Howard Shore's The Desolation Of Smaug (Hobbit Part 2)

[Faleel 5,342]

Finished Beorn, Bard and Family, Lake-town Bard, and the MIDI of Girion and Bard. These four are around 5 minutes together. Will upload it Sunday or Monday presumably.

Hopefully Sunday! (Today)

[Incanus 5,713]

Of course, on one of my rare visits to this thread I see something encouraging, and then it's immediately contradicted.

Isn't that the usual JWFan experience?

[gkgyver 1,645]

Finished Beorn, Bard and Family, Lake-town Bard, and the MIDI of Girion and Bard. These four are around 5 minutes together. Will upload it Sunday or Monday presumably.

Hopefully Sunday! (Today)

I'm finishing up Erebor tonight, and then I'll upload it. But it could be tomorrow.

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

Of course, on one of my rare visits to this thread I see something encouraging, and then it's immediately contradicted.

Isn't that the usual JWFan experience?

Ill news is an ill guest!

[gkgyver 1,645]

Finished Erebor. All 5 pieces together are about 6:30 long. Bard and Family, Beorn, Erebor, Girion and Bard, and Lake-town Bard.

Still, I'll upload it tomorrow. Sorry

[Incanus 5,713]

Oooh I can't wait!

Of course, on one of my rare visits to this thread I see something encouraging, and then it's immediately contradicted.

Isn't that the usual JWFan experience?

Ill news is an ill guest!

Are you suggesting that I should take my leave now? Because we both know that is not going to happen!

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[gkgyver 1,645]

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[gkgyver 1,645]

I took the metronome tempo as written in the book, so I doubt Shore's intentions for the theme are different. Especially since he wrote a short introduction for the piano book.

[Kühni 485]

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[gkgyver 1,645]

I think it's important to note that I didn't take any liberties with the compositions. These tracks are really just the orchestrated piano sheets.

[Incanus 5,713]

Excellent work Georg!

Bard and Family Theme does sound quite an odd hybrid where I expect Bilbo's themes from Dreaming of Bag End to burst through any minute. There is such similarity in its contours at places.

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[Joe Brausam 214]

That's what he's doing. The voices have their own staves, and the piano part. He would make an educated guess as to how it's orchestrated from there.

[KK 3,307]

Great mockups Georg!

My favourite is the Laketown/Bard town and the Beorn one. The slower tempo really benefits it and it acts together as a nice theme demo. I still don't think its a very strong theme, but the Nature's Reclamation-bit is a nice interlude.

I'm not really a fan of the Bard family theme I'm afraid. It meanders between all-too-familiar thematic fragments. And sure, I guess that's thematic connections for ya, but I would have preferred a more unique identity for it instead (though I don't see the need for a Bard family theme in the first place).

[Barnald 365]

Obviously Shore is very fond of his new Bilbo theme and wanted to squeeze some of it in someplace. Probably doesn't bode well for us hearing the Baggins-Took film in the next film.

[gkgyver 1,645]

I think it's important to note that I didn't take any liberties with the compositions. These tracks are really just the orchestrated piano sheets.

So is the music written for piano and you split up the parts for different instruments and voices (ie there is no percussion)?

What Joe Brausam said.

I do the orchestrations based on what I have seen in Shore's score sheets. The choir is something I added, that's not in the piano book. I just liked it. But almost every piece in the book has the addition "Lyrics by Philippa Boyens", even though there is no choir in the actual piece, so maybe some are supposed to have choir and they just didn't include it?

There is percussion in the form of timpani in my mock-Ups, but nothing else, since these are rudimentary mock-Ups, I want them close to the actual sheets, and picking samples from a whole battery of gongs and cymbals is a pain in the ass, since the piano transcription obviously doesn't indicate where there is percussion.

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[Barnald 365]

Ah I thought it was tomorrow. I suspect we might hear something about an EE feature. I think it's too early for announcements regarding a book or Complete Recordings.

[Barnald 365]

Any word on those surprise announcements? I'm surprised we haven't heard anything by now.

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[gkgyver 1,645]

I need some TBOTFA news soon, it feels like nothing is happening.

[Kühni 485]

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[SafeUnderHill 205]

[Barnald 365]

Yeah maybe he'll announce something at the last Hobbit one today. On twitter he says 'don't miss the Grand Finale', which might suggest he has these mooted special announcements lined up (or not).

[aj_vader 533]

Yeah maybe he'll announce something at the last Hobbit one today. On twitter he says 'don't miss the Grand Finale', which might suggest he has these mooted special announcements lined up (or not).

I am excited!

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[aj_vader 533]

I watched all three streams, but there was no announcement

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[Kühni 485]

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[Jay 37,323]

That list only lists the stuff that appears on the actual OST CD. As you know, there is tons of music in the films (especially the first) that isn't on the OSTs.

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[gkgyver 1,645]

So, is this announcement ever going to surface, or ...?

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[gkgyver 1,645]

Teaser you mean.

Would be cool to have Shore write music for it, like for RotK.

Teaser you mean.

Would be cool to have Shore write music for it, like for RotK.

[Glóin the Dark 1,220]

The main phrase of the (so-called!) The History of the Ring theme, in its standard incarnation (as played by Doug Adams in the first video), is formed from two minor chords (say, Fm - Em), but the melody which occurs over the Fm chord contains an A rather than an Ab, resulting in some degree of major/minor ambiguity. (What is the key, though? To my ears, the E has more of a claim to being a tonal centre than the F, and I would just say that the theme was in E minor - unambiguously minor - if pressed to name one.)

