{"id":5187,"date":"2010-07-01T20:34:32","date_gmt":"2010-07-02T01:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.net\/?p=5187"},"modified":"2010-07-01T20:34:32","modified_gmt":"2010-07-02T01:34:32","slug":"on-writing-to-soundtracks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=5187","title":{"rendered":"On Writing to Soundtracks"},"content":{"rendered":"

To an outside observer, my last.fm profile<\/a> has gone wonky this week. I’m in soundtrack mode. Specifically, Lord of the Rings<\/i> soundtrack mode.<\/p>\n

I discovered a few days ago that the soundtrack to The Hunt for Gollum<\/i><\/a>, a fanfilm that dramatizes Aragorn’s search for Gollum during the early part of The Fellowship of the Ring<\/i>, was online and free to download<\/a>. The score for the fanfilm — by Chris Bouchard, Adam Langston, and Andrew Skrabutenas — is reminiscent of Howard Shore’s scores for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings<\/i> trilogy. Even the music from the trailer is reminiscent of the orchestration of “Lux Aeterna” used in The Two Towers<\/i> trailer. Getting the music right is serious<\/i> attention to detail. <\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

I’ve watched The Hunt for Gollum<\/i> online and I enjoyed it greatly. It’s in line with Jackson’s films rather than J.R.R. Tolkien’s books. The filmmaking, done on a shoestring budget, displays a great deal of inventiveness, and the performances are solid. If it were possible to have The Hunt for Gollum<\/i> as a DVD, I would gladly have it in my collection.<\/p>\n

Back to soundtracks.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, when I have to write a lot<\/i> of words — which is what I’ve had to do this week — I find that the best way to do so is to listen to orchestral soundtracks. I normally listen to rock music at the office; that’s what headphones are for. But when I need something that’s more like sonic wallpaper, that won’t get in the way of the words, scores are the way to go.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I listened to Geoff Zanelli’s score for Outlander<\/i>, the kick-ass Vikings vs. aliens movie<\/a> that went pretty much straight-to-DVD, in spite of the presence of John Hurt, Ron Perlman, and Sophia Myles. Today, in addition to another couple of listens to The Hunt for Gollum<\/i>‘s score (it’s only half an hour of music), I tried<\/i> to listen to Shore’s scores to The Fellowship of the Ring<\/i> and The Two Towers<\/i>, except I kept getting interrupted, so I’d have to go back and relisten to tracks.<\/p>\n

I’ve not watched The Lord of the Rings<\/i> films in a few months, maybe close to a year, and I’ve not listened to the scores, except maybe for The Return of the King<\/i>, recently. Thus, “Samwise the Brave,” which comes near the end of The Two Towers<\/i>, packed a great wallopping emotional punch, as it does in the film. I could visualize the charge of the Rohirrim into the Orc army besieging Helm’s Deep. I could picture the flooding of Isengard. I could even hear Sam’s stirring speech about hope in the ruins of Osgiliath.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow? Tomorrow’s a half day at the office. I may listen to jazz. Streaming audio online. WSHA<\/a>, Shaw University’s jazz station in Raleigh, should fit the bill. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To an outside observer, my last.fm profile has gone wonky this week. I’m in soundtrack mode. Specifically, Lord of the Rings soundtrack mode. I discovered a few days ago that the soundtrack to The Hunt for Gollum, a fanfilm that dramatizes Aragorn’s search for Gollum during the early part of The Fellowship of the Ring,Continue reading “On Writing to Soundtracks”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[368,4124,4102],"class_list":["post-5187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-lord-of-the-rings","tag-work","tag-writing","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}