Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical | Music: The Conversation at the Green Dragon
The dialogue from the animated musical scene “The Conversation at the Green Dragon” will be taken verbatim from the original text, but the instrumentals come from my own head. In this five-minute piece, I incorporate musical themes or leitmotifs from past scenes, along with themes that will become significant to the plot. The six themes represent taverns, adventure, the White Towers, the Grey Havens, the Road, and the relationship between Frodo and Sam. By creating variations on these themes and weaving them together, I design a cohesive soundscape for the scene while connecting it to past and future scenes throughout the series.
Tavern Theme, the Green Dragon Variation
Music was a common form of entertainment found in pubs from the Middle Ages to the present. Accordingly, the instrumental played in this scene appears to really be heard by the characters. The theme for the Green Dragon is similar to the theme played at the Ivy Bush during “The Introduction Song” in Episode 1, which took place seventeen years earlier. In both inns, hobbit-instruments like a string quartet, tin whistle, and trumpet play a basso continuo underneath the dialogue. However, in the Ivy Bush, the basso continuo under the patter song is 110 BPM and in D major, while in the Green Dragon, it is 120 BPM and in A major. I raised the tempo and the key to create a more youthful sound. Variations on the theme consist of showy runs and sixteenth notes in the trumpet and tin whistle parts, perhaps young hobbits showing off to their friends. While occasionally interrupted by other themes, each return of the main melody becomes higher in pitch and louder in volume. The theme eventually fades away as Sam is abandoned by his friends and leaves the tavern alone.
Adventure Theme, North Moors Variation
During the conversation, Sam tells his friends that his cousin Hal spotted a large tree walking through the North Moors of Northfarthing, only to be mocked by Ted Sandyman for his belief. While Sam and Ted argue, the music faces into the contemplative instrumental variation of Frodo’s chorus from “The Adventure Song” as played beneath his meeting with his elvish friends, who said farewell for the final time. In this version, rather than being sung by a chorus of elves or repeated by a gentle flute at 100 BPM in G major, it is played by hobbit-instruments at 110 BPM in A major, once again indicating a more youthful hobbit. However, the core meaning of the melody remains the same: while walking through the forest away from the safety of home, hobbits have witnessed strangers crossing the Shire, a reminder that powerful people live beyond the borders.
White Towers Theme
This new theme appears for only four measures but signals a radical departure from the hobbit-melodies heard during most of this instrumental. The eerie theme representing the White Towers of Westmarch uses a different instrumentation, key signature, and time signature from the Tavern theme, transporting the listener to another world. Some hobbit-instruments are retained in this section, including the string quartet, albeit using a tremolo, and the trumpet. New instruments include timpani, glockenspiel, xylophone, and ocean drum.
My initial inspiration for this theme came from two pieces written by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns: “Danse macabre” published in 1874, and “Fossils” from The Carnival of the Animals published in 1886. Both pieces evoke the image of skeletons dancing. The sound is whimsical instead of scary due to the xylophone, which is supposed to sound like bones clacking together. This was extremely inventive of Saint-Saëns, as the xylophone, literally meaning “wood sound”, was first incorporated into Western music in 1866, only eight years before the publication of “Danse macabre”. Xylophones had historically been popular in West Africa, including the modern countries of Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Angola, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Gambia, and Ghana and was brought to Europe and the Americas during the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
With this dark history in mind, I use the xylophone to represent marble ruins, the bones of an ancient city whose inhabitants have disappeared into the West. I paired the xylophone with its European cousin, the glockenspiel, a word from German meaning “bell play”. This musical instrument predated the European xylophone by thirty-two years, as it appeared in 1834. The metal glockenspiel keys play an octave higher than the wooden xylophone keys. With these instruments plays the trumpet, now majestic rather than bragging. The rhythm is unusual, a triplet followed by a dotted half note, creating a sense of instability atop the shaky tremolo of the strings.
These strings are matched by the rumble of the ocean drum, also known as a geophone. This is the most modern instrument in the piece, as it was invented by French composer Olivier Messiaen for Des canyons aux étoiles… [From the canyons to the stars…], which debuted in 1972. (Another unique instrument appearing in Des canyons is the eoliphone or wind machine, a tempting addition for a future piece.) Cutting underneath the other instruments are the timpani striking the “doom doom” heartbeat rhythm mentioned throughout the original text.