The first statement Kühni listed (AUJ 2-08 0:14-0:30) is just like this except that the first chord doesn't initially include the middle note of the triad (the minor third) making it sound more majory because of the melody (and the chord fails to move down a semitone, deciding instead to complete itself by adding that missing middle note and thus becoming decidedly minor).

The second one (AUJ 2-08 0:46-1:03) is an anomaly in that instead of Fm - Em the chords are B - Em (not literally; they sound more like E - Am, perhaps, but they're in that relation to one another all the same). So the major chord there gives the theme a major sheen, temporarily, but it still reverts to the Em as before.

I can't remember exactly what the first appearance in the film is...

Did I just hear Doug Adams say that Shore was thinking of something different when he referred to this as a "Gondorian theme" on the commentary? First time I've heard that!

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[crocodile 7,990]

The first statement of The History of the Ring theme in The Hobbit is in a major mode (in AUJ)

OK, going by JBL's copyrighted list of themes in the Hobbit, HotR pops up four times:

AUJ 2-08 0:14-0:30

AUJ 2-08 0:46-1:03

AUJ 2-08 2:34-2:47

AUJ 2-09 0:41-0:59

I've just listened to all of these instances and I'm not quite convinced that any of these qualify as being in major. The first two (in Riddles in the Dark) are rather "not minor", but not outrightly major. Could somebody more musically savvy assess this situation, please? Or is there another rendition of HotR in the movie that I am not aware of?

Ta.

Have you watched the presentation from Doug, I may have not put it accurately in my wording. He does play this 'major' version on piano if that helps. I assume he is talking about the album version since the first statement in the film (if I remember correctly) is one which which sounds very similar to one/some of the statements in FOTR.

For the musically literate, is does the first history of the ring statement in AUJ film version vary much from the FOTR statements it is so similar to?

He's playing the cool unused variation, yes.

Karol

[Glóin the Dark 1,220]

Isn't the first appearance when Bilbo picks up the ring, after it fell out of Gollum's pocket?

I would imagine so, yeah. I just meant that I can't recall the statement perfectly to memory - though I expect that it's of the normal Fm - Em variety...

I think Doug is explaining that Shore meant the music used for the Argonath's was originally the Gondor theme. Some thought he meant the ring theme was somehow related to Gondor.

Yeah, because on the commentary he says "This is a Gondorian theme" at that very moment, and I'd always assumed that he meant that. (I mean, the theme was obviously always a Ring theme, but I assumed that he meant it had a deliberate Gondorian quality in some subtle musical sense that was over my head. It turns out that he was just mistaken about what music was playing...)

He's playing the cool unused variation, yes.

Do you mean the snippet he plays near the end of the first video? Surely that's just the bog-standard version of the theme...

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[crocodile 7,990]

Isn't the first appearance when Bilbo picks up the ring, after it fell out of Gollum's pocket?

I would imagine so, yeah. I just meant that I can't recall the statement perfectly to memory - though I expect that it's of the normal Fm - Em variety...

I think Doug is explaining that Shore meant the music used for the Argonath's was originally the Gondor theme. Some thought he meant the ring theme was somehow related to Gondor.

Yeah, because on the commentary he says "This is a Gondorian theme" at that very moment, and I'd always assumed that he meant that. (I mean, the theme was obviously always a Ring theme, but I assumed that he meant it had a deliberate Gondorian quality in some subtle musical sense that was over my head. It turns out that he was just mistaken about what music was playing...)

He's playing the cool unused variation, yes.

Do you mean the snippet he plays near the end of the first video? Surely that's just the bog-standard version of the theme...

It's the one around 0:45 in Riddles in the Dark album version.Karol

[Glóin the Dark 1,220]

It's the one around 0:45 in Riddles in the Dark album version.

Okay, yeah - I'd only watched the first video until a moment ago.

[Ludwig 1,120]

The main phrase of the (so-called!) The History of the Ring theme, in its standard incarnation (as played by Doug Adams in the first video), is formed from two minor chords (say, Fm - Em), but the melody which occurs over the Fm chord contains an A rather than an Ab, resulting in some degree of major/minor ambiguity. (What is the key, though? To my ears, the E has more of a claim to being a tonal centre than the F, and I would just say that the theme was in E minor - unambiguously minor - if pressed to name one.)

The theme definitely makes use of polytonality. The first sustained chord is Fm of course, but the melody circles around the notes B, C, and A. At first, it sounds as though the B is a non-chord note resolving to C, and the A creates the impression of an F major chord simultaneously with the minor one. But the persistence of the B-natural sounds odd as well since it is foreign to the implied F minor key (B-flat being what we would expect).

Then the sustained chord drops to Em, and everything becomes clearer. The B, C, and A over the first chord were actually part of the E minor scale. You can hear this if you hold an Em chord from the beginning while playing the whole melody overtop. It all falls into place. So I would agree, Glóin, that E minor is the key of greater weight here. (In this respect, I would respectfully disagree with Doug here that the initial melody does not actually signify A minor as he argues but, as it becomes clear, E minor.)

Surely, this kind of technique has to do with the nature of the ring itself. At first it appears to be something strangely alluring - like the major/minor ambiguity. But as one gazes more at it, one falls under its evil power - like the revealing of the theme's "true" and purely minor key which, appropriately enough, is achieved by "falling" a semitone down.

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[Kühni 485]

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