Rings of Power Bear McCreary's The Rings of Power APPRECIATION thread

[DangerMotif 1,037]

15 hours ago, Jay said:

I got the impression from his blog post that he conducted all of episode 8.

Was it 7 also I think?

[Jay 37,352]

Definitely not

 

"I spent the first quarter of 2022 completing the score, finishing the last cue in the middle of April. It was time to step out of my studio, get on a plane, and fly to London to conduct the last orchestral recording sessions for the finale of the first season. At last, with no more cues to be written, and for the first time in nearly a year, I could give the recording process my full attention. "

 

https://bearmccreary.com/the-lord-of-the-rings-appendices-part-4/

[Jay 37,352]

We watched the season finale last night.

 

Bear's score makes a huge impact in it!  For what felt like the first time I felt myself really noticing every theme statement, including Elrond's theme which honestly I hadn't picked up when watching any episode prior.

 

The introduction of the full ring theme melody was awesome, as was the song appearing immediately at the end of the episode.

What a joy it's been to have 2 months of new television to watch with a great huge orchestral & choral film score full of good memorable themes every week!

[WampaRat 1,105]

Yes. You really gotta give credit to Bear for thinking of both the casual listener and the full blown score nerd. He did a splendid job paring down certain tracks, creating suites out of similarly themed tracks, and placed in relatively chronological order. There’s only a handful of tracks from the episode albums that I would add here and there to fill in some narrative gaps. 

[Stark 312]

I doubt I’ll find myself listening to the season OST’s episode tracks again, but they do appear to be a good summary of the wider score.

[Richard Penna 3,686]

It's certainly the case that the primary function for the season album for hardcore fans is the hour or so of suites, but a lot of the other cues have been microedited to make them a bit more compact and listenable if you don't want to get more mentally into the individual scores.

[Jay 37,352]

Yea a lot of the edited versions of episode cues he assembled for the season-album are pretty cool and tidy ways to get across major ideas in less time.  They all flow pretty well.

 

The only thing that annoys me about his release strategy was to have (some of?) the episode albums still be incomplete, and have tons of crossfading of shorter cues into longer tracks.

It's a similar problem with The Hobbit's albums.  In both cases, they had a great opportunity to release a "well-arranged highlights" version and a "here's everything" version, and in both cases the longer releases are still incomplete - woefully so in The Hobbit's case and only slightly so here.

it's a bummer but what are you gonna do

[Richard Penna 3,686]

Episodes 4 and 5 were the only ones where I didn't notice anything missing and I'm sure Bear mentioned 'complete score' when he did his Twitter announcement for one of them.

 

For the others I don't overly mind a bit of crossfading or microediting to remove little bits that disrupt the flow, i.e. removing stingers, but he could so easily have arranged things to include every cue.

 

But a quick, rough calculation suggests we've got about 98-99% of what was featured in the show. Considering that the season album would've been considered a generous release by most standards, this is amazing.

 

Maybe one day the sessions will leak  

[Jay 37,352]

Yea even if the bits he removed were presented as bonus tracks at the end, that'd be fine by me

 

I also don't understand why he put the concert arrangement used as episode 1's end credits on the episode 1 album, but then didn't do the same for the other 6 episodes that used a concert arrangement as its end credits.  S'weird.

[Richard Penna 3,686]

I dunno, feels like that's a bit of duplication that isn't really needed; we can just add those tracks ourselves from the season album.

 

I don't think even bonus tracks would be needed for the fully-excised cues - just join them to, or somewhere in the middle of, an existing longer cue. That's what he did for Underneath the Floorboards from episode 2 - there's material from all over the episode in that track.

[Holko 9,525]

Has anyone worked on less explicitly show-imaged covers yet? Maybe something based on the main title images?

[Jay 37,352]

1 hour ago, Richard Penna said:

I dunno, feels like that's a bit of duplication that isn't really needed; we can just add those tracks ourselves from the season album.

 

Sure, and I don't mind that they are not there for the 6 episodes they don't appear, I can't fathom why they decided to include one of them on the episode 1 album.

