Category: Misc

Corey’s Poetry Dice-Roll Activity

• First Poem – Athelas
  When the black breath blows
  and death’s shadow grows
  and all lights pass,
  come athelas! come athelas!
  Life to the dying
  In the king’s hand lying!
• Second Poem – Chip the Glasses
  • The First Tolkien poem most people ever skip
    
    Chip the glasses and crack the plates!
    Blunt the knives and bend the forks!
    That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates—
    Smash the bottles and burn the corks!
    
    Cut the cloth and tread on the fat!
    Pour the milk on the pantry floor!
    Leave the bones on the bedroom mat!
    Splash the wine on every door!
    
    Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl;
    Pound them up with a thumping pole;
    And when you’ve finished if any are whole,
    Send them down the hall to roll!
    
    That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates!
    So, carefully! carefully with the plates!
    
• 3rd Poem – The Hoard
  
  When the moon was new and the sun young
  of silver and gold the gods sung:
  in the green grass they silver spilled,
  and the white waters they with gold filled.
  Ere the pit was dug or Hell yawned,
  ere dwarf was bred or dragon spawned,
  there were Elves of old, and strong spells
  under green hills in hollow dells
  they sang as they wrought many fair things,
  and the bright crowns of the Elf-kings.
  But their doom fell, and their song waned,
  by iron hewn and by steel chained.
  Greed that sang not, nor with mouth smiled,
  in dark holes their wealth piled,
  graven silver and carven gold:
  over Elvenhome the shadow rolled.
  
  plus more verses

Corey Olsen Keynote Address

• The Music of Words: Tolkien and Hip-Hop
• I am not the “Hip-Hop Professor”
• Poetry as an active literary for died in the 20th century – except here
• Traditional Poetry: A framework vs the words you are saying. Rhythm and Rhyme
• Example Dr Seuss – Starts with a perfect rhyme but there he varies it at the end and then later last line is a big twist
• Origin DJ + MC in Harlem 70s street parties
  • Rhythm+Rhyme in a musical context
  • Has an actual beat and music
• Run DMC – It’s like That
  • Preamble
    • The line breaks in printed lyrics match the meter
    • This is rarely true with normal printed lyrics
    • They are often also inaccurate
  • Review
    • The shape and packing is not unlike a normal song
    • But the music of the piece is entirely spoken words
  • Rhyme Scheme
    • Beats – beat 3 is where all rhymes are
    • “Thats the way it is” never rhymes with anything. Because the point of a song is that things are wrong
• Redman: “Time 4 Sumaksion”
  • Beat 1 and 3 are the primary beats
  • Diagram – Blue is primary
• Rakim: Guess Who’s back?
  • One of the few hiphop artists who does multi-syllabic rhyme
  • Much less rigid, less stuff on the 3rd beat
  • Signals change to rhyme ahead of time
  • Parody the “Simplicity of what Djs do”
  • The hip-hop version on enjambment
• Tech N9in: Devil Boy
  • Empty first beat ( until the last time )
  • “god i ly” three syllable word
  • Lots of alliteration
  • Then transitions to new pattern for second half of the verse
• Eminem: “Lose Yourself”
  • One of the most perfect and extraordinary passages of poetry in the English Language
  • “sweater and sweaty” don’t rhyme 100% but that isn’t important
  • Rhyme matches the narrative ( where is gets stuck in front of the crowd )
  • Main bit: 3 syllable rhyme at end of most lines ( gravity, rabbit he ) and separate 3 syllable rhyme at the start of each line.
  • ..and he keeps the narrative which varying the flow
  • In the chorus everybody dances . Transitions in simpler 1-2 syllable rhymes
• Eminem: Without Me
• Eminem: Lock it up
• Eminem: Untitled
  • Raps in 6/8 measure (unlike 99% of RAP is in 4/4)
• Eminem: Venom
• Eminem: Godzilla
  • Extremely fast bit
  • Speed up? But has been performed live at similar space
• Joyner Lucas: From ‘Lucky You’
• “This is going to be quick, we’re just going to talk about two Tolkien Poems”
• Tolkien: Gimli’s Song
  • Very Regular. Should be boring
  • But it isn’t boring, why?
  • The 3rd dimension of this poem is alliteration
  • Tolkien sees d/t and y/w as cousins in rhyming (see Tengwar )
  • Does a melody in the alliteration on top of the rhyme
  • Varies things at the end to indicate a closing (and pump up the final line)
• Does he do this elsewhere, pick another poem
• Tolkien: Boromir’s Lament
  • This poem is a more complicated meter and is more complex overall
  • Alliteration: W’s form the dominate theme
  • n’s and m’s also
• Q: What Literature influenced early rappers?
  • Possibly just emerged and influenced each other
• Q: Public Enemy?
  • Listened to a lot of that. And commentary on them

Presentation: Sam Lewis – The Elves and the Celts: Elvish Poetry in ‘The Hobbit’

