Heh this is a great reply, it brings me much joy and makes me feel like you've seen some of what I'm trying to get at! :)

Thank you for these observations. What's funny about this project is that part of what started it for me was that the "Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold" from The Hobbit films doesn't accentuate the "O" in "Over" on the downbeat, and rather  "ver" lands on the downbeat, when the iambic tetrameter of the poems is pretty clear when you read them aloud:

Far O ver the MIST y MOUNT ains COLD

to DUNG eons DEEP and CAV erns OLD

we MUST a WAY ere BREAK of DAY

to SEEK the PALE en CHAN ted GOLD

One thing I also notice in the structure of these is that the third to last line in each stanza has an inner rhyme to it (away ere break of day, dragon fire from twisted wire, places deep where dark things sleep). Makes me wonder if I did enough to reflect that! Heh.

The thing that is challenging about writing a melody to this is that if you just go at it in this form, there are no places to pause for breath. Tolkien, reading the Song of Durin (same structure), actually runs into this problem!

So, the true purpose of this project is to try to write music that as closely honors the poetry that Tolkien wrote. One of my prime interests is early music, particularly this historical revival of old instruments and understanding the way the instruments were used and the philosophy of writing music at the time. This effort lead to a wealth of incredibly beautiful, robust, multi-dimensional interpretations of people like Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, etc. The thing that makes this so beautiful is that it creates this living connection to the people who came before us, but it's also this amazing process of both creativity and discovery.

That is why I am setting out on this project - I want to connect with Tolkien's vision in this deeper way. I.e. no one has made a Misty Mountains rendition that actually uses all of the instruments called out in the books, and much less, no one has ever even tried using a viol in a recording that I've found. I've been collecting instruments so that I can actually fully write music to it (and in a way that virtual instruments cannot capture). It's quite an ambitious undertaking, to say the least, but that's part of  the joy of it. So, it's like "take the philosophy of historically informed performance and revival and apply it to Tolkien's songs" to get something that is as faithful to what he would have envisioned, but perhaps would go beyond what he would have the capability to write.

Also the Simon and Garfunkel thing is also kind of funny - you're not the first to make that comparison. I also spent a lot of time singing Elliott Smith and Sufjan Stevens, but also Scarborough Fair by S&G longer ago. Funny thing... you could throw "Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold" into the same poetic structure of Scarborough Fair (though you have to place the pickup/anacrusis mindfully in a couple places to do this).

Thank you again. This is really awesome feedback.

I think I would say I didn't quite fully develop the whole piece in the musical sense of the word development, where things are added in and it builds and those things are related to each other. The intention is definitely for it to build up. I'll have to think more carefully about doing that, especially because that's what allows a song to be repetitive without the repetitiveness becoming grating.

I like the idea of some punchier drums. The context here is that Bombur is the drummer (lol)

Good feedback! Thank you!

Yes! Thank you, this is actually how I feel about my own work as well haha.

I guess my goal isn't to avoid Howard Shore, but not to distinctly follow him either. He very much follows this late-romantic style of composing, and I want to try to draw on early music more as I do this, so medieval, renaissance, ancient and baroque, but also with a strong root in traditional and folk music.

Whats funny aboutyou  wanting the full orchestra to come in, is that the instrumentation called out for "Over the Misty Mountains" is like the grey area between chamber music and an orchestra:

2 viols "as big as themselves"

3 flutes

1 harp (played by Thorin)

2 fiddles

1 drum (played by Bombur, lol)

2 clarinets

Then for under the mountains dark and tall:

"Then the dwarves themselves brought forth harps and instruments regained from the hoard, and made music to soften his mood; but their song was not as elvish song, and was much like the song they had sung long before in Bilbo's little hobbit-hole."

I think I want to continue this project by continuing to collect and learn the instruments necessary. I'm actually building  a lyre right now and plan to build a harp, and really just get comfortable with it since the harp is one of the core elements of Dwarvish music, and lots of LotR music. I don't like the feel of VST harp on piano, it just doesn't feel correct or natural to the instrument itself, like it won't sound natural enough. The only virtual instrument in my tracks is piano, which is my primary instrument.

Over the Misty Mountains Cold as a poem also has a building quality to it.

It's been as much a research project as a compositional project. Heh.

Thank you! This is incredibly helpful! 

Yep percussion isn't my thing just yet, I've got some work to do on that. I think it can crescendo too, but recording this correctly will take some mastery of drum compression too, since drums get really loud before their timbre changes much.

I would say the beginning of this composition wise was good but failed to fully develop into the picture the beginning paints, would you agree?

I guess the line between funeral march and war march is also a fine one. I.e. the Imperial March is very warlike and is more awe inspiring, and that was based on Chopin's funeral march. But it was sufficiently boisterous to make it menacing rather than heavy.

I love the diggy diggy hole reference too, love that shit.

The additional context to this is that they are preparing to fight people who want something that is rightfully theirs simply because they want all the treasure under the mountain (so, things that Smaug pillaged that never belonged to the Dwarves in the first place), not just the things that were originally theirs. And they were gearing up for war, with only the band of them in the mountains.

So, while there is this heavy, dark context present, I think you are spot on about the energy not building up correctly.

I think whatever tune I end up landing on for Over the Misty Mountains needs to be similarly resolute so that I can be adapted to this to become warlike, and then also be adapted with more resoluteness to Farewell we call. I think the tone also needs more optimism to be appropriate.

I am a sucker for sad/dark/heavy music... lol. There's a good self observation that should also help me communicate.

Anyways, good stuff, super helpful.

Thank you!

It's not totally intentional, but it's something I put lower priority on editing because there is a bit of this feel like Thorin and company are just ad hoc singing these songs, rather than preparing them, in the warrior poet tradition. My goal with these is to make it feel like you're there in person. It seems likely to me that this is the intention because Tolkien uses many of the lyrics over again with slight variations, as if people are forgetting the exact words and not really writing it, as is reflected in reality as well.

Heh funny enough I find it easier to sing on key when higher pitched. Changes in pitch in the lower register feel like making this big jumps where I have to be super accurate, like there's some larger physical motion needed to change pitch. It feels akin to doing big jumps on the cello or piano.

When I was singing "Farewell we call" for some reason I had a mucous attack like I had a small bug last night or something, so I spent more time clearing my throat than singing the song. Lol.