The French horn is a distinctive circular brass instrument with a mellow tone. They consist of 12 feet of coiled tubing ending in a flared bell. Like all brass instruments, the French horn produces a directional sound, one that travels directly out of the bell; Woodwinds, on the other hand, produce a more omnipresent sound without a distinguishable direction. Shore utilizes his French horns in the Fellowship theme as well as in passages relating to the world of Men.

Trumpets originated as end-blown objects such as animal horns, bones, or bamboo from as early as 2000 BC. They were introduced into the opera in 1607 with Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo. Their clear, bright tone is now common in many forms of music.

The trombone was not used in orchestras until the 18th century, when its first prominent use was in Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony #5. Unlike other brass instruments, the trombone is played by moving a slide to lengthen or shorten the tubing of the instrument, thus allowing different notes to be played.

The tuba is the bass member of the brass section. It has a very wide bell and a deep cup, facilitating the extremely low notes characteristic of the instrument.

The violin is one of the most popular orchestral instruments, and has been since the Classical era. It is an extremely versatile instrument and is capable of a wide range of expression and intensity. All the descendants of the viola da braccio family ( i.e., the violin, viola, and violoncello) have four strings, and are played with a bow. The back and belly of the instruments are slightly bulged, the soundholes are "f " shaped, they are fretless, the bodies are longer than the necks, and the fingerboards extend down far over the bodies. The violin has a soprano range.

The third lowest member of the violin family after the violin and the viola, the violoncello (often shortened to just cello) produces some of the lower tones of the strings. It is as expressive and versatile as the violin, but with a richer, deeper, darker tone.

The bass, or lowest member of the violin family, the double bass has sloping shoulders and four strings. The bow of this instrument is comparatively short, and the strings are rather thick, producing a rich, deep sound. This instrument is also called contrabass and bass viol.

I:1.1 - Prologue: One Ring To Rule Them All

(6:40)

melody line

Cor anglais is the French name for the English horn, a double-reeded woodwind very similar to the oboe. It was originally named cor angle, or 'bent horn' after its distinctive shape. The French word angle was mistranslated anglais, which means 'English,' and the name remains today.

The flute is a woodwind instrument (even though it is played without a reed) which produces a light, airy tone. Shore uses flutes to evoke pastoral, nostalgic, or highly emotional moments, and the instrument is often heard regarding the hobbits, or during other poignant scenes.

Closely related to the saxophone and recorder, the clarinet is a relatively recent addition to the orchestra. The wooden reed attached to the mouthpiece is very important to creating a rich sound; the clarinet has the greatest range of all woodwind instruments, and a skilled performer can play the complete dynamic scale.

The bassoon is a double-reeded member of the oboe family. Along with its cousin, the contrabassoon, it is the bass instrument of the wind section. Like the oboe, the bassoon produces a nasal sound due to its reeds, but slightly less so. Its unique sound is often used in comical or grotesque passages.

The contrabassoon (also called a double bassoon) is a double-reed woodwind instrument with the lowest range in the woodwind family sounding an octave below a regular bassoon.

The piccolo is a small flute that sounds an octave above the regular flute.

Although the tam-tam looks very similar to the gong, it is typically flatter with a smaller rim. Unlike the gong, the tam-tam has no discernable pitch or fundamental note; it produces simply a crash of dissonant frequencies. Because of this dissonance, the tam-tam, along with many other percussive instruments, is often used by Shore to represent the brutal beats of Mordor and Isengard.

Also called kettledrums, the timpani is constructed of a hemispherical shell fitted with a head covering of plastic or calfskin held in place by a metal ring. They are played using padded mallets, and a foot pedal changes the tension of the head, allowing for a change in pitch. One musician usually plays timpani of four different ranges. These large drums come in many different sizes, and their booming beats are perfect for the heavy percussion of Mordor or the thrilling pounding of battle.

