Projecting Tolkien's Musical Worlds

Explaining the meaning or affect of a piece of music is by no means an easytask. However some success has been found through the work of PhilipTagg whose technique consists of breaking down a musical example intominimal units of musical meaning (called musemes) comparing those unitsto other musical examples possessing sociomusical connotations anddemonstrating a transfer of musical affect from the music possessing sociomusicalconnotations to the object of analysis. This work expands Tagg'stechniques in an attempt to analyze the musical affect of Howard Shore'sfilm score for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. After a discussion of J.R.R.Tolkien's description of the cultures of the inhabitants found in Middle-earththis work dissects the thematic material of Shore's score focusing on hisincorporation of the music and culture of Tolkien's text into his film scorethrough instrumentation and style as well as utilizing musematic analysis toargue the musical affect of Shore's major themes that is projected on theaudience. This book is directed toward any individual musician or filmenthusiast who appreciates the ability for a film score to heighten the overallmovie experience.