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Thread: Concerning Hobbits

  1. #1
    ************** Caleb's Avatar
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    Default Concerning Hobbits



    Ran across this wonderful piece and wanted to share. Not sure if this fellow is a member here or not. Enjoy!
    Last edited by Mandolin Cafe; Feb-09-2021 at 11:18am. Reason: correcting embed coding
    ...

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    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits.

    There are few on Youtube. Quite enjoyable.

    https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...bbits+mandolin
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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits.

    Very nice piece, nicely played. I am wondering - Is this from the movie? And if so, which one? Is it safe to assume it's from Part I, "The Fellowship Of The Ring," in which characters are being introduced? I must admit, it's been ages since I watched the trilogy, and I have no memory of the music in it. I've got some time on my hands, lately; perhaps it's time to revisit Middle Earth.

    Update: Thus sayeth the wiki:


    "Concerning Hobbits" is an acclaimed piece by composer Howard Shore for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack. It is a concert suite of the music of the Hobbits, arranged from the music heard in the film during the early Shire scenes, and features the various themes and leitmotifs composed for the Shire and Hobbits; it is intended to evoke feelings of peace.[1][better source needed] It is also the title of one of the sections of the prologue to The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Excerpts of the piece can be heard during an extended scene in the 2012 film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, where it was tracked intentionally. The piece has become synonymous with the Shire and Hobbiton themes
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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits.

    I wonder how someone sync's the studio guitar and mandolin with the video. Nicely done. But in listening with the headphones, this is obviously not recorded outdoors.
    And to continue, this wizard can't figure which of the dozens of tunes that first phrase sounds like. Oh well, I'll just sit and smoke my pipe some more.

    Wild Mountain Thyme - a possibility. Another fancy smoke ring, puff, puff.....
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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits.

    Ha . . . fairy dust and what not


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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits.

    ‘Concerning Hobbits’ is a tune from the soundtrack of the first film (‘Fellowship’). This fellow here has taken bits of it and made his own (brilliant) arrangement. If you watch closely, he is playing over the studio recording. Some of the hand movements don’t _quite_ match up. Not in any way a criticism but an observation; I’m not sure if it’s possible to get that high-quality of a recording playing outdoors like that. But I’m no engineer.

    I think the whole setup is amazing and I’ve watched it multiple times. I also think it’s cool that he’s using a lower-end mandolin to show that you don’t need to spend a ton of money to make great music. If you watch other vids on his channel, he appears to be more of an electric player. I’m sure the mandolin is a now-and-then thing for him, as it is for most mandolin owners.

    Side note: I like watching the LOTR films on my Christmas break (all three extended versions run over 12 hours, and I’ve done that in one stretch a few times). I’m in the middle of re-reading the books right now, hence my Tolkien-on-the-brain Youtube search that found this video.
    ...

  11. #7

    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits.

    Quote Originally Posted by Caleb View Post
    ‘Concerning Hobbits’ is a tune from the soundtrack of the first film (‘Fellowship’).
    Oops, sorry - I mistakenly assumed it was a general "Hobbits and ephemera" thread..

    *I used to make my kids watch, and re-watch, The Polar Bear King over winter break (so I could hear the hardanger fiddle and santoor in the soundtrack).
    Last edited by catmandu2; Feb-09-2021 at 12:49pm.

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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits.

    Quote Originally Posted by Caleb View Post
    ‘Concerning Hobbits’ is a tune from the soundtrack of the first film (‘Fellowship’). This fellow here has taken bits of it and made his own (brilliant) arrangement.
    Thanks. I'm a big fan of clarity, and while I figured this was from the first film, a brief check at wikipedia confirmed this (as noted below). I appreciate your bringing this to our (and thus my) attention, and to Mike's further research, which found more videos of this and similar presentations. I'll be checking all this out soon. Other things in the queue, but they made their way into the queue.
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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits.

