Kataoka. https://youtu.be/OgL60obGsL0?si=OSDb-PQ0oI9b5enC