How to Improve Sight-Reading Skills
How to improve sight-reading skills An Introduction to Sight-Reading What exactly is sight-reading? Sight-reading is the ability to look at a sheet music chart and sing it for the first
To discuss all of the Lord of the Rings cover songs we’re going to introduce in this article, we first have to start with some history.
John Ronald Raul Tolkien, aka J.R.R Tolkien, was a linguist and English language scholar. He experienced the horrors of World War II first hand as a soldier.
He originally wrote “The Hobbit” as a children’s book in 1937. It was put down in written form at the urging of Tolkien’s daughter. “The Lord of the Rings” epic was written as a sequel to “The Hobbit” at the request and urging of Tolkien’s publisher.
It is said that Tolkien’s world of Middle Earth and his concepts of good versus evil were based on his war experiences. Here is J.R.R. Tolkien’s full biography.
The Lord of the Rings was intended to be released as one volume with “The Simarillion”. Instead, it was released over a year 1954-1955 in three volumes as a trilogy “The Fellowship of the Ring”, “The Two Towers”, and “The Return of the King”.
Not only did Tolkien write poems for the book but he also wrote songs, supporting history, maps, and even two languages: Quenya and Sindarin. In fact, he wrote the languages first and then wrote stories to provide speakers of his languages. Tolkien reportedly knew 35 different languages including Old Norse, Lithuanian, and Finnish.
The trilogy was received with mixed results in literary circles; being praised by some and highly criticized by others. Despite any criticism, Tolkien’s works have achieved success with some 150 million copies sold worldwide. The books were highly publicized when Peter Jackson turned the books into movies. Therefore, the songs from both the books and movies are extremely popular with fans.
Lord of the Rings cover songs were originally in the books and then were performed in the films. Because they would’ve been unaccompanied in the books, the a cappella versions of these songs seem very appropriate.
Shout out and credit to Peter Hollens and his Hobbit+LOTR themed a cappella album: “Misty Mountains: Songs Inspired by The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings“.
See this other post if you’re interested in hearing covers of the song from The Hobbit, Misty Mountain Cold. There were enough of them because they’re so popular to warrant their own post.
This is a tribute song to Thorin from the book, “The Hobbit” but it’s not in the movie. This song is performed by Peter and Evynne Hollens.
Another Peter Hollens production but this is a cover of Ed Sheeran’s “I See Fire”. Everything you hear in this cover is a cappella and is done by Peter Hollens himself. In fact, this particular song has roughly 98 different tracks that Hollens used to produce this version of the cover. It includes hand-to-knee claps, warbles, and other effects. According to Hollens, “I record between 8-14 vocal parts and then layer them multiple times”. He continues, “Each video takes between 85-200 hours of work from audio to video”.
For context and comparison, here is the original song “I See Fire” as performed by Ed Sheeran for The Desolation of Smaug. It’s accompanied by instruments and while it isn’t a cappella, it’s a beautiful song.
Ed Sheeran watched the movie, wrote the song, and recorded most of it in the same day. “I was allowed complete freedom to create what I thought was fitting for the film, which is very rare, and Peter, Fran and Philippa [Boyens, screenwriter] were always on hand to give notes and pointers,” he said. “The entire team down in New Zealand was out of this world.”
These are various drinking songs taken from the Hobbit and sung by Peter Hollens featuring Hank Green. Notice that when they sing about the Green Dragon about 30 seconds into the video, they shoot a green ball on the pool table into the corner pocket. Later when they sing “throw the wine on every door” during Hey Ho, To The Bottle I Go, they shoot the red ball in at 1:14.
0:05 The Green Dragon
0:30 Hey Ho, To The Bottle I Go
0:50 Blunt The Knives
1:35 Bofur’s Song
Here is a beautiful rendition of “Song of Durin” by Eurille the song is in two parts. This song is found in book two of “The Fellowship of the Ring” in Chapter 4, A Journey In the Dark. Gimli sings it in response to Samwise Gamgee’s referring to the Mines of Moria as “darksome holes”. Gimli sang the Song of Durin, extolling the history of Khazad-dûm which was the name of the Dwarvish kingdom before they dug too deeply and un-eathered the Balrog.
Here is Billy Boyd singing “The Last Goodbye” from the Hobbit movie, “The Battle of the Five Armies”. This is not an a cappella version, unaccompanied by instruments, but it’s still a great song.
This is Jaheira’s a cappella cover of Enya’s song “May it Be” from “The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring”.
What a cappella song list of Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit would be complete without a cappella versions of The Edge of Night? This is the original song by Billy Boyd.
This cover of “Edge of Night” is performed by Clamavi De Profundis.
This cover of “Edge of Night” is performed by Sam from the YouTube channel, SamSings.
Peter Hollen’s cover of Aragon’s coronation song in both Elvish and English.
This was the end-credit song in the movie “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”. Originally written by Howard Shore, Fran Walsh, and Annie Lennox. Performed by Annie Lennox.
And of course, as one might expect Peter Hollens’ has produced his own a cappella version of this song as well.
Incredible vocals and a beautiful version of “Into the West” by a cappella metal band Van Canto.
How to improve sight-reading skills An Introduction to Sight-Reading What exactly is sight-reading? Sight-reading is the ability to look at a sheet music chart and sing it for the first
Generally in most years, the SWD sponsors an annual Chorus and Quartet competition. The exception is the pandemic year we experienced due to Covid-19. There was no competition during the pandemic. The BHS recent resumed chorus competitions in 2022.
The Tidelanders excitedly sponsored our first singing competition. We promoted the contest to over 200 high schools in Harris and Fort Bend counties in Texas. We announced two winners (Men’s and Women’s) mid-April. We are looking forward to planning a bigger contest next year.
The Houston Tidelanders Chorus is pleased that we were able to perform for Clear Lake audiences once again! We’ve been performing in the Clear Lake area for about 25 years and it’s one of favorite shows.
“Smile” continues to be considered timeless. Meaning the message always seems to be relevant. As long as it continues to be popular, artists will continue to cover and interpret it’s meaning in order to continue to have it resonate with audiences. Modern artists like Michael Jackson have arranged and performed it.