    Quote Originally Posted by Caleb View Post
    ......... I’m sure the mandolin is a now-and-then thing for him, as it is for most mandolin owners.
    In many parts, some consider that blasphemous.
    Not all the clams are at the beach

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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits.

    Quote Originally Posted by Caleb View Post
    .......... I’m sure the mandolin is a now-and-then thing for him, as it is for most mandolin owners.
    Holy wow! How did I miss that? That's a broad, sweeping statement, unsubstantiated by evidence. (Dropping into my Foghorn Leghorn voice.) I say! I say! Saying "many" rather than "most" would be easier to support, harder to dispute, and possibly closer to the truth.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bill McCall View Post
    In many parts, some consider that blasphemous.
    In many parts? Indeed. Especially 'round these here parts!
    But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller

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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits

    I wasn’t trying to be controversial, and yes, in these parts mandolin is the main thing. But I’d bet money that most mandolins are owned by now-and-then pickers who mostly play guitar, and who probably picked it up as a novelty but went back to mostly guitar. Actual mandolin players (vs mandolin owners) are a serious minority. This seems obvious to me? Go into any music shop and there will be two or three mandolins (if you’re lucky) and a hundred guitars.

    I remember once I was getting my mandolin back from the luthier and another fellow was getting back his guitar at the same time. He asked me: “Can you actually play mandolin? I mean, I have one laying around somewhere, but don’t really know how to play...” When he found out I could “actually play it” he was somewhat blown away.
    ...

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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits

    Ah, we few, we dedicated, fortunate few.

    Oh, I actually get all that. Well, all except one thing - what's a music store?

    It occurs to me, hobbits are probably more inclined to play mandolins than guitars, owing to their somewhat more diminutive stature. And being given to erudition, more inclined to play mandolins than ukuleles.
    But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller

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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits

    Yes, mandolins and hobbits would definitely go together. Hobbits are a jolly folk, and the mandolin is happiest-sounding instrument of them all.
    ...

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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits

    My whistle-playing wife (Francisca Sanchez) got a gig playing the Shire theme with a local (Santiago de Chile) assembled-for-the-occasion orchestra for the touring Lord of the Rings in Concert thing. Using her score's cue notes and my ears, I created backing tracks for her to practise with. Her score had crazy metronome markings, like 111 bpm for two bars, 112 for the next three bars, etc., and using those, I was able to create backup tracks that lined up with the movie's soundtrack exactly. My appreciation of the movie went up a whole lot in doing so, how the scenes and the action were so perfectly in sync with the musical phrases.

    There were some penciled-in re-phrasings of some of her passages, and when she tried playing one of them in the rehearsal, the conductor said, "Ah, Jimmy Galway wrote those in — please don't play them."
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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits

    Jim is indeed an international dude.
    Caleb would be interested (as others, I hope) That here in Minneapolis we have a 12 hour Lord of the Rings marathon, playing all of the extended versions every December. There are costume contests, pizza and all kinds of fun. Imagine a 12 hour air flight with 700 or so people. This year, sadly we had no festival.
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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits

    Quote Originally Posted by DougC View Post
    Jim is indeed an international dude.
    Caleb would be interested (as others, I hope) That here in Minneapolis we have a 12 hour Lord of the Rings marathon, playing all of the extended versions every December. There are costume contests, pizza and all kinds of fun. Imagine a 12 hour air flight with 700 or so people. This year, sadly we had no festival.
    Wow, I see a post-COVID road trip coming.
    ...

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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits

    Oh, yeah! Minnesota in December! I'm SO there!




    NOT!
    But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller

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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits

    Quote Originally Posted by journeybear View Post
    Oh, yeah! Minnesota in December! I'm SO there!




    NOT!
    It is truly a zany experience and it took a few years before I'd even consider going back. There was something about 700 people all packed into that theater, feeling like Hobbits in our little village. And it was warm. Outside it was -10 below zero!


