Genre/Style: Irish/Celtic
Creative Vision for the Track: I’ve been writing some music for the Minecraft Middle Earth project, a long running project to build all of the Lord of the Rings locations on a Minecraft server. The music has all been very Howard Shore/Bear McCreary in style. It’s mainly mood music for when you’re exploring the map and locations.
But while working on that, I had a sudden inspiration to make a Hobbit drinking song about Tom Bombadil. The idea is, what if the Hobbits have this folk song about Tom Bombadil that uses words from Tom’s songs, but treats him like a folk hero who may or may not be real. Stories that older hobbits might tell their grand children over the fire. Something that the Hobbits might sing with each other during a night at the tavern.
Composition Details (Tempo, Key, Main Chords etc):
The song is in D, which is pretty common in Irish music. I was planning on doing a DADGAD tuning on my guitar, but I completely forgot and just started recording with standard tuning. Chords are also pretty common using 1, 4, 5, and minor 6 in various orders, but sometimes adding a flat 7 for a touch of LoTR epicness. And the verses all bring it home with a minor 2 → 5 → 1.
Main Instruments used:
I tried to go for a musical style similar to what we see in the films, which is broadly Celtic, I’d say. The Shire is modeled after the English and Welsh countryside, so that fits. So this (and what I had on hand) determined the instrument selection.
I had 2 acoustic guitars, one playing mostly open chords, the other playing inversions further up the neck.
I used a 5 string banjo, not historically an irish instrument, but common in a lot of “modern” irish traditional music.
I used an electric bass. If I had an acoustic one I would have used that instead.
The other instruments were samples.
I used 2 different bodhrans, one from EastWest, one from Musio. Also used a frame drum from Pianobook, a bass drum from a LABS kit, and one of my samples of a drum I made using a spaghetti squash attached to a coffee can.
The violin is Joshua Bell from Embertone.
There is a viola da gamba from Musio.
The tin whistle is called Shire Whistle from Embertone.
In the 1st chorus, the 3rd verse, and the last chorus there are some uilleann pipes from LABS.
