One Soundtrack To Rule Them All : How History and Culture Have Shaped The Song & Music Of A Fictional World

Ready your capes and walking sticks, because in this blog, we are venturing through the musical world of Middle-earth in Sierra Entertainment’s The Hobbit!

After having written a couple of blogs about Celtic history and its influence, it is finally time to tackle The One… Tolkien. Although the genre has existed for a long time, it is nearly impossible to discuss the fantasy genre without recognising the influence that Tolkien has had on it. His books, and the stories and worlds he created within them, not only captivated audiences when they came out, but even to this very day, we can’t seem to get enough of them. Studios regularly release films, TV shows, and games, keeping us fans voluntarily trapped in Middle-earth.

One such game is Sierra Entertainment’s The Hobbit (2003). This game is near and dear to my heart and has fully engraved itself in my memory, as I remember playing it over and over again as a child. (For those readers who have played it, I’m sure you’ll remember how infuriatingly difficult it was to get past the trolls!)

By revisiting it now, years later, I’m looking at the game with renewed admiration. Sure, people might consider the art style and gameplay to be a bit clunky by today’s standards, but back then, it was a good game. The developers really stuck to the source material (J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit) as best as they could, and the music is absolutely wonderful.

The composers of the game created a well-made and well-researched soundtrack that even ended up winning them an award for “Best Original Soundtrack Album” at the 2003 G.A.N.G. Awards. But how did the music producers of this game create a score that sounds like it belongs to Middle-earth? How do you even create musical motifs that people will recognise as belonging to fictional cultures within fantasy settings, such as dwarvish or elvish?

Written Words Flow Off The Page Like Music Notes

Before we delve into the musical world of Tolkien, it is maybe worth mentioning that the blogs you (might have) read of me so far mostly focus on Celtic history. This blog is a little different. The phenomena we’re looking at here can’t be found in the past, but in the present. The music I will discuss below is a modern interpretation of a long, ongoing evolution. Sure, some instruments and songs have a historical and cultural past, but what we consider to be, for example, Celtic music nowadays is largely determined by our own perception of things we grew up with in association with the term “Celtic”. Therefore, you may need to make a small shift when reading this blog, compared to my previous work. Now back to the topic at hand…

Tolkien wrote down a plethora of songs in his books to not only provide the readers with information about the story and its characters, but also to aid the immersion and further the world-building, like Estelle R. Jorgensen explains. Because what is a world without music? Unfortunately, due to the nature of literature and the written word, we will never know exactly how Tolkien envisioned these songs to sound out loud. It is thanks to the interpretation and hard work of different composers that we now have a collective understanding of what Middle-earthian music sounds like. But we will never truly know whether this aligns with what Tolkien heard in his head.

The composers of The Hobbit game created a score that was similar to the sound that earlier films and games had already established, whilst still adding their own twist. You might wonder what I mean by “the sound that earlier works had already established.” By the time this game dropped, Peter Jackson’s film trilogy The Lord of the Rings had been fully released. Along with the other bits of Middle-earth media that had come out over the previous decades, Howard Shore and the others formed a collective idea in people’s minds of what they should expect when it came to this fictional world.

Countless People Brought A Fictional World’s Music To Life (& It Sounds Absolutely Amazing!)

To maintain a similar sound throughout all adaptations of Tolkien’s works, you need someone who keeps an eye on everything that creators release. Chance Thomas is that person. Not only has he worked on a great number of games and films himself as a composer, but he has also worked as “The” Tolkien Music Director for many years. As he explained in an interview with Gamedeveloper, he created “a ‘Music Style Guide’ for the franchise which detailed specific palettes of instruments to be used for each race, harmonic content guidelines, melodic tendencies, voice types, production standards and music design recommendations.” This helped later projects stay in line with the music earlier composers had created. That was also the case for The Hobbit game. Thomas helped fine-tune the music and made sure no strange (meaning not Middle-earthian-ish) instruments ended up in the eventual soundtrack.

There is one big difference between film and game soundtracks, though, that most people might not even realise exists. Film scores follow a linear and passive narrative path where the interactive nature of video games has to take the unpredictability of players’ actions into account. Additionally, music is an emotional conduit in both instances, but video game soundtracks can reach further into the emotional depths than film scores ever could. Like Illustrate Magazine points out, “[w]ell-designed soundtracks can enhance the player’s sense of achievement, alertness, and focus.”

Every scene, location, fantasy race, and setting (moving in and out of combat, etc.) needs its own music. This is especially important when you’re dealing with Tolkien’s works, considering the man worked so hard to create a fully fleshed-out world in his books, which is something Isabella van Elferen talks about in her article about fantasy music. The composers and sound producers needed to make sure all the different songs and sounds blended seamlessly to keep the player immersed, regardless of what choices the player made. Whether the player moves forward, backwards, or makes an unexpected choice, the music needs to match. It is a challenging task, indeed, but Abernathy and the others did incredibly well. The music is truly one of the highlights of the game, and perfectly fits into the world of Middle-earth. Perhaps it is, therefore, fitting to end on Abernathy’s words:

“The sound of game music has become so sophisticated and complex that it’s sometimes hard to distinguish it from its film-score sibling. At its best, it brings the player closer to a truly interactive experience, something film scores can’t do.”

Amy Snoeren is an intern of the VALUE Foundation and a Language and Culture Studies (BA) student at Utrecht University. During her time at Utrecht, she’s followed a multitude of subjects, such as Ancient Greek and Roman culture, as well as Celtic languages and culture. She hopes to follow this up with a masters in Public History, with a focus on video games and film & TV. She mostly enjoys action-adventure games and horror games with great storytelling, but also enjoys simple, silly games with friends. If you would like to contact her, you can message her via LinkedIn.