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Where do I begin with LOTR?


Nemesis

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Can you recommend important / very good tracks which could open the door for the LOTR music for me? I have all the recordings but have yet to find access to the music.

 

Thankful for any help :)

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Yup, just starting listening to the FOTR OST album from 2001 from track #1.  That's surely the best way to know if these scores are for you.

 

All the OSTs are free on Spotify.


I guess the second best way would be to just watch the movies again and pay attention to the music in them

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4 minutes ago, Jay said:

Yup, just starting listening to the FOTR OST album from 2001 from track #1.  That's surely the best way to know if these scores are for you.

 

All the OSTs are free on Spotify.


I guess the second best way would be to just watch the movies again and pay attention to the music in them

 

I remember needing a few listens for the score to really start clicking. And yes, watching the film helps.

 

Damn, i think i'll listen to the OST in a bit!

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19 minutes ago, Nemesis said:

Can you recommend important / very good tracks which could open the door for the LOTR music for me? I have all the recordings but have yet to find access to the music.

 

Start with the first piece or two of the Fellowship of the Ring OST. Few and far between indeed are the music albums/concerts that open stronger than this OST does with The Prophecy.

 

Afterwards, you can either continue with the OST and later expand into extended releases (The Symphony can also be a good jumping-off point) or you could jump straight into it.

 

I'm working on a "roadshow" fan-edit, which is basically a fancy name for suites meant to play before/between/after the individual blurays of the films - that could help people who have no fimiliarization of the music outside of the picture itself.

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4 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Damn, i think i'll listen to the OST in a bit!

 

 

Ditto.  This discussion makes me want to listen to it on my next commute now

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Certainly The Prophecy is.

 

Glorious piece of music.

 

And let's not forget the fan-credits, shall we? No collection of Middle Earth music will ever be even half-complete without the NZSO's Breaking of the Fellowship.

 

Brings tears to one's eyes.

 

8 minutes ago, Jay said:

Ditto.  This discussion makes me want to listen to it on my next commute now

 

Same!

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Brother! 

 

Just now, Glóin the Dark said:

should be illegal by all standards of human decency.

 

For what, being one of the most rousing pieces of music ever composed?

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6 minutes ago, Glóin the Dark said:

 

No, no, no! That version is an abomination and should be illegal by all standards of human decency.

I absolutely agree, uploading music to youtube with the 480p option, making it that highly compressed, should be a capital offense.

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Oh, the minor-moded one certainly works, especially within the context of the film. But its great to have that major-moded one. After culminative hours and hours of moody Howard Shore music, its great to have something that's so unabashedly and blatantly uplifting.

 

Its the main component of my entr'acte music for The Return of the King.

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The FOTR OST is a great starting point, but it's also the toughest one to get into if you're stepping into the world for the first time (because of its poor pacing and general arrangement). I stand by my belief that the ROTK OST is best designed. But...The Prophecy ought to be everyone's first foray into Middle-Earth.

 

Oh, and stay away from the Symphony. It's not very good.

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4 minutes ago, KK said:

The FOTR OST is a great starting point, but it's also the toughest one to get into if you're stepping into the world for the first time (because of its poor pacing and general arrangement)

 

Yeah, outside of the first two or three tracks and the endings its a bit of a Ringwraith-fest, I suppose.

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I remember reading some old archived initial reaction posts to when the OST first came out and how some of the naysayers couldn't hear any themes. I can see why the OST can give one that impression. It's just poorly arranged. 

 

I came into LOTR headfirst with the CRs. But I can only imagine how much of a musical revelation the FOTR CR set must have been.

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1 hour ago, Nemesis said:

Can you recommend important / very good tracks which could open the door for the LOTR music for me? I have all the recordings but have yet to find access to the music.

 

Thankful for any help :)

 

I'll give a different suggestion: start with the Symphony. The first two movements (corresponding to FOTR) are particularly well assembled and they give a very good introduction to the (larger) score, while being self-contained. 

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I remember in 2001 listening to the OST, being completely in entranced with the very first track, and subsequently being quite taken aback with the second track. To this day, I still strongly dislike the Hobbit music

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4 minutes ago, Score said:

start with the Symphony. The first two movements (corresponding to FOTR) are particularly well assembled and they give a very good introduction to the (larger) score, while being self-contained. 

 

Yeah, its like an abstract of the score as a whole.

 

During the first movement, I like the insertion of The History of the One Ring on Cor Anglais into The Prophecy.

 

Works very well.

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The Symphony is poorly arranged (includes all the shoddy musical transitions from album edits, and some questionable tempo choices), and the performance of the recording just doesn't compare to the original. I'd suggest visiting that after you've run through the actual OSTs.

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I'd also go with the OST of the first score followed by viewing the film, then move onto the next OST and film, and the third... If it doesn't click that way then it perhaps never will.

 

Karol

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