Re: The Desolation of Smaug pre-release thread [2] [SPOILERS]

[Pettytyrant101]

All on my own, eh?- Bungo

Not quite on everything- I have long been crabbit about the music in LotR's for being far to safe, not diversive enough in representing the different races and places and just to generic and pedestrian.

I dont think there is anything wrong with the music, its not bad, it doesnt make me actively crabbit most of the time (except in AUJ naturally) its just not as adventurous, or risk taking, or ground breaking as I think it should be.
I think if youre handed a suitcase full of money and told to create the music for a world you should really go for it.

[halfwise]

Asking a composer to completely leave his musical culture behind and create several new ones is a tall order. And you also have the problem of what to do when they are simply walking from one place to another.

I think it's a highly intriguing idea and Shore could have gone further, but recall he already dug up a Norwegian fiddle for Rohan, went heavily into chromaticism to represent elves, etc. And he was scoring up until the last week before final release.

To really create the score you ask for would be a life's work, though highly worthwhile. It's a nice dream; don't hold reality against Shore.

[Pettytyrant101]

I dont think it had to be a lifes work (although that would have been good to listen to) just not Hollywood generic 101.

[Lancebloke]

In Lord of the Rings they could at least get inspiration from the books, but PJ and the coven pulled them so far away from the book it couldn't be used for inspiration anymore.

I think the 're-tone' of the book has a big pat to play there. In LotR's, it was a big epic quest from pretty much the beginning therefore big epic quest music. The Hobbit, for the main character, was an inconvenient (to begin with) adventure and should, I think, have much lighter treatment, maybe with some darker tones around the edges. The Shire theme, for example, could have reflected a younger Bilbo and a more naive time.

I do wonder what PJs brief to the music writers was this time around. I would imagine they have done exactly as asked.

[halfwise]

I dont think it had to be a lifes work (although that would have been good to listen to) just not Hollywood generic 101.

I think to achieve what you wanted in a reasonable amount of time you'd need a composer for each culture you want to reproduce, and a supervising composer who links the styles and provides transitional and incidental music. The audience does need to hear a familiar style for much of the movie or they may not be accepting.

I learned this when I tried introducing a musical friend to Indian Classical music as teenagers. He couldn't listen to it, it said it hurt his ears: he was too locked into the western style to accept something as far away as Indian quartertones.

[Lancebloke]

I would imagine that to be a nightmare in itself and would kind of defeat the object the having individual composers to an extent as they would all be subject to someone telling them what to do a lot of the time.

The familiarity aspect I think is the most important thing for the average audience goer. I would find it difficult it we went to the shire, got one tune, then went away, came back and got something totally different and then came back later and got something totally different again. At the very least you need a 'riff' so to speak (sure there is a technical term) to link to a character/location/theme that can be weaved in and out. Different tempo, different instruments, different keys is fine but the same basic idea.

[Pettytyrant101]

For me I would gone for hiring film composers from various cultures, but all well known film scorers and given them a race each, with an overall lead composer to bring it together.
Themes would be consistent to race- just as Shore in fact did, but there would b a much more noticeable cultural difference in them.
The music of Rohan for example would be consistent with Rohan but be in a very different style from that of the Shire, and not just by chucking in a few cultural instruments in the mix every now and again.

[Eldorion]

I dont think it had to be a lifes work (although that would have been good to listen to) just not Hollywood generic 101.

I really wish I lived in your world, where the LOTR movies represent the level of quality one expects from the average Hollywood blockbuster.  I'd love to see a genuinely great film from that world.

[bungobaggins]

I'm so glad that I can talk candidly about Shore's score on this forum and Doug Adams doesn't come and piss on my comments.   

[Forest Shepherd]

Wait wait wait, are we criticizing the soundtrack for the Lord of the Rings?  

[Mrs Figg]

The music for LOTR couldnt have been more beautiful, magic, epic, moving and perfect.

[bungobaggins]

Wait wait wait, are we criticizing the soundtrack for the Lord of the Rings?   

Just Petty and myself, I think.

[Pettytyrant101]

The music for LOTR couldnt have been more beautiful, magic, epic, moving and perfect.- Mrs Figg


Just not very brave, or fresh, or innovative either.  

For example, even though I dont like all of it, I find the music for the BBC radio 4 version to at least be brave in the scope of it what it tries to do. Shore feels, 'safe' in comparison.

[Mrs Figg]

it was innovative 10 years ago. It doesnt need to be brave, it just needs to be the glue that holds the various races/cultures together, and it does that perfectly.

[Forest Shepherd]

Wait wait wait, are we criticizing the soundtrack for the Lord of the Rings?   

