Howard Shore's method of composing...?

[Gollum Cat 32]

So, I've heard this before, but not sure immediately where. And I don't have Doug's book handy to rifle through it.

 

My understanding is that Shore had a unique way of composing where rather than using certain families of instruments to represent ideas/themes, he would use . . . timbres? or pitches? I don't feel like I'm communicating it well, and I'm not exactly where or what exactly I'd read, but I'm curious about learning more.

[Meredith McKay 7,843]

How I understood it was this:

 

Instead of the standard way of "seeing" it in sections: Violins, Violas, Celli, Bass etc.

 

It was more: High, Mid, Low.

 

So you get a lot of stacking, for example: bassoons, basses, Celli and low brass all providing low end.

[Chen G. 5,124]

9 hours ago, Gollum Cat said:

My understanding is that Shore had a unique way of composing where rather than using certain families of instruments to represent ideas/themes, he would use . . . timbres? or pitches? I don't feel like I'm communicating it well, and I'm not exactly where or what exactly I'd read, but I'm curious about learning more.

 

Okay, there are a couple of things here.

 

One, when you write in a leitmotivic style - that is to say, associative themes - you also tend to use timbre and pitch level associatively. So yes, the Hobbits are associated with certain melodic phrases but they're also associated - overwelmingly - with D major (also C major) and with strings, clarinet and tin whistle. It becomes so strong that in some places, as an "Elven Rope", just the fact that a clarinet voices C major is enough to make you think "Ah, the Shire!" Sauron and the forces of evil have their themes, but they also have D minor, rhaita, muted trumpets, violas.

 

They don't have to be alltogether different instruments: lets take just brass for example. Horns and trumpets in their singing register is mankind, down in the murky depths they're the Uruk hai. Shrieking up high they're the Goblins. Muted they're Mordor. Each one is a different "colour" or timbre.

 

There's nothing here that's the least bit new, by the way: in Wagner's Ring, if you hear trumpet in C major, its almost always the theme of the sword Notung. In Weber's Der Freischutz, if you hear C minor (often with bass clarinet) you know the villains Samiel and Capsar are around. In Barry Millington's The New Grove Wagner: "This passage [murder of Fasolt in Das Rheingold] also effects a large-scale modulation to B minor, for the sole purpose of allowing the Curse motif to ring out in its original tonality, on a trio of trombones, at the killing. Thus the tonality of a single motif sometimes determines the key of an entire structural unit."

 

This is a quick and dirty breakdown of the relationships:

 

Number	Theme Group	Tonality	Timbre
1	Sauron = Minor second going to-and-fro	D minor	Rhaita, muted trumpets, trombones
2	Fellowship = Major second going from-and-to	D major	Horns and trumpets
3	Hobbits = Diatonic	D major and C major	Strings, tin whistle, clarinet
4	1+2/3 = Sauron's influence on Middle-earth	D minor	Choir, oboe, strings
5	Chromatic or otherwise "complex" harmony = Elves	A Major (Rivendell), F Phrygian Dominant (Lorien)	Female choir, harp, sarangi
6	Modal = Mankind	D Dorian (Gondor and Laketown), A Dorian (Rohan)	Horns and trumpets, Hardinfelle
7	Intervalic = Dwarves 1	D minor	Male choir, horns
8	Rhythmic = Orcs	E minor	Taiko drums, piano, trombones
9	Atonal = Spiders
10	Chords a minor second apart = Nature	A major	Boy choir
11	Chords a major second apart = Dwarves 2	A minor	Horns, strings, male choir
12	Chords a tritone apart - Ents	F major	Marimba, contrabass

 

Two, Howard has a peculiar way of orchestrating where instead of having different instruments play in octaves or harmonise chords, he has multiple instruments in roughly the same register (so all the "low" instruments like contrabass, bassoon, bass clarient) playing the same notes together. That's part of what made Lord of the Rings so refreshing compared to the late-Romantic style of Horner and Williams that dominated at the time. It also stopped the score sounding too overtly pretty: playing lush, late-romantic music against those romantic visuals would have putting a hat on a hat.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,893]

He just keeps the pen moving.

[Jim Ware 586]

On 13/08/2024 at 1:41 AM, The Great Gonzales said:

How I understood it was this:

 

Instead of the standard way of "seeing" it in sections: Violins, Violas, Celli, Bass etc.

 

It was more: High, Mid, Low.

 

So you get a lot of stacking, for example: bassoons, basses, Celli and low brass all providing low end.

 

That's probably the simplest way to summarise it. Shore's four stave sketches do not (generally speaking) indicate instrumentation - composition and orchestration are effectively two discrete processes.