    Enough of that story. Please back to mandolins and music! What a cool project, Jim, backing tracks for the score.
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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits

    Quote Originally Posted by DougC View Post
    What a cool project, Jim, backing tracks for the score.
    Ya, I love the "getting ready to get ready" phase of a gig, the creation of an efficient (and reusable) practice routine. I've created backup tracks for Beethoven symphonies (using the 1 Piano 4 Hands duets), for Irish Trad sets, Bach and Calace pieces, technical exercises, improvisation practising, tricky work-related pieces/passages – anything that needs to be practised regularly, or that might need to be practised again (like if the same gig gets repeated months/years later).
    Fruitful procrastination.
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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits

    Quote Originally Posted by journeybear View Post
    Oh, yeah! Minnesota in December! I'm SO there!




    NOT!
    A bit off topic. My husband went to Minneapolis on business one year in the middle of winter. There was a guy from Florida in the group. That guy suffered substantial environmental shock (to put it mildly)

    The LOTR Festival sounds really fun, though.

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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits

    For the record, I'm a transplanted Yankee, having grown up mostly in New England (well, there was that tragic misstep when I went to college ... in Wisconsin ), and I haven't completely acclimated to the Florida climate. I mean, I chuckle at people who find it necessary to put on winter clothing when it gets into the 60s. I still would avoid northern winter weather - been there, done that, had enough.
    But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller

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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Bevan View Post
    Ya, I love the "getting ready to get ready" phase of a gig, the creation of an efficient (and reusable) practice routine. I've created backup tracks for Beethoven symphonies (using the 1 Piano 4 Hands duets), for Irish Trad sets, Bach and Calace pieces, technical exercises, improvisation practising, tricky work-related pieces/passages – anything that needs to be practised regularly, or that might need to be practised again (like if the same gig gets repeated months/years later).
    Fruitful procrastination.
    I think many people do this nowadays, to some extent. Right now, for example I have a Finale file made from a duet in Doflein's violin method book by Stamitz. I need to hear the 'other part' as I play along. And it works great; starting from transcribing a score, so that I can 'hear' the notes.

    The other way, is in starting from an audio source and I'd either 'slow it down' or transcribe it into a chart. Often I follow the paper version as I play along with the audio. Sourced from youtube or a CD or anything actually. And after a few years I have a lot of material that, if I were clever, I'd start an online school, sharing the stuff to help others. And possibly earn a meager amount of money,

    Did John Williams change the tempo of that song to make it sound more folksy? This is the sort of thing that 'comes out' in studying an audio source.
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  35. #23
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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits

    Howard Shore's the composer.

    I know nothing about the movie business, but I suspect that the music is composed to match the video, using a program like Sibelius which has a video window that you can use to sync your music to (like, "rewind" the music, and the video rewinds along with it). Mr Shore would want the music to "breathe", to have some natural rhythmic movement dictated by what Ozawa calls the "long phrase", eg ritards at the end of phrases etc, but he would also want downbeats to line up with actions or edits, and the easiest way to control all of this in a program like Sibelius is with a million metronome markings. Why those markings were printed in the second flute part (which my wife was reading — no guarantee that there's a good whistle-player in every city, especially on a South American tour, so the whistle part was usually played by the piccolo player) is beyond me.

    Actually, the folksiness was in the whistle part — every time the theme was repeated, the phrasing was different, with lots of unusual-in-Irish-Trad dotted eighth notes etc. I assume it was 'cuz a real whistle-player (like my wife) would have played around with the rhythm, and maybe a few notes, just to make it not boring. These paraphrases were written in, and although my wife can read notes, the rhythms were, to her, foreign and a little daunting (which is why I created the practice backup track).
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  36. #24
    working musician Jim Bevan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits

    The conductor on the Santiago gig followed a programmed flashing light, and I would guess that the same system was used on the original recording.
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    Default Re: Concerning Hobbits

    Studio musicians not only read music like 'breathing in and out' but can adapt to these crazy demands of film making. These are awesome musicians. (I think Jim and his wife are among them. Wow.)
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