Talk:Music of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Discussion notice

FYI to any editors looking at this talk page, a discussion about the future structure of this article can be found at Talk:The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power#Music section. - adamstom97 (talk) 00:49, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Music of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Adamstom.97 (talk · contribs) 04:09, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Heidi Pusey BYU (talk · contribs) 20:24, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Good afternoon, Adamstom.97. My name is Heidi; I am a student employee at BYU and am paid to edit Wikipedia. I will be reviewing this article. Because I'm starting the review so late in the week, I will likely not be finished with it until the end of next week, at the latest. Heidi Pusey BYU (talk) 20:24, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Great, thank you for taking on the review. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the article. - adamstom97 (talk) 08:49, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Review notes

General writing

Alrighty! I'm still checking the sources, but I have some comments on the general writing. The summary style is great; the inclusion of McCreary's thoughts and inspiration for the themes is lovely; and the topic is addressed thoroughly. Below I have posted suggested improvements; please don't be intimidated by them—they should be easy fixes!

• In “Leitmotifs”, what is meant by “McCreary wrote an A section, a B section, and an introduction for each theme”? My question is concerned with the A and B sections. What are they? What is their significance in the piece—do they come before the introduction?

• “For example, he contrasted the introduction of Durin's wife Disa (using a cello and fiddle) with a noble French horn for the tree that Elrond gave to Durin.” This sentence is not grammatically/structurally parallel.

• “added a B theme with larger intervals (Sauron's theme does not have big intervals between notes like McCrary's heroic themes do), and used different instruments”: I’d recommend removing the phrase in parenthesis. By saying McCreary added larger intervals, it is already implied that Sauron’s theme does not have large intervals. As such, it does not need to be explained in a parenthetical statement.

• “McCreary said the Low Men of Middle-earth were represented in the films by the people of Rohan, for whom Shore primarily used the hardanger fiddle from Norway, so McCreary used the same instrument for the Low Men of the Southlands but in a lower register and combined with another Nordic stringed instrument, the nyckelharpa.” This is a run-on sentence and should be broken up.

• “McCreary intended this to become the theme for the Faithful Númenoreans when the society becomes divided between those who are still friends to Elves and the "King's Men" who are not (and continue to be represented by the main "Númenor" theme).” This parenthetical statement is confusing and feels unnecessary.

• “Additionally, McCreary used the "overblown woodwind effect" of a Japanese shakuhachi flute as a recurring sound in the score to signify the presence of wolves.” This appears by itself under “Other themes” and mentions “the score”: does this reference “Where the Shadows Lie” or the film score as a whole?

• “Recording for the score began in November 2021, and each episode used a 90-piece orchestra at either Abbey Road Studios or AIR Studios in London over four days, as well as a 40-person choir and children's choir at Synchron Stage in Vienna over three or fours days, and soloists on various specialty instruments in Los Angeles, New York, Norway, and Sweden over seven days.” This is another run-on sentence.

• “A limited edition box set for the first season from Mondo, Amazon Music, and McCreary's label Sparks and Shadows is scheduled for release on April 26, 2024.” This date has passed; as such, the present tense needs to be changed to past tense.

• “Jonathan Broxton of Movie Music UK, who rarely reviews television scores, wrote a review of the first season's score and said the time and effort was worth it.” As a reader the part about Broxton rarely reviewing TV scores makes me feel like someone is trying to tell me that it’s amazing he reviewed the score (though that was likely not the intention). This would be good in a regular essay, but I’m afraid it doesn’t quite work here.

• This article does an exceptional job at avoiding editorials. I have a recommendation, though: I think “did” in instances such as “he did reveal” need(s) to be removed because it feels slightly editorial. It won’t affect the review but is something I wanted to bring up. I’ve already removed some occurrences of the word.

Heidi Pusey BYU (talk) 22:02, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I have addressed all of these points in the article. I replaced the mention of A and B sections with some more specific links to more information, as I think the key thing to note from the source is that each theme has multiple sections (i.e. effort was put into making them more complex). The line about the shakuhachi flute for wolves is not related to the "Where the Shadows Lie" paragraph. Similar to the information about Gil-galad's potential theme, it is being included as it is relevant to the discussion of themes/motifs in the score but it doesn't get a bullet point because it isn't one of the proper themes in McCreary's mind. I re-worded it to try clarify that it is relevant to the series as a whole. For Broxton, I included that he rarely reviews television scores because he talks about the time and effort required to do that which I think is still good to note. I re-worded it to try shift that emphasis. Let me know if you have any concerns about the changes I have made or if you find anything else that needs to be addressed. - adamstom97 (talk) 10:00, 1 June 2024 (UTC)