 

Example sketch from Greg Laporta's site (https://greglaporta.com/post/115736960532)

 

 

[JWScores 73]

1 hour ago, Jim Ware said:

 

That's probably the simplest way to summarise it. Shore's four stave sketches do not (generally speaking) indicate instrumentation - composition and orchestration are effectively two discrete processes.

 

Example sketch from Greg Laporta's site (https://greglaporta.com/post/115736960532)

 

 

 

Interesting. If what Greg Laporta writes is accurate (and I see no reason to doubt it), he effectively acted as an orchestrator.

 

[Jim Ware 586]

21 hours ago, JWScores said:

Interesting. If what Greg Laporta writes is accurate (and I see no reason to doubt it), he effectively acted as an orchestrator.

 

Shore would have done an orchestration pass or two by that point. The mockup posted by Greg isn't the first iteration and is pretty close to the final product (2002-era technology notwithstanding).

 

Curious that he chose to cut it off there - the original version of this composition went in a different direction.

[Richard P 4,752]

On 18/08/2024 at 10:24 AM, Jim Ware said:

Shore's four stave sketches do not (generally speaking) indicate instrumentation - composition and orchestration are effectively two discrete processes.

 

For a musical ignoramus like me, can you elaborate on this? One of the producers talked about Shore composing 5+ minutes of music a day during the busiest part of RotK, as opposed to composing and orchestrating two minutes a day during FotR. What's he (or anyone else) doing in the orchestration part that he's not doing during composing? Is composing just writing a basic melody/counterpoint but not worrying about instruments?

 

So in the same vein I guess, what precisely was Pope doing on The Hobbit that Shore had done himself on LotR?

[JWScores 73]

4 hours ago, Jim Ware said:

 

Shore would have done an orchestration pass or two by that point. The mockup posted by Greg isn't the first iteration and is pretty close to the final product (2002-era technology notwithstanding).

 

 

So, as far as I can imagine from what you and Laporta wrote, the process was something like this:

 

1) Shore writes a "basic" sketch with very sparse written instrumental indications and gives it to Greg Laporta, probably with some verbal instructions;

 

2) Laporta makes a sort of pre-orchestration in the form of a midi mockup and sends it back to Shore;

 

3) Shore approves or corrects and the two of them make one or more iterations until Shore is happy with the mockup;

 

4) Shore submits the final mockup to the movie director for approval;

 

5) when the cue is approved, Shore finalizes the full orchestral score based on the mockup (which, being based on a midi, can be converted directly to musical notation, and then refined by hand in the details), and brings that score to the recording sessions with the real orchestra.

 

Is this correct? It was certainly an efficient procedure. I'm just a bit surprised that I had never heard Laporta's contribution being mentioned before.  

 

[Monoverantus 567]

30 minutes ago, JWScores said:

Is this correct? It was certainly an efficient procedure. I'm just a bit surprised that I had never heard Laporta's contribution being mentioned before.  

 

For what it's worth, he is mentioned in Doug's book:

"Early in the production of each of The Lord of the Rings films, Howard Shore composed preliminary sketches of his themes. These drafts were then mocked-up on the Synclavier (an elaborate sampler/synthesizer) by Greg Laporta. Oftentimes, these early sketches contained phrases and passages that did not survive to the themes' final forms." - The Music of The Lord of the Rings Films, p. 392

Also:

"The Evertone staff tends to the logistical details generated by any such creative endeavor. The composer's newest compositions are handed off to Greg Laporta, who creates electronic mock-ups of the pieces. These mock-ups will be used in Shore's weekly review sessions with Jackson, Walsh and Boyens - they allow the filmmakers to hear the composer's work before the recording sessions." - p. 362

[JWScores 73]

1 hour ago, Monoverantus said:

For what it's worth, he is mentioned in Doug's book:

"Early in the production of each of The Lord of the Rings films, Howard Shore composed preliminary sketches of his themes. These drafts were then mocked-up on the Synclavier (an elaborate sampler/synthesizer) by Greg Laporta. Oftentimes, these early sketches contained phrases and passages that did not survive to the themes' final forms." - The Music of The Lord of the Rings Films, p. 392

Also:

"The Evertone staff tends to the logistical details generated by any such creative endeavor. The composer's newest compositions are handed off to Greg Laporta, who creates electronic mock-ups of the pieces. These mock-ups will be used in Shore's weekly review sessions with Jackson, Walsh and Boyens - they allow the filmmakers to hear the composer's work before the recording sessions." - p. 362

 

I have Doug Adams's wonderful book, and I've certainly read that passage years ago. I probably assumed that the mock-ups were based on orchestrated scores. 

[Chen G. 5,124]

On 19/08/2024 at 3:20 PM, Richard Penna said:

What's he (or anyone else) doing in the orchestration part that he's not doing during composing? Is composing just writing a basic melody/counterpoint but not worrying about instruments?