 

[Jay 37,352]

Man, I'm loving The Mystics' theme, especially now that I've seen all their scenes and revisited all the tracks with their theme on the albums.

 

Boy, I wish Bear had crafted a concert arrangement for this theme!

[Tydirium 1,167]

Man, I just can't get enough of the Númenor theme, especially the little rhythmic motif that occurs at 1:39 and 4:03 of the concert suite track. One thing I love is how in the concert suite, the buildup to it starting at 3:53 is twice as slow as earlier at 1:34. (It's that slow in "Sailing into the Dawn" as well (1:14), but in that track the entire theme is slow up to that point—so it's not the same effect as in the end of the suite.)

[Stark 312]

16 hours ago, Jay said:

Man, I'm loving The Mystics' theme, especially now that I've seen all their scenes and revisited all the tracks with their theme on the albums.

 

Boy, I wish Bear had crafted a concert arrangement for this theme!

I have a suspicion that the theme will be greatly expanded when the wizard goes to Rhun, and perhaps it will get a concert suite alongside season 2.

[Jay 37,352]

Oh, that's an interesting idea!

 

So these three Mystic ladies might just be 3 out of many people with the same powers?

[WampaRat 1,105]

11 hours ago, Tydirium said:

Man, I just can't get enough of the Númenor theme, especially the little rhythmic motif that occurs at 1:39 and 4:03 of the concert suite track. One thing I love is how in the concert suite, the buildup to it starting at 3:53 is twice as slow as earlier at 1:34. (It's that slow in "Sailing into the Dawn" as well (1:14), but in that track the entire theme is slow up to that point—so it's not the same effect as in the end of the suite.)

I love the bridge bit in the suite from 2:30-2:50. It strangely reminds me of a theme from “The ‘Burbs” 😆

And then in the same bridge on the episode album, (3:34-4:00) I love the stronger emphasis on that little up and down figure in “Into Numenor”. It’s a bit more staccato and made my ears perk up when I first heard it on the episode album. More evidence Bear didn’t just copy and paste his suites into these shows.

 

[Jay 37,352]

Wow, @WampaRat that bridge section is really cool - I hadn't paid much attention to it before.  Thank you for pointing it out (and how cool that a bridge of a concert arrangement got worked into underscore so well)

 

And @Tydirium yea, that "little rhythmic motif" as you call it, or "Númenor Finale" as @Monoverantuscalls it in his theme post is incredible!  It's been a standout idea for me since I first heard the album, and it always makes an impact when it gets used in episodes; What I like most is its anticipatory nature, meaning as the music starts building to it, I get giddy to hear it well before it arrives!

 

 

~

 

I was just listening to "Offering Snails" and DAMN, what a fascinating version of The Stragner's theme in the first minute there!

[Stark 312]

On 21/10/2022 at 8:55 AM, Jay said:

Oh, that's an interesting idea!

 

So these three Mystic ladies might just be 3 out of many people with the same powers?

They could be, or they could be the most powerful of the Rhunians - either way I expect their music to relate to the music of Rhun in some way.

[Holko 9,525]

Finished all the episode albums, one per day, with the aid of @JNHFan2000's helpful theme breakdowns for the first 5.

I love it!

 

Okay, that might just be the last one's hype still lasting. Not all of all of them were great (music itself or the album construction, for example in the third one I didn't like how he put all the Nori/Harfoot material into 3 tracks and then put those 3 tracks back to back), but this one was, from start to finish.

 

My favourite theme's probably Númenor. The score features strong statements all over to carry highpoints and endings, but also tons of different quieter variations - and I think only by the end does it start hinting at more, different, darker turns, which will surely feature more later down the line, I can't wait for it to morph into villain material!

Another strong contender is The Stranger, similarly with a ton of lovely variations, I also really liked all the Nori and Harfoot material and the instrumentation of all of the above.

Galadriel is just lovely, too bad we didn't get a full climactic statement somewhere at the end.

Sauron's an alright villain theme.

Elendil/Isildur wasn't really a backbone like these others yet, but it was still memorable with a lot of potential, assigned to the two characters with fun differences.

I liked Khazad-Dúm, Durin and Elrond early on, but then they all lost their energy and kind of died out, with no big statements to revitalise them.

