Most composers spend just 10-12ish weeks working on a film’s music. John Williams spent around 14 weeks on each Star Wars movie, 40ish weeks total for the whole OT……but composing the LOTR trilogy’s soundtrack took four years
The vocals you hear in the soundtrack are usually in one of Tolkien’s languages (esp. Elvish). The English translations of the lyrics are all poems, or quotes from the book, or occasionally even quotes from other parts of the films that are relevant to the scene
When there were no finished scenes for him to score, Howard Shore would develop musical themes inspired by the scripts or passages from the book. That’s how he got all Middle-Earth locations have their own unique sound: he was able to compose drafts of “what Gondor would sound like” and “what Lorien would sound like” long before any scenes in those places were filmed
Shore has said his favorite parts to score were always the little heartfelt moments between Frodo and Sam
Shore wrote over 100 unique leitmotifs/musical themes to represent specific people, places, and things in Middle Earth (over 160 if you count The Hobbit)
The ones we all talk about are the Fellowship theme, the main Shire Theme, and the themes for places like Gondor, Mordor, Rohan, and Rivendell…but a lot of the more subtle ones get overlooked and underappreciated
Like Aragorn’s theme. It’s a lot less “obvious” than the others because, like Aragorn himself, it adapts to take on the color of whatever place Aragorn is in: it’s played on dramatic broody stringed instruments in Bree, on horns in battle scenes, softly on the flute with Arwen in Rivendell….
Eowyn has not just one but three different leitmotifs to represent her
Gollum and Smeagol both have their own leitmotifs! Whose theme music is playing in the scene can often tell you whether the Gollum or Smeagol side is “winning” at the moment
The melody for Gollum’s Song in the end credits of the The Two Towers is the Smeagol and Gollum themes smushed together (it’s Symbolic)
And then there’s the really obscure ones. Like there’s a melody that plays at Boromir’s death that shows up again in ROTK in scenes that foreshadow a major death or loss
Shore wanted the theme music to grow alongside the characters– so that as the characters changed, their theme music would change with them.
You can hear that most clearly in the Shire theme. Like the hobbits, it goes through A Lot
Like compare the childish lil penny whistle theme you hear in Concerning Hobbits/the beginning of FOTR with (throws a dart at random Beautiful Tragic Hobbit Character Development scene because there WAY TOO MANY to choose from) the scene when Pippin finds Merry on the battlefield, where you hear a kind of shattered and broken but more mature version of that same theme in the background
I could write you a book on how much I love the way the Shire theme grows across the course of these films
Unlike the hero’s themes, which constantly change and grow, the villain’s themes (The One Ring theme, the Isengard theme, etc) remain basically the same from the very beginning of FOTR to the end of ROTK. Shore said this was an intentional choice: to emphasize that evil is static, while good is capable of change
Shore has said that between all the music that made into the movies and the music that didn’t, he composed enough for “a month of continuous listening”……..where can I sign up
John Musgrave Waite, in his manual Lessons in Sabre, Singlestick, Sabre & Bayonet, and Sword Feats, covers defending oneself from attacks from a bayonet while wielding a Sabre.
It’s interesting stuff.
The guards are precisely the same as against Sabre, although the only guards likely to be used are High Seconde, Tierce, and Quarte, although Prime is a possibility. The Bayoneteer can only engage from Tierce or Quarte.
Waite covers parrying in Tierce,
and Quarte,
and then covers how to injure the Bayoneteer past his guards.
“To decieve his Prime. Feint at head and thrust under his guard/cut inside his left wrist/ inside his leg.”
“To decieve his half-circle. Faint at inside of leg, and thrust at left breast over the guard/cut at his head/ at his left wrist.”
“To deceive his Tierce. Faint a thrust in Tierce and disengage with a thrust into Quarte ‘One, Two’/feint a cut at his left side and cut at his right/feint at his left cheek and cut at his right.”
“To decieve his Quarte. Feint a thrust in Quarte and disengage with a thrust in Tierce ‘One, Two’/feint a thrust in Quarte and disengage under his left arm 'One, Two, Low’/feint a cut at his right side and cut at his left arm.”
“if you at any time have an opportunity of parrying his thrusts with your left hand, or of seizing the barrel of his rifle with it, do so. You must not then struggle and try to get it out of his hands, but must deliver a cut or thrust as quickly as possible. In an actual combat you would then have little difficulty in getting his weapon that should you want it.”
“A good time to attempt this is when, after you have parried Prime, she does not recover quickly to his guard. You should thin the step forward quickly with the left foot, and, seizing the rifle, pull it down and towards you, so that he cannot reverse it to strike you with the butt.”
“or you may sometimes get hold of it after your parry of Quarte, when he is slow in recovering. It will not then be necessary to step forward with the left foot, as your parry will almost send his weapon into your left hand.”
“some men when thrusting leave go of the rifle with the left hand. When your adversary does this and you get hold of it, a quick and sudden pole will draw it out of his other hand, or perhaps pull him on his knees.”
It’s cool stuff that I’d like to practice if I can get hold of a good bayonet trainer. Hope this has been interesting, cheers!
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