Music for Middle-Earth

First one - not the greatest recording and really should be sung by a baritone with good range. I also wrote guitar and cello accompaniment but I'm rubbish with string instruments

All that is gold:
http://yourlisten.com/channel/content/16899322/All+that+is+gold

Hope the link works, feedback welcome :-) Simple minor key for this, late baroque in style. My Elvish works are more classical, more major keys and melodic minors. Hobbit music closer to English folk. That of the Rohirrim not very melodic, more chant-like or recitative. Gondor like Romantic reconstructions of Renaissance music. There is a method to my madness! Or maybe just metho...

Can't get it to play -that and it says it's only 0.01 seconds long. Any chance of upping to youtube instead Meiko?

Botheration! Trying to convert the file on my phone but I may just re-record as video and upload to YouTube...

I shall just have to reserve my copious and crabbit opinion until later then!

Same thing happened when I tried to play it

Hopefully this one works! Please ignore strange effects, I needed to get the file size down (i.e. get rid of the colour info).

I like it! I like the style you sing in-very suitable. Feels both 'high' enough for its subject matter and rustic enough to be suitable for the Rangers. More!

The Petty seal of approval! *faint*

Sadly I'll have to re-record the others now. Still trying to remember the exact music I wrote for some of Treebeard's songs but it'll come back. I'll see if I can upload the Song of Elbereth tonight - I've tried to weave in both the merry nature of the elves and the sadness of being sundered from Valinor in at the same time, not sure if it comes across though...

I'm a huge fan of the entwives song- but youd really need two people singing that, a male and a female lead.

Have you heard the BBC radio version? It starts with the List of Living Creatures and then goes into the ent-wife song about the minute mark.

I also like their version of 'Forth Rode the King'- Tolkien describes their language and songs as 'rolling' like their land- this gives me that feel. As well as invoking horses galloping of course in its beat.

Love most of the music in the BBC dramatisation. I always find myself singing their version of The Road Goes Ever On and The Fall of Gil-Galad. I tried to write my own versions of them but they were just too perfect. And Bill Nighy has a lovely voice!

I remember some lit crit saying that Tolkien's poetry was awful - never felt so crabbit in my life . It's beautiful stuff, especially some of the Rohirrim stuff - the line "came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing" gets my blood running and my spine tingling!

Sadly all the versions of the Fall of Gil-Galad I can find are from the soundtrack with a different singer- I like Bill Nighy's version- same goes for the song he sings in the orc tower.

And yeah, there is loads of Tolkien poetry I find moving or stirring to the soul. Give me 5mins with that critic and I'd soon have them eating their words.

I like the medieval feel to your song, it would be great to hear it accompanied by instruments.

I don't like the modern symphonic accompaniment to the BBC versions, pulls me too much into late 19th, early 20th century. But Howard Shore made the movie music work by NOT using Schubert lieder style instrumentation.

I agree with the comments about your melody Meiko - it feels right. I also like the grayscale video, even though that was unintentional!

Oh, and found Nighy's version of the road goes ever on....superior to Howard Shore's version which I found a bit goofy.

i get what you mean about the orchestra sound Halfwise, but hey I reckon elves in Valinor have orchestras and were so talented they got to that style way ahead of humans- and the entiwives song is elvish.

But I like the nighy versions of Gil-Galad and the tower song pecisely because they have no musical accompanyment at all or very simple chords where they do.



Don't worry Meiko- we're just killing time until your superior versions appear.

Ah, Bill Nighy...

Just spotted an old thread on TORN bagging out Tolkien's poetry. Made me crabbit, and I think I remember claiming such trivial things didn't. Petty, you're dangerous to hang around, I'll have a sensitive crabbitmeter of my own soon.

I've got the chance to watch a multimedia version of the Lord of the Rings - Fellowship next spring. Something like Lord of the Rings in Concert but precisely meaning: watching the first film with reduced soundtrack --> the music coming from an orchestra playing live!
Problem is: it isn't really cheap....

But I think no matter what my purse is saying I'm still going to go....

I don't think that LOTR in Concert has come closer to me than New York so I haven't gone to see it yet, but if you have the chance I'd say take it! And then report back about how it was.

Going to do THAT for sure!

Sounds fucking amazing execuse my French

Yeah, apart from the fact of listening to the Howard Shore music live, I'd also find it fascinating to watch the film with I don't know how many other people who are probably feeling like me about it

You'll probably get laid

You think so?

Haven't you ever seen an advert for lynx?