Just Petty and myself, I think.

I may be able to agree slightly with you concerning, say, the use of Hobbit-related themes for the sake of comedy in some scenes from the LotR films, but I find the music to work perfectly in all the best sequences from the movie. The last 20 minutes of Fellowship is AWESOME.

I keep the music of the Hobbit separate in my mind however, as I feel that it does wear thin the musical legacy of the first Trilogy. A completely new score would have been fine with me, no matter how emotionally disharmonious it might sound in locations like the Shire or Rivendell.

[bungobaggins]

I've wanted to write a paper for a long time about race (like race in our world, not in Middle-earth) and the LOTR scores. Particularly the use of the Freygish scale and additive rhythms which is typically found in Eastern, and Arabic music (these are heard in the Isengard/Mordor themes), and the more "idyllic", undeniably Western, Shire, Rohan, Gondor music. Basically how it's literally East vs. West inspired, and I wanted to find a way to tie it in with the climate of fear that the world was experiencing (particularly when it comes to terrorism and a distrust of Eastern cultures) at the beginning of the 2000s. The underlying story of LOTR is essentially East vs. West, and there's no denying parallels to our modern society. Even though Shore composed a lot of music before 2001, there has to be a connection (at least subconsciously) to this climate of fear and the East vs. West mentality.

Never had the guts to tackle it though.

[Eldorion]

A lot of that would probably go over my head, but I'd be curious to read such an analysis if you ever write it, bungo.  The political interpretations of LOTR have always interested me in terms of how they reflect the climate in which people were reading the book, and I'm sure that affected PJ to some extent.  It's interesting how the definition of "East" keeps changing though.  Most people seem to associate the Dunedain and the Eldar with Anglo-America, but Mordor is either Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or the Taliban depending on who and when you ask.

I'm actually quite curious to know what people from Germany, Russia, and/or Afghanistan think about these interpretations, but unfortunately I haven't met many people from those countries on Tolkien forums (I guess maybe Germany, I just haven't worked up the nerve to ask ).

And before anyone butts in, I know that Tolkien wasn't trying to write an allegory.

[bungobaggins]

That's a great point about how East and West change depending on who is reading and in what time period. Everyone will project their own circumstances onto any situation in order to better understand them, I suppose.

Although I would be VERY interested to hear the opinions of others as well (Germans, Middle Eastern peoples (and then more specifically a country like Israel compared to a country like Iran)).

[bungobaggins]

There's even more evidence for East vs. West in that recent article which talked about the score for DOS.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11141634

Occasionally, as the film's prologue cuts to the movie's title, the room fills with a great rumbling of sound topped by a minor-key shriek of strings which sound almost Chinese in its foreboding motif.

But it goes on to say that it was "inspired by the prominence of dragons in Chinese and Indonesian culture."

But there's always more than one way to interpret something.  

[Mrs Figg]

I am not sure LOTR would be a good example, I would look at modern films like Distict 9 and Children of God and other thinly disguised racial conflict movies. LOTR is too seeped in medievalism/High Romance, but maybe I havent quite understood your proposal.

[Norc]

as PJ calls it. Descholaschion of Schmarwg.

[Lancebloke]

I thought it was Smowg Norc....

[bungobaggins]

I am not sure LOTR would be a good example, I would look at modern films like Distict 9 and Children of God and other thinly disguised racial conflict movies. LOTR is too seeped in medievalism/High Romance, but maybe I havent quite understood your proposal.

How can I explain it better? I would like to try to sharpen this idea. While LOTR is from the medievalist tradition the main conflict of East vs. West can be paralleled to the opening of the 21st century. Take, for example, the charge of the Rohirrim at Pellenor. You've got a bunch of white men on horses facing down dark-skinned and Arab-ish men on giant elephants. That, to me, is overtly racial; and as most of the story has white male protagonists defeating typically dark-skinned orcs, I think it very much applies to race and an East vs. West mentality. I think it's evident in the story as well as the music. Those are just my thoughts though.  

And I do enjoy the story apart from that. I just view it through two different lenses I guess.

[halfwise]

A couple years ago I stated the Tolkien was racist, Bungo, and got massively jumped on. I think the problem is that now racism is seen as almost a choice, while a hundred years ago it was simply entrenched in the worldview, and it's not fair to judge older generations by modern standards.

[bungobaggins]

I don't know if I could state for a fact that he was racist, but I do believe there are overtones of it in the story. Whether or not that seeped in from his worldview, I'll never know, but the fact is that those overtones are there on paper and have been for almost 60 years.