• Big disclaimer at start.
• Tolkien’s Faerie
  • Mythology for England / Britain
  • But the Celts were already there
• Creating a Celtic Britain
  • 1760 onwards , sometimes manufactured
  • Anglo-Saxon = Modern . Celt = mythical, stone-age, edge of world
  • Tolkien’s view
    • ‘The wild incalculable poetic Celt”
    • co-inhabitants of the same island
• Teutonic and Celtic in ‘The Hobbit”
  • Three poems
• The Withered Health
  • Dwarf poem from Queer Lodgings in The Hobbit
  • wind is usually interpreted as representing the swarves and/or providence/fate
• O! What are you doing?
• The Dragon has Withered
• Talk a bit fast for me too keep up with notes

Presentation: Lauren Brand – The Music of Nimrodel

• As the company enter Lothlorien they come across the stream the Nimrodel
• How much music in Middle earth relates to fresh water bodies?
• Mapped up occurances of references to bodies of water and looked for songs/music and other descriptive words
  • 1216 occurrences
  • 621 no description
  • 123 a sound
  • 231 visual description
  • 53 touch
  • 20 taste
  • 22 smell
• Sound comes and goes in various stages. Some waters like the Brandywine is described
• Mordor has little water but Sam and Frodo are obsessed with it’s lack so lot of descriptions
• Where is is the music of waters?
  • “a dream of music that turns into running water”
  • “a voice singing mingled with the sound of water”
• Other noisy places
  • Gate stream “trickling” , “a swish followed by a plop”
  • “A mighty roaring mingled with a deep throbing boom”
  • “Voice of Morgalduin … seemed cold and cruel”
• Spirit of the River is common
  • Like to drag people underwater and drown them
  • Jenny Greenteeth
• Goldberry
• Nimrodel
• Others
  • Raros
  • Mirrormere
  • Galadriel’s Mirror
• In conclusion, listen to the sounds around you especially the sounds of waters

Presentation: Cassidy Winter – Invertebrates in the Works of Tolkien and the Societal Impact of Those Portrayals

• Hypotheses
  • Shelob = Hobbit
  • If Invertebrates written as evil by Tolkien
• What is an Invertebrate?
• Ungoliant
  • Takes the form of a Spider
• Beorn’s Giant Bees
• Mirkwood Spiders
• Were-worms
• Shortcut to mushroom: Spider, Centipede, Earthworms
• Neekerbreekers
• Morgul Flowers and Flies(?)
• Sheblob – Spider
• Butterflies
• Gwaihir’s Moth pal – Film only
• Ants, Glowworms, snails
• Compiled list of all animal entries in Tolkien
• Invertebrate by clade and alignment
• Spiders mostly bad, butterflies mostly good
• Stats
  • Horses good
  • Reptiles evil
  • invertebrates up in air
• Horses have a capacity for evil matched only by Humans in my opinion

Presentation: Ilana Mushin – Pride and Prejudice

• What does Tolkien mean by Pride / Proud?
  • “proud and fair” in the dead marshes
  • “pride and dispair” Gandalf to Denothor
• Pride is French word with positives connotations
  • Once in Old English it started to become negative (haughty, overbearing)
  • Middle-English – Gets back some positive meanings
• The Grammar of Pride / Proud
  • To complex for me to summarize
• Around 30% uses were positive
• Negative 37%
• 33% not clear if it positive or negative
• Who is proud?
  • Saruman
  • Individual Elves (but sometimes Noldor)
  • Denethor
  • Folk of Gondor
  • Shadowfax
  • Turin
• Sauron and Morgoth are not described has having pride

Presentation: Jordan Rannells – Exploring the Legendarium in 3D Audio

• Created a 3D Audio experience for the Lord of the rings. Ambient sounds and music lines of the the Williams and Serkis audiobooks of the Lord of The Rings
• Demo with Farmer Maggot and the Hobbits riding in his cart. Showing the way different channels are used
• Demo from start of the Hobbit
• People who know the stories can just listen to the soundscape and if the know the story well they can guess where they are without the actual audiobook words
• So Far Hobbit, LoTR, First Happy Potter and Wheel of Time
• Working on the Silmarillion. This is got a lot more music since Ambient is not so useful since words don’t usually directly describe things happening in real time.
• Also working on more Wheel of Time and Tolkien “The Three Great Tales”
• Origin of project
  • Started exclusively listening to audiobooks
  • Heard the Phil Dragash version
  • Listened to Star Wars versions but though they didn’t do as much music as liked
  • Heard some dramatizations and wanted to do with the full full text
  • Technology improved so multi-channels via headphones worked
• Most of the Ambient sounds came from libraries but created some himself

