Music flavour info for your LOTR RPG

[Ineti]

I posted this on Decipher's message board, but in case anyone here doesn't visit there...

If you're interested in some medieval instruments for the minstrels or Perform-skilled characters in your game, check here
for a cool site.

[Grutos]

I'd personally lean towards Hansi et al @ Blind Guardian. Nightfall in Middle-Earth was an excellent conceptual album. Tales from the Twilight World, Somewhere Far Beyond, The Forgotten Tales, and Imaginations from the Other Side would lend themselves very well to LotR and DnD as well.

[Sarge]

The soundtrack from Last of the Mohicans would be good background music for a Middle Earth game. Also some of Enya's more ethereal tunes.

For a more folks-y minstrel-ish flavor, some of the better bards in the SCA have made their own CDs. One of my favorites is The Vision, by Melandra of the Woods, who happens to be one of my regular RPG players.

[Jason Durall]

Our Narrator uses the following on a semi-regular basis:

The LotR soundtracks
Last of the Mohicans soundtrack
Braveheart
The Lion in Winter
Conan the Barbarian
Gladiator
Dances With Wolves
Brotherhood of the Wolf's soundtrack
David Arkenstone's Music Inspired by Middle-earth

He's also used Brian Eno's Ambient: On Land from time to time (very creepy arboreal sound environment)

[Brandir]

I like the LOTR Film soundtracks by Howard Shore. Other good atmospheric albums are:

Gladiator
Requiem for a Dream
Star Wars!!

[Morfedel]

Try this out. The music is pretty good; good enough that I purchased - and enjoyed - the CD.

[Ineti]

Er, try what out, Morfedel? Welcome to the boards, by the way.

Thanks for the musical suggestions, all! It wasn't really the point of this thread, but that's okay. My intent was to post info a minstrel could use in-game, not necessarily a resource thread for good mood music.

All responses are worthwhile, though.

[Kirok]

well, since this has deviated, might I suggest some more...thematic music - less filmic, but still appropriate. These are classical composers, but from the late 1800s and early 1900s, so their work is pretty 'accessible". Look at composers from that era if you want to go a little further afield from film scores. These are the guys who inspired the first wave of Hollywood film composers, and their legacy lives on in guys like Horner and Williams and the rest. I'm a big fan of just about everything that's been liste dhere so far.

Edvard Grieg
- you really can't go wrong with Grieg, so pretty much anything will do. The Peer Gynt Suite is a good place to start.

Jean Sibelius
- Finlandia is just plain grand and glorious.

Prokofiev
- I used The Battle On The Ice from his score for Alexander Nevsky for a big battle scene in my LOTR game. Check it out.

Rimsky-Korsakov
Most anything by him is good, good, good. Sheherezade is very lyrical.

Nielsen

most of these are northern European composers, so their music has has often reminded me of Tolikien's work.

[Morfedel]

Originally posted by Ineti
Er, try what out, Morfedel? Welcome to the boards, by the way.

Guess it helps to actually insert that darned link in here, eh? hehe!

Then again, for some very strange reason, I can't post it in here. Maybe why I got it missed the first time, so I'll hand-type it in here:

http://www.metrognome.demon.co.uk

They made a CD of music inspired by LotR. Electronic as opposed to live instruments, but pretty darn good, and worth the money IMHO.

[Sarge]

I'll second Kirok's recommendations of Grieg (Peer Gynt, March of the Dwarves, Norwegian Dances) and Sibelius (Finlandia, Karelia, The Swan of Tuonela, Lemmenkainen). Great stuff! I'll also nominate Dvorak's symphonies.

A modern composer named Johan de Meij has a symphony on CD, titled "Symphony No. 1, Inspired by The Lord of the Rings". I prefer the Howard Shore soundtracks, but it's still pretty good.