Moderator: Elder Staff
by Zargen » Wed Feb 26, 2014 6:03 pm
by Taurgalas » Fri Feb 28, 2014 8:44 am
by Octavius » Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:39 am
by Dero » Fri Feb 28, 2014 10:23 am
by macaelum » Fri Feb 28, 2014 10:14 pm
by Zargen » Sat Mar 01, 2014 1:33 am
by Throttle » Sat Mar 01, 2014 2:40 am
by Octavius » Sat Mar 01, 2014 6:55 am
Throttle wrote:Skin flutes.
by Hawkwind » Sat Mar 01, 2014 9:15 am
by Icarus » Tue Mar 04, 2014 11:54 am
by Octavius » Tue Mar 04, 2014 5:12 pm
Icarus wrote:Hobbit-skull xylophone.
by Zargen » Sat Mar 08, 2014 10:46 pm
by Hawkwind » Sat Mar 08, 2014 11:06 pm
by Blackcat » Mon Apr 07, 2014 12:27 am
by Nimrod » Mon Apr 07, 2014 3:47 pm
by Zargen » Mon Apr 07, 2014 4:49 pm
by Santi » Tue Apr 15, 2014 10:10 pm
Zargen wrote:Look down, look down
Don't look 'em in the eye
Look down, look down,
You're here until you die
Look down, look down
You'll always be a slave
Look down, look down
You're standing in your grave.
by Eugene » Tue Apr 15, 2014 10:49 pm
by Taurgalas » Wed Apr 16, 2014 7:35 am
by macaelum » Sun May 04, 2014 1:33 pm
Eugene wrote:I did a buttload of research on the matter when I played Herb, so I am going to act in my usual fashion and respond to the thread with little regard to what has been posted prior.
Tolkien wrote remarkably little on the state of music in Middle-Earth. What scholars have to work with are implications based upon what Tolkien did and did not include in his own writings. What I distinctly remember was my utter surprise that music in Middle-Earth was shockingly rudimentary and inconsistent with real-life history. Pianos are totally out of the question, as well as any string instrument with anything but a simple fretboard. This means no modern guitars, but we somehow get fiddles. If I recall correctly, there was a distinct lack of polyphony and very little in the way of percussion beyond simplistic manifestations.
Basically, nothing past the Early Medieval Era. Don't quote me, though, since I'm trying to remember information from over half a decade ago. We do get a hell of a lot of wind instruments, though.
Emphasis on wind instruments.
by crayon » Sun May 04, 2014 11:18 pm
I did a buttload of research on the matter when I played Herb, so I am going to act in my usual fashion and respond to the thread with little regard to what has been posted prior.
Tolkien wrote remarkably little on the state of music in Middle-Earth. What scholars have to work with are implications based upon what Tolkien did and did not include in his own writings. What I distinctly remember was my utter surprise that music in Middle-Earth was shockingly rudimentary and inconsistent with real-life history. Pianos are totally out of the question, as well as any string instrument with anything but a simple fretboard. This means no modern guitars, but we somehow get fiddles. If I recall correctly, there was a distinct lack of polyphony and very little in the way of percussion beyond simplistic manifestations.
Basically, nothing past the Early Medieval Era. Don't quote me, though, since I'm trying to remember information from over half a decade ago. We do get a hell of a lot of wind instruments, though.
Emphasis on wind instruments.
by Eugene » Thu May 08, 2014 6:24 pm
macaelum wrote:The Hobbit, chapter 1, even mentions that Bifur and Bofur played clarinets, although the clarinet was not developed in Europe until around 1700-1750; you do not hear clarinets in the orchestral music of Bach and Handel, but you do in Mozart and Haydn. The clarinet developed out of an earlier instrument called the chalumeau. And the same paragraph mentions "viols", which are not exactly violins -- viols were earlier, they were fretted, and there was a whole family of them with voices ranging from bass to treble -- although I think he also mentioned a violin or fiddle elsewhere.
My thought is that when Tolkien wanted to refer to the musical instruments he found in Middle Earth, he just used the names of the most similar modern instruments that his English readers in the 20th century would be familiar with. And so maybe we should do the same.
crayon wrote:After the Song of Iluvatar, I have to imagine Middle Earth was pretty over the whole music thing.
The Ainur have a monopoly on the electric guitars and pianos, it would seem.
by crayon » Thu May 08, 2014 9:32 pm
Eugene wrote:See what I mean? The development of musical instruments and structures in Middle Earth makes no sense at all. Not even simple guitars and no polyphony, but somehow we get violins and - as you now point out - clarinets. Considering Tolkien was highly educated, I don't think he would have been so lazy as to either do no research into the matter or insert nouns so specific without adding something along the lines of "it was the equivalent to the modern day instrument." However, given the totally confusing nature of the development of music that is described in Middle Earth, I could very well be wrong. Maybe we should ask Stephen Colbert?