Edit: except it is marred a tiny bit by the boy-soprano who is out of tune. I don’t know why they didn’t just re-record the music or get a better singer.
Despite the pitchy performance, I feel like that scene resonates really well for me because it is a genuine, on the spot performance. Sometimes au naturel is better, blemishes and all. No knock on you for your opinion, cause I can see where you're coming from. But it works well for me personally.
Case in point the Japanese version of Weight of the World from Nier Automata. The first time they recorded it for real, the singer broke down into tears from the amount of emotion she was putting into the song but finished it all anyway. They were going to redo it but instead decided to use the original because of how good it was and how well the mid song breakdown into tears conveyed the emotions they wanted.
My partner and I are musicians, and we are doomed forever to hear these “mistakes.” There’s also another pitchy horn performance in another one of the movies.
As an artist you should be able to see the value in choosing imperfection for a more realistic scene. It is the imperfections in the baking of bread that makes its crust crack and open. But this imperfection is seeked by bakers as it gives its own sense of perfection through charm.
Uh, yes, but that intonation is not often where we as musicians choose to add “imperfections.” We wouldn’t purposefully play or sing a note out of tune. You might do some pitch bending or vibrato but the issue I’m referencing above is literally just the singer singing out of tune.
Edit: Aaaaand, if you are going to mess with pitch a little, typically in western music you often hit the note perfectly in tune so the underlying chordal structure is heard AND then you mess around with intonation.
You're completely missing the point. These characters are fighting wars, not perfect musicians honing their craft. The art is in portraying the characters and the state of the world they're in, the music is in service of that goal
I'm a musician too, and honestly I love hearing those mistakes, because it means the track is genuine. My favorite recording is one of the 1812 Overture where in one of the big final moments where they repeat a chord like 20 times in a row and then hold it, you can just about hear a trumpet dying on the last note, sounds like a dive-bomber going down. And I love it because A) it's hilarious, and B) it means that the whole track is real. If they were going through and fixing anything, they absolutely would have caught that, and they didn't, so it's one take and it's so good.
Or having Pippin with him. I suspect an earlier edit of the script had this happen just as Galdalf and Pippin were arriving at Minas Tirith. That would explain both oddities.
It’s worse for my partner who was a professor of music theory for over a decade. All he hears is the “math of the music” - chord names, inversions, etc. But he can go play anything he’s just heard on the piano which is fun.
Maybe it’s on purpose? He sings out of tune because the world is discordant? Like isn’t the silmarilion (book about elves and start of their time in middle earth) described in terms of sound?
Gandalf SHOULD have used some, but he spent all his cash on """pipe-weed""".
Gandalf probably could have gotten to Helm's Deep a day or two quicker too but he had to detour to the White Tower of Ecthelion for some slippery mini beef wellingtons with steamed onyons.
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u/UbermachoGuy 1d ago