A plucked stringed instrument of ancient origin, the modern orchestral harp has a somewhat triangular frame with forty-seven strings. The harp has a pillar, which helps support the tension of the strings. The pillar is attached to the neck at the top, and to the soundboard at the base, which is in turn connected to the strings. Despite being stringed, the harp is in fact a percussion instrument, because it is played by plucking the strings, not bowing them.

A cymbal is a circular brass plate measuring from 16 to 22 inches across, used as a percussive accent. Cymbals are very adaptable instruments, and Howard Shore uses them in many different ways throughout The Lord of the Rings.

A suspended cymbal consists of a regular cymbal suspended on a stand and struck with drum sticks, brushes, or more often mallets. The suspended cymbal is typically used to provide a musical effect that creates tension in a composition. It is also used to keep the rhythmic pulse of the composition or provide percussive accents.

Shore also ustilizes a bowed cymbal to create eerie, dissonant tones. In this technique, sound is produced by rubbing a hard surface, usually a violin bow, over the cymbal. This creates an unsettling noise that can be described as a creepier cousin to a wet finger running along the rim of a wineglass.

The snare drum is common in orchestral, band, and jazz music. It is comprised of two heads, which produce a characteristic "snappy" sound. It is named after the "snares" or rawhide strings stretched across the lower head. Snare drums are also used in military field music to provide a consistent beat with which to march.

The bass drum is a common percussion instrument with a deep, low sound but indeterminate pitch played with a large soft-headed mallet. It is the largest orchestral drum. The bass drum is heavily used in Fellowship's Moria sequences, where it is beaten with a large rattle.

The piano is a modern keyboard instrument that produces sounds by hammers striking strings. These hammers are activated by keys, depressed by the performer's fingers. The piano is equipped with a pedal that controls the dampers which stop the vibration of the strings. When the pedal is pressed by the performer's foot, the dampers are lifted from the strings, and the strings are allowed to vibrate freely. Another pedal softens the volume of the piano. The piano is not used very often in Shore's score, most notably in the Isengard theme, where it is turned on its side and the strings are hit with chains.

A percussion instrument that consists of a shell (container) with beads or seeds inside of it which make a rattle sound when shaken.

I:1.3 - Bag End

(2:58)

percussion accompaniment

II:1.6 - The Three Hunters

(0:12)

leading in to the Dwarvish-styled Fellowship theme

The bodhrán (Bough-rawn) is just one of an ancient family of frame drums that consist of a stretched hide over a wooden shell. Bodhrán drums are believed to have originated in Ireland (or possibly emigrated there via the Roman Empire or Arabic trade routes), and derived their name from a Gaelic description of the sound, roughly translated as "thundered."

When the hobbits of the Fellowship disperse around Middle-earth in The Two Towers, the bodhrán becomes no longer restricted to the Shire - or even the hobbits. It appears throughout the score now as a cosmopolitan element of the world.

I:1.2 - The Shire

(1:18)

melody line

The fiddle itself is not unlike the classical violin of the orchestra (though occasionally performers will adapt the instruments' bridges), but the playing techniques differ slightly allowing for greater latitude in bowing and ornamentations.

I:1.2 - The Shire

(1:18)

steady accompanying figure behind melody

Hammered dulcimers consist of a series of wires stretched tightly over a wooded resonating frame and struck with small hammers. The name comes from the Latin and Greek hybrid of the words dulce (sweet) and melos (tone).

I:1.3 - Bag End

(0:00)

opening solo

II:1.16 - Ent-Draught

(0:00)

opening solo

The Irish whistle (also known as the penny whistle, vertical flute, flagolet, stáin, or feadóg) may be the oldest instrument in Celtic music. Originally carved from bone, today's whistles are generally made of wood or metal.

I:1.4 - Very Old Friends

(1:55)

on the Hobbit Skip Beat figure, following the mandolin chords

Also known as an Irish harp, lever harp, or simply folk harp, the Celtic harp is a smaller, more portable version of the orchestral harp, well suited to diatonic music.