I was at best a little better than indifferent, at worst a little bored by Halbrand and Bronwyn/Arondir, and I couldn't really pin down Adar at all. Interesting that in the 3 eps that I watched I was also most bored/indifferent with this storyline and these characters down in the Southlands.

I loved how The Rings continually weaved into the structure and was very satisfied by how it took over by the end - True Creation and the Fiona Apple Where The Shadows Lie gave me proper full body shivering scoregasms!

 

And now I can't wait for the OST to arrive - I haven't listened to it since it came out digitally, I can't wait to hear all the concert arrangements again, and then listen again with better knowledge, and then again and again to help the maddening wait for years until we can continue!

[Richard Penna 3,686]

I was at a Halloween party last night and I had Sauron going through my head the entire time, and it was entirely down to the choral statement in Ep 8 track 6 at 4:30. Aside from Halbrand's interpolations, I love 5:00 where it goes major key (right?).

 

I kinda think Bear should've put that track out as the single right at the beginning as the faster version in the concert piece feels less accessible if you're not familiar with it.

 

If you ignore the tedious musicology comparisons that a few others insist on banging on about, I think it's a great villain theme.

[Jay 37,352]

45 minutes ago, Holko said:

l iked Khazad-Dúm, Durin and Elrond early on, but then they all lost their energy and kind of died out, with no big statements to revitalise them.

 

Yea that is a bummer! The show, in the end, only featured Khazad-Dúm/Durin scenes in 4 of the 8 episodes, which is a shame because they were easily among my favorite scenes. I hope they play a bigger role in season 2!

[Richard Penna 3,686]

44 minutes ago, Holko said:

I liked Khazad-Dúm, Durin and Elrond early on, but then they all lost their energy and kind of died out, with no big statements to revitalise them.

 

I think those three are solid character themes but they're not really given the room to shine outside of those very specific scenes, especially Khazad Dum. I'm not a huge fan of Durin's theme to begin with - it's a tad on the waltzy, comic side for me.

 

Most of the others simply get more airtime in the episodes - Numenor, Galadriel, Stranger, Nori, Elendil, Halbrand, etc. I hit a bit of a low point with Halbrand's theme during the siege episode but that perked up with the new variations later on.

[Holko 9,525]

Apparently Khazad-Dúm sent fighters to the Last Alliance, so I'm hoping Bear will have more opportunity to go big with them.

[JNHFan2000 2,959]

Durin's theme is best experienced on the episodic albums. There are lot's of momemts where it is not used in the 'comedic' way. And it's amazing how much emeotion McCreary gets out of the theme.

[Jay 37,352]

Yea as I explore this score more, the more I realize that a lot of the concert arrangements reflect where the themes start in episodes 1 and 2, but a lot of the themes go through a lot of development over the course of the season.

 

It'd be cool if the season 2 album has some concert arrangements for not only the new themes that season will introduce, but also new concert arrangements for some of the season 1 themes

[Stark 312]

I definitely think some of the first season themes will develop enough to warrant second suites in season 2.

[Jay 37,352]

Listening to the episode 8 album again and that first big statement of the Rings theme at around 10:25 into The Broken Line and Broken Silence on... whatever instrument that is, is pretty awesome!

[crocodile 8,006]

I went back to episode 1 album today. It is so bloody good. So much Galadriel and Valinor goodness.

 

Karol

[Jay 37,352]

When I listened to the season album last weekend, I didn't even notice when it switched from "Valinor" into "In The Beginning".  Such a perfect pair of tracks to play back to back!

[thestat 348]

Jesus, why is there an appreciation thread for this score? Are you all dumb

 

Yes, McCreary follows Shore closely etc but this is some of the amazing full orchestral and choral scoring I have heard since the 1990s. Who gives a shit if a theme falls outside of your narrow perception of its cultural remit, McCreary's scores are full themes fully orchestrated, with continued variation, and massive shore-like bombast at key moments. Shut the fuck up if you don't like this. McCreary's score is exactly what we all fell in love with.

 

The show is fine but McCreary's score does that magical trick that great scores used to do - Williams and ET, Arnold and Stargate - where they completely exceed the material. And become a 'thing'.