 

So in the same vein I guess, what precisely was Pope doing on The Hobbit that Shore had done himself on LotR?

 

It's very normal for composers to first compose in the abstract - a melody and a bassline - and only then start thinking in terms of what instruments play what. I have a sketch of the Liebesnacht from Tristan, and its precisely like that. It's a little bit like how I write first, and added the citations after I'm done.

 

My understanding is the sketches Pope got already undergone some degree of elaboration in terms of indications of instruments: it was Pope's responsibility to extrapolate those into a complete score.

 

Shore also likes sketching themes first, separately from the sketches of the score itself. Again, very normal. I've seen sketches for the Ring titled "Fafner" and "Woodbird."

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,893]

On 13/08/2024 at 9:38 AM, Chen G. said:

Howard has a peculiar way of orchestrating where instead of having different instruments play in octaves or harmonise chords, he has multiple instruments in roughly the same register (so all the "low" instruments like contrabass, bassoon, bass clarient) playing the same notes together.

 

One of the reasons why this music has such a heft to it.

 

Reminiscent in a way to Barry's epic sound 

[Chen G. 5,124]

1 hour ago, #SnowyVernalSpringsEternal said:

One of the reasons why this music has such a heft to it.

 

Yes, very much so! It's a very strong sound, but it was also very refreshing in 2001: it wasn't the ol' Late Romantic thing again.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,893]

Ever at moderate volume the music sounds rather full sonically.

[Chen G. 5,124]

The interesting thing is it's not always the hugest orchestra in the world: a lot of the time Howard would have five horns, three trombones and triple winds. I mean, that would be very big for Beethoven, but in terms of a Late romantic score or a big movie score? We're very used to seeing eight horns or more, five trumpets, quintuple winds...

 

But there are passages that are scored with very large forces indeed: in an interview from a while back, one of the NZSO members remember there were two tubas and seven trombones in the Moria pieces, and Dermot Crehan remembers there were eight trumpets in the Rohirrim charge. It's not quite Gurre Lieder, but its damn big!

[Gollum Cat 32]

That's super interesting. Thanks folks for taking the time to answer. I've read this thread multiple times. What are some particularly strong passages I can listen to for Shore's unique style and contrast it with "the late-Romantic style of Horner and Williams"?

[Meredith McKay 7,843]

Dernhelm In Battle.

[Monoverantus 567]

6 hours ago, Gollum Cat said:

That's super interesting. Thanks folks for taking the time to answer. I've read this thread multiple times. What are some particularly strong passages I can listen to for Shore's unique style and contrast it with "the late-Romantic style of Horner and Williams"?

Dom Sewell has mainly focused on John Willams' SW scores, but has started making videos on LotR too. Very heavy theory, but he oftentimes points out Shore's unusual approach and how it differs from JW. 

 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,893]

In TTT the long ass one. Aragorn pretty much rules!

[Chen G. 5,124]

The mark of a truly blended sound are passages where you can’t really tell which instrument is playing. There are passages in Shore - including in the breakdown above - which are like that.

 

Another example - y’all knew it was coming - is Parsifal.

[Gollum Cat 32]

22 hours ago, #SnowyVernalSpringsEternal said:

In TTT the long ass one. Aragorn pretty much rules!

What specifically is the "long ass one"? LOL

[Meredith McKay 7,843]

34 minutes ago, Gollum Cat said:

What specifically is the "long ass one"? LOL

TTT EE?

[Edmilson 10,434]

42 minutes ago, Gollum Cat said:

What specifically is the "long ass one"? LOL

That's Steef for you. You're not supposed to take seriously almost anything he writes.

[Jim Ware 586]

Quote

I think of the tonal relationships like the characters. I'm writing it [and] I always orchestrate after. When I'm writing what I consider the score, I'm just thinking of tonal relationships. That's all I'm thinking about. I'm not thinking about colours or sounds or anything. I'm only thinking of register, I'm only thinking of unisons, and octaves, and counterpoint - thirds - fourths - ninths, whatever the relationships are. That's how I wrote it.

Howard Shore on The Game, FSM vol. 2 no. 8.

[TolkienSS 487]

6 hours ago, Jim Ware said:

Howard Shore on The Game, FSM vol. 2 no. 8.

 

What does "thirds - fourths - ninths" mean? Is that in relation to counterpoint?

[Jim Ware 586]

40 minutes ago, TolkienSS said:

What does "thirds - fourths - ninths" mean? Is that in relation to counterpoint

Intervallic relationships between notes, either horizontally or vertical.

[TolkienSS 487]

So he doesn't think about instrumentation at all?

 

So basically the scope of any given cue is defined through composition and voicing.