I:1.3 - Bag End

(2:58)

short sustained chord drones behind melody

The musette is a small, diatonic, accordion-like instrument consisting of a keyboard affixed to a bellows. Howard Shore wrote a handful of musette lines to provide harmonic accompaniment to the Shire theme's Rural Setting.

I:1.4 - Very Old Friends

(1:48)

strummed chords

A smaller relative of the guitar, the mandolin is a short-necked, eight-stringed lute that is plucked with the fingers. Mandolin does not appear regularly in the Shire music, but a few gently strummed chords back the Bag End scenes.

I:1.3 - Bag End

(2:58)

steady accompanying figure

Guitar plays the same role in the Shire music as the mandolin, but it enters in more sprightly passages, using a highstring tuning. The high strings of a 12-string set are strung on a 6-string guitar, resulting in a bright sound.

I:1.2 - The Shire

(2:21)

doubling the fiddle "fanfare"

The celesta is a small keyboard instrument like the piano. Yet where the piano's hammers strike taught wires inside the frams, the celesta strikes small metal bars to produce a shimmering silvery tone.

I:3.2 - Caras Galadhon

(0:00)

metallic slithering behind choir and strings

II:2.11 - Arwen's Fate

(0:00)

droning beneath the alto flutes

The monochord's history is as mysterious as its many uses. The instrument itself consists of a large wooden box over which a single string is held in place by pegs. An adjustable bridge allows the monochord to shift pitch while the performer either plucks or bows the string. Monochords have been used as scientific instruments (Pythagoras used its harmonic vibrations to study ratios), astronomy (Ptolemy), philosophy (Kepler's "Harmony of the Spheres"), musical teachings (Guido of Arezzo's "Guidonian Hand"), and for the curative properties of its vibrations. In Middle-earth, our mystical monochord is used for the Elves of Lothlórien, where it provides a low droning melancholy over which the melody flows. The monochord used for this recording had 50 strings strung across the bridge.

I:3.2 - Caras Galadhon

(3:12)

doubling the low string melody

An end-blown cane flute, thought to have originated in Egypt approximately 3000 years B.C., the ney flute spread throughout the Middle East over a series of centuries, with cultures adopting different styles and performance techniques. Neys are among the world's oldest flutes, and are still extremely prevalent in the music of Morocco and Persia.

I:3.2 - Caras Galadhon

(0:45)

doubling the female choir melody

II:2.12 - The Story Foretold

(1:13)

doubling the female choir melody

The sarangi, a bowed string instrument common to Indian classical music, is constructed from a single block of wood, covered in parchment and generally strung with three or four gut strings under which 35 to 40 resonating strings run.

I:3.1 - Khazad-Dûm

(0:04)

answering the first phrase of the (singing) male choir

In Moria, the vocal style is designed to express the most basic emotions of fight or flight through a male chorus and a most unique source... Football Players/Maori Grunters men's voices created the perfect bass tones for Shore's dwarf choir, but for the gruff grunting sounds the score called for, the composer turned to a less refined source: male football (or rubgy) players. These vocalists performed the Dwarves chant of, "Lu! Lu! Lu!" or, "No! No! No!"

II:2.1 - Edoras

(3:10)

playing the Rohan Fanfare

Although the composer was previously aware of many of the rare instruments in The Lord of the Rings' collection, Shore had never come across the Hardanger fiddle before he began studying Nordic music as a basis for Rohan. "It was part of the research for The Two Towers, looking towards Northern European sounds and thinking about the Viking, Nordic culture." Often referred to as the national instrument of Norway, the Hardanger fiddle was thought to have been invented in the mid 1600s. The tone is bracing and emphatic, but moderate at the same time. In Norwegian culture the instrument as used to relate history and lore, and it functions much the same in the music of Rohan. "The fiddle creates a nice counterpoint to the wooden flutes and the whistle in the other cultures." When the Rohan culture is introduced, it is proud but sorrowful - a once great civilization beset by a failing king and unending assaults. Here the Hardanger underlines a brittleness within the culture.