 

Nothing will ever be as great as Shore, but this comes close

[Faleel 5,346]

Wrong thread

[crocodile 8,006]

I listen to episode albums on my day to work every day. It takes about 50-55 minutes so it is just about perfect length. Was listening to episode 4 this morning. 😀

 

Karol

[JNHFan2000 2,959]

 

 

[TolkienSS 407]

On 26/10/2022 at 12:26 AM, thestat said:

Jesus, why is there an appreciation thread for this score? Are you all dumb

 

Yes, McCreary follows Shore closely etc but this is some of the amazing full orchestral and choral scoring I have heard since the 1990s. Who gives a shit if a theme falls outside of your narrow perception of its cultural remit, McCreary's scores are full themes fully orchestrated, with continued variation, and massive shore-like bombast at key moments. Shut the fuck up if you don't like this. McCreary's score is exactly what we all fell in love with.

 

The show is fine but McCreary's score does that magical trick that great scores used to do - Williams and ET, Arnold and Stargate - where they completely exceed the material. And become a 'thing'.

 

Nothing will ever be as great as Shore, but this comes close

 

Did you suffer a barotrauma from filming The Meg 2?

[Jay 37,352]

On 26/10/2022 at 6:26 PM, JNHFan2000 said:

 

 

 

 

I finally had a chance to watch this video.  Is it just me or is that performance of the Nolwa Mahtar choir at the start different than the show/album version?

 

BTW, io9's video tech sucks, the fullscreen button didn't made the video any large, just turned the screen around it black

[Monoverantus 363]

4 hours ago, Jay said:

I finally had a chance to watch this video.  Is it just me or is that performance of the Nolwa Mahtar choir at the start different than the show/album version?

That version was used in one of the trailers about a month before the show started, and then also in the SDCC live performance. It's weird though, I've been searching on YouTube and google, but I simply can't find it.

[Jay 37,352]

Damn, so there's a studio recording of that!  Release it, Bear!

[Monoverantus 363]

15 minutes ago, Jay said:

Damn, so there's a studio recording of that!  Release it, Bear!

[Jay 37,352]

Nooooooice

[Jay 37,352]

I wonder when those new blogs he promised are going to arrive

[DangerMotif 1,037]

23 hours ago, Jay said:

I wonder when those new blogs he promised are going to arrive

It's been taking him a while. My only thought is that it may be tied to the episodic CDs

[Jay 37,352]

Yea no news about those yet either

[DangerMotif 1,037]

It's a shame cuz the hype for the score has died down a bit. It's still gonna be big but they would've sold more if it was announced in October.

[Jay 37,352]

Film scores on physical CD don't really sell that much

[Richard Penna 3,686]

If they're going to do them, surely they want them out in time for the Christmas market.

 

I really don't want to plonk £80 on a bunch of downloads.

[DangerMotif 1,037]

Is Qobuz the best store to use quality-wise if I would digitally purchase them?

[Jay 37,352]

6 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

If they're going to do them, surely they want them out in time for the Christmas market.

 

I really don't want to plonk £80 on a bunch of downloads.

 

 

With so few pressing plants left in the world and artists like Taylor Swift releasing new albums this winter, they could literally just be waiting and waiting for an opportunity to be pressed as the pressing plants must keep taking on higher paying clients first

 

 

3 minutes ago, Gibster said:

Is Qobuz the best store to use quality-wise if I would digitally purchase them?

 

The 1s and 0s are the same no matter where you buy them from.

 

Some stores might only offer 16/44.1 while others might offer 24/48, but within those bitrates its literally the same masters delivered to every store

[Monoverantus 363]

On the subject of the Elves singing the Valinor theme in Ep 1, 47:10-48:40

tldw: the actors sung a song by Plan 9 (supposedly the Song of Paradise) at the shoot. Bear then wrote the Valinor theme to be able to sync with the actors' mouth movements.

[Jay 37,352]

Huh. That's a perfectly logical explanation... And yet is also really strange. And doesn't really explain why the Plan 9 guy is credited in GEMA but not on the album.