The final ingredient to creating an unsettling atmosphere is using an unusual chord. The main ingredient of the chord is a tritone, called diabolus in musica or “the Devil’s Interval” by medieval musicians. This interval is no longer viewed as evil by modern musicians, who may also call is an augmented fourth or diminished fifth. Since this section is in E-flat major, the A-flat to D is a tritone, making the devilish sound. The notes are played in the string quartet as a chord; repeated in the unstable melody in the glockenspiel, xylophone, and trumpet; and beaten by the timpani. As an added bonus, D is the seventh note in the E-flat major scale, also known as a leading tone, making the listener think the note will resolve to E-flat. The third note in the triplet is an E-flat, but it falls back to D, unable to resolve. The final dash of spice in the secret music sauce is the B-flat, a major second above A-flat, creating dissonance. The listener wants the B-flat to resolve downward while the D resolves upward, creating a pull or tension between the two notes. But will this resolution take place?
Grey Havens / Círdan Theme
The Grey Havens / Círdan Theme is even shorter at two measures in length, and it expands upon the White Towers Theme. If you like this theme and already miss it, no worries! You will hear it again in a few weeks when I share my themes for members of the White Council. While the doom of the timpani, the rumble of the ocean drum, and the dissonant tremolo of the strings remain, the uneven rhythm of the glockenspiel, xylophone, and trumpet disappear to be replaced by the haunting sound of the glass armonica crying the tritone.
The glass armonica is an extremely American instrument invented in 1761 by Benjamin Franklin, whose grave I incidentally visited a few months ago while in Philadelphia, PA. He was inspired by a trend in urban 18th century Europe where musicians played tunes by rubbing their damp fingers on the edges of tuned glasses. Along with London glassblower Charles James, Franklin attached thirty-seven color-coded glass bowls to an iron spindle attached to a foot pedal and protected by a wooden case. With some practice and damp fingers, musicians could play popular tunes written specifically for the instrument by highly regarded composers like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. Unfortunately, after some musicians became ill, and a child allegedly died during a performance, the armonica got a bad rap as a creepy ghost instrument, which it is, and it fell out of style by the 1820s.
Perhaps the only modern usage of musical glasses in classical music is “10. God-music” from Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Dark Land published by George Crumb, Jr. in 1970. Members of an electric string quartet play tuned “crystal glasses” as the electric cellist performs the Vox Dei [Voice of God] in its highest registers. The piece, like many by Crumb, is regarded as “ethereal and haunting”, much like the Grey Havens theme. While not as famous as some other modern American composers, Crumb won a 1968 Pulitzer Prize in Music for Echoes of Time and the River, an Edward MacDowell Medal in 1995 for inventing new techniques, and “Best Classical Contemporary Composition” from the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards in 2001 for his piece “Star-Child”.
As for the anticipated resolution of the six measure chord, this never comes to pass. The melody switches abruptly to the Tavern Theme in the midst of a particularly boisterous trumpet solo. The young hobbits at the inn have no knowledge of the melancholic emptiness around the White Towers or the gradual abandonment of the Grey Havens, nor do they care to learn more. Sam alone is interested in the wisdom of the wide world.
The Road Theme, Forest Variation
As Sam recalls the time that he thought he saw an elf, the music shifts to the Road Theme, first sung by Bilbo in “The Road Goes Ever On”. The concepts established by Bilbo in his version after “The Long-Expected Party”, along with his original two-verse song while returning from his adventure with the dwarves at the end of The Hobbit, reflect the experience of Sam, if at a smaller scale. Sam traveled away from his home at 3 Bag Shot Row to the nearby woods, discovered a part of the world that he never could have imagined, and returned home uncertain of what to do next.
Bilbo’s version of the theme began in C major at 70 BPM, modulated to D major with a tempo increase to 90 BPM, and then returned to the original key and tempo. Sam’s version is higher and faster, played in A major at 100 BPM, once again signaling his youth. Sam’s version also uses different instrumentation: a hobbit quartet and a tin whistle, rather than the dwarfish clarinets used in Bilbo’s version.
Frodo & Sam Theme, Whistling Version
This is the second appearance of the melody originally played on the serinette in the preceding scene. Instead of a cheerful scene between a master and servant who consider themselves best friends, Sam is alone, having been mocked and abandoned by friends from his own social class. Returning up the Hill, he whistles the last line of the song he shares with Frodo without the accompaniment of hobbit-instruments or “foreign” melodies. The instrumental has made trips “there and back again” as Sam considered unknown lands outside of the Shire, interrupting the repeating, familiar melody of his home only for this melody to reappear with more intensity than before. Sam only broke this cycle after leaving the tavern, perhaps foreshadowing his upcoming journey.
Listen to the music here: