Howard Shore's THE LORD OF THE RINGS

[Faleel 5,346]

But I also think they should be presented separately as well, to avoid secondhand embarrassment;)

[Richard Penna 3,686]

I'd have no issue with versions being available on a set which contain the vocals.

 

But we should be able to hear Shore's orchestral cues on their own, without cast performances on top. People always seem to be after orchestra-only or percussion-only versions of cues around here. Why, suddenly with Tolkien are we banished from any idea of hearing the music by itself? Utterly ridiculous argument.

[Faleel 5,346]

10 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

I'd have no issue with versions being available on a set which contain the vocals.

 

But we should be able to hear Shore's orchestral cues on their own, without cast performances on top. People always seem to be after orchestra-only or percussion-only versions of cues around here. Why, suddenly with Tolkien are we banished from any idea of hearing the music by itself? Utterly ridiculous argument.

We're not, you said "it shouldn't be on a soundtrack album", and we were saying, it should, just maybe either: not mixed together, not in the main program, or two versions, one with, and one without.

[Jurassic Shark 12,070]

15 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

I'd have no issue with versions being available on a set which contain the vocals.

 

But we should be able to hear Shore's orchestral cues on their own, without cast performances on top. People always seem to be after orchestra-only or percussion-only versions of cues around here. Why, suddenly with Tolkien are we banished from any idea of hearing the music by itself? Utterly ridiculous argument.

 

"the music by itself"? The cast performances surely are part of the music. 

[Score 770]

7 hours ago, Richard Penna said:

I'd have no issue with versions being available on a set which contain the vocals.

 

But we should be able to hear Shore's orchestral cues on their own, without cast performances on top. People always seem to be after orchestra-only or percussion-only versions of cues around here. Why, suddenly with Tolkien are we banished from any idea of hearing the music by itself? Utterly ridiculous argument.

 

I'm not sure that I understand your point. We're talking, for example, of the first 40 seconds of this track:

 

 

You seem to be thinking that the chords in the strings and the flute part that one can hear below Gandalf's voice constitute an independent piece of music, that was conceived and should be heard on its own. That's not the case: it is actually the accompainment of Gandalf's song. The same applies to the funeral song in TTT: the accompainment, there a bit more varied, is in tune with the song, and it harmonizes it. The fact that the vocals are sung by actors, rather than by trained singers, is an element of realism. Removing the vocals would be the equivalent of removing McCartney's vocals from "Yesterday", and listening to the guitar and strings on their own. Or removing the trumpets from the SW main titles.

 

Then, one could make the point that such cues should be given their own tracks, but the fact that they were included in combination with other (purely non-diegetic) pieces is an indication that they were considered to be an integral part of the score by Shore himself.

 

 

 

 

[mstrox 6,651]

I think the reason I don’t particularly like the FOTR singing on-album is because the audio just doesn’t sound very good.  I don’t have that problem with Eowyn, Aragorn, or whichever hobbit songs in ROTK, which all sound great and “of a piece” with the music.

 

It’s like Elfman including Pee-wee’s bike-riding vocals in his Big Adventure expansion.  The orchestra clearly was designed to interplay with it, but it doesn’t stop it from sounding like shit.  The album should first and foremost be an album!

 

I also don’t think any of the pub songs fit in with the albums, and wish they were nixed (or at least in their own separate tracks, and not overlapping the tail end of a score track like on the FOTR album).

[Faleel 5,346]

5 hours ago, mstrox said:

I think the reason I don’t particularly like the FOTR singing on-album is because the audio just doesn’t sound very good.  I don’t have that problem with Eowyn, Aragorn, or whichever hobbit songs in ROTK, which all sound great and “of a piece” with the music.

 

 

I wonder if that has to do with, FOTR CR basically being a (super) beefed up isolated score.

[Richard Penna 3,686]

11 hours ago, Score said:

The fact that the vocals are sung by actors, rather than by trained singers, is an element of realism. Removing the vocals would be the equivalent of removing McCartney's vocals from "Yesterday", and listening to the guitar and strings on their own. 

 

This is where we're not going to agree on the nature of the cast contributions to LotR in general. Note that I haven't read the books so I'm not familiar with the Tom Bombadil stuff or the much more song-based nature of the source.

 

When Gandalf/Bilbo singing a little ditty to themselves within the filmic world, and Shore composes a cue where he knows those vocals will be there, and makes sure they don't clash, it doesn't mean that when we listen to it from an instrumental score perspective, we should be listening to those vocals as well. I'd actually suggest that the woodwind ending of Bag End clashes quite badly on the CR set with the vocals - they even included it vocal-free on the DVD extras.

 

Including both versions would be a perfect compromise. I'm just not going to be made to feel guilty in any way by just wanting Shore's music, and not what the actors are doing - it's a preference.

[Chen G. 3,949]

28 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

When Gandalf/Bilbo singing a little ditty to themselves within the filmic world, and Shore composes a cue where he knows those vocals will be there, and makes sure they don't clash,

 

Its not just that they don't clash: When Gandalf comes rolling-in, all the score is doing is harmonising the singing.

 

This is not true of every diegetic piece, but its true of that one.

[Faleel 5,346]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

 

Its not just that they don't clash: When Gandalf comes rolling-in, all the score is doing is harmonising the singing.

To be fair, half of the LOTR scores are that

 

There are even cues that had instruments taken away to be like that, for example Frodo's monologue at the end of ROTK (The Fellowship Reunited) had the shire theme melody on Whistle removed, which can be heard in (I think) the Use Well the Days documentary, leaving just the chords.

[Chen G. 3,949]

Well, some leitmotives are by their nature more chordal than melodic.

[enderdrag64 624]

In general I think I agree with @Richard Penna on this. I understand @Chen G.'s point that the orchestra can be an accompaniment for the vocals, and in the case of Gandalf singing when he arrives at Bag End I think the two mesh rather well, even though I would still like to have the orchestra clean.

 

For me the one that's far worse sounding is 

I don't think you can argue the vocals and the score here have anything to do with each other musically; the vocals are really distracting and take away from the climax of the cue. Not to mention that the cue ends like 8 seconds before the vocals do

[Faleel 5,346]

42 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Well, some leitmotives are by their nature more chordal than melodic.

What does that have to do with what I said?

 

I said parts of the score had melody lines removed via editing, or podium changes/revisions, not that certain cues were written that just used the chords by from a theme by themselves instead of with the melody.

12 minutes ago, enderdrag64 said:

Not to mention that the cue ends like 8 seconds before the vocals do

Eh, not the strongest of points to use, plenty of cues end with a solo instrument after everything else drops away...

[Chen G. 3,949]

Just saying, in the particular example you cited, its a motive we identify primarily through the chordal progression anyway...

[Score 770]

On 28/09/2023 at 7:32 PM, Richard Penna said:

Including both versions would be a perfect compromise. I'm just not going to be made to feel guilty in any way by just wanting Shore's music, and not what the actors are doing - it's a preference.

 

No reason to feel guilty at all. I just wanted to point out that what the actors are doing is part of Shore's music.

 

Anyway, there are now some AI applications that allow to recognize and separate the vocal parts from the instrumental ones in an audio track, and sometimes they work quite well. If you really want to eliminate Gandalf's voice, you might want to check those out 

 

 

 

[Chen G. 3,949]

20 minutes ago, Score said:

I just wanted to point out that what the actors are doing is part of Shore's music.

 

They are and they aren't.

 

Generally speaking, the diegetic pieces don't sound like they "belong" with Howard Shore's score. But, then again, Wintersturme doesn't sound like it belong in The Ring, and yet its a huge favourite!

 

And sometimes Shore does find remarkably clever ways to make us "hear" a resemblence to his music. Like the clarinet recapitulating Pippin's aria, emphasizing the perfect fifth and bringing it closer to Gondor's music. Again, the closest example that comes to mind is Sieglinde's nightmare.

[Richard Penna 3,686]

36 minutes ago, Score said:

Anyway, there are now some AI applications that allow to recognize and separate the vocal parts from the instrumental ones in an audio track, and sometimes they work quite well. If you really want to eliminate Gandalf's voice, you might want to check those out 

 

Already done that  I made versions of both tracks eliminating the vocals and they're near perfect.

[Score 770]

16 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Generally speaking, the diegetic pieces don't sound like they "belong" with Howard Shore's score. But, then again, Wintersturme doesn't sound like it belong in The Ring, and yet its a huge favourite!

 

And sometimes Shore does find remarkably clever ways to make us "hear" a resemblence to his music. Like the clarinet recapitulating Pippin's aria, emphasizing the perfect fifth and bringing it closer to Gondor's music. Again, the closest example that comes to mind is Sieglinde's nightmare.

 

Your continuous, flawless use of the "reductio ad Wagnerum" (*) never ceases to amaze me! 

 

 

(*) "Reductio ad Wagnerum" (definition invented by me right now): denotes any attempt to justify or invalidate an aesthetical judgement, classification criterion, structural analysis, or whatever else, related or not related to music, based on what Wagner did or would have done ("reductio ad Gotterdammerung" would also sound nice, but it wouldn't be correct).

 

[Chen G. 3,949]

That is how we Wagnerians roll! 

[Alex Shore 83]

 

I have attended the Live to Projection concerts in Madrid and I have been amazed by the amount of unreleased music that plays in the montage of ROTK. There's especially a moment when Merry and Pippin are introduced, after the "salted pork" phrase until the change to Edoras very cool.

 

And its not in the Complete Recordings from ROTK.

[WilliamsStarShip2282 308]

On 10/10/2023 at 4:23 AM, Alex Shore said:

 

I have attended the Live to Projection concerts in Madrid and I have been amazed by the amount of unreleased music that plays in the montage of ROTK. There's especially a moment when Merry and Pippin are introduced, after the "salted pork" phrase until the change to Edoras very cool.

 

And its not in the Complete Recordings from ROTK.

 

I was surprised by this too, I remember when I went to see Two Towers there were sections of really nice music that I had never heard before. Going to the live projections is really worth it.

[Gollum Cat 24]

On 12/10/2023 at 7:07 PM, WilliamsStarShip2282 said:

 

I was surprised by this too, I remember when I went to see Two Towers there were sections of really nice music that I had never heard before. Going to the live projections is really worth it.

I'd go again in a heartbeat if they do all three back to back in the US again like they did in Chicago several years ago.

[Monoverantus 363]

I don't think anyone's shared this interview, but I thought it had some nice trivia.

 

[Faleel 5,346]

With the beard, he almost vaguely reminds me of Doug Helvering.