Presentation: Julian Barr – World Breaker

• Reading from his new Epic Fantasy Novel
• Inspired by Aus bushfires and Covid lockdowns
• Got comfort from old Fantasy Books
• “Heroes still exist and bad times don’t last forever”
• Rediscovered like of fairy-tales
• Mashing fairy-tales with high-fantasy
• Julian did a longing reading from the book
• Maps? – Country fairly small but quite detailed
• Languages? – No constructed languages in book
• Please expand on Origins
  • Inspired by Australian communities surviving wildfires
  • 21st century seems to require a lot of resilience
  • Worried especially younger people despairing about the future
  • But people are more adaptable than many give credit for
  • Series says ordinary heroes still exist and can overcome
• Planned for 3+ in series . But working on other projects too

Presentation: Stephen Vrettos – The Sound of Silver

• Sliver is a motif in Legendarium
• The sound of the word works will in hhrase
• Sounds of silver: Soft tone
  • Movement of water
• Gold in middle earth is often associated with evil
• Water in a spring is described as “falling silver”
• “murmuring of a silver stream”
• “sheer, heart-piercing silver, rang her voice”
• Brighter high-pitched sound than gold
• Lots and lots of examples. I wasn’t able to keep up.
• Goldberry – name is Gold, associated with Silver?
  • But her name mostly comes from Water Lilies
  • Probably the colour of the rushes
• Also the Gold-Substance is partially seperate from Gold-Colour
• Some discussion on the sound of Mithril
  • silver is bells, mithril is Tubular Bells

Additional question for morning Speakers

• Some more discussion about Silver and other metals
• Julian talked a lot about apples trees in the extract he read and how apples trees are big in mythology

Discussion Panel: Anthony Lawther, Phillip Menzies and Elizabeth (Dizzy) Rodrigues-Schifter – Exploring Espressione in “Exploring the Lord of the Rings”

• Panel Discussion
• Posted version of the Exploring the Lord of the Rings theme
• Outlines who they started joining listening to the podcast
• Gave an overview of the podcast and what it is about
• “My Wife says: Can you put Corey on when we are in Bed so she can fall asleep”
• Talks above favorite bits of the podcast. eg exactly where Frodo was stabbed, the Wargs
• Poems each liked
  • Dizzy – Road goes ever on
  • Phil – I sit beside the Fire
  • Anthony – Gimli’s song about Durin
    • Giant Spreadsheet, showing stresses of words etc
    • Questions about listening to the podcast, how much is about the book and how much other stuff.

Welcome

• In the grey area between fan convention and academic conference

Cover Versions: Exploring Adaptation Through Concepts of Legendarium Resonance by Louise Mathieson

• Which cover of the song “Over the Rainbow” do you like?
• People tend toward the original being best
• For Tolkien people have trouble even agreeing what is “canon”
• People criticise adaptations and what they change
• Borrow from music and “the cover version”
  • Echos, resonance, harmony
• Repetition without replication
  • Make the text or song ones own
• A cover version of a new interpretation of an existing musical work
• Difference between a cover version and a performance
  • Is a performance always trying to be identical?
• Hetrocoosm – an adaption of an entire story world rather than a single story
• The Hobbit Trilogy
  • Takes a children’s song and reconstructs as a complicated 3-part symphony
• Reconstruction of rhythmic elements and driven by temporal elements
• Harmonic and Dramatic deployment of consonance and dissonance
• The Language of a Cover Version is useful for examining Tolkien Adaptations

John Sangster: Australian Jazz Composer and Lord of the Rings by Andrew Johnson

• Born in Melbourne . 1928-1995
• Recorded 4 double albums about Middle Earth between 1974-78
• Overview of Career
  • Traveled to Europe, learned the drums on the way over on the boat
  • Learnt a lot over there and in US
  • Came back to Australia. Was on TV regularly in various roles. Did music for various shows (eg Hanna Barbarra)
  • Musical director of ‘Hair” musical in Australia
  • Very busy with TV during day, gigs in evenings
• Tolkien
  • Introduced in 1958
  • Thought there should be more musical and adaptations of the stories
  • The Hobbit Suite – 1973
    • Sold well and had residuals from cartoon music. Gave him some time
  • Released “Lord of the Rings” in 1974. Very successful . Jazz
  • Created 16 more tracks and released as Volume 2 in 1975
  • Volume 3 in 1976
  • Lots of amusing songs titles
  • Two additional Albums with music
• Music reissued following Jackson LOTR movies
• Total seven hours of music
• No issues with Tolkien Estate at the time
• The album covers
• Tracks for albums are listed here and nearby pages

Presentation: Phillip Menzies – The Words and Magic of Music in Rings of Power

• Explanation of various bits of music in the Rings of Power
• Themes from locations like Valinor
• Themes for People like Galadriel ( one of the most common on the show)
  • Galadriel also has a second theme that hasn’t been heard in the show yet
• Sauron’s theme. Ostinato
• See the S1 Prologue scene (with young Galadriel’s boat) has some of Sauron’s theme
  • The Boy with Red Head might be a Sauron equivalent (or even him)
  • Red Hair in the series is often linked to evil
• Had to skip the music in the Anatar revel in S2 due to time
• What does Magic sound like?
  • Examples
• The Stranger
  • Lots of hooks in with the Magic music. Like the magic is part of him