Andy Barclay from the London Philharmonic Orchestra describes crafting a film score using only natural instruments â€" and spoons
"I always go to see films I've played on thinking, 'I'll listen out for that bit'; and then I get to the end and realise that I haven't listened to the music, which is a compliment because you shouldn't be. If you don't notice it, then it's probably been good," says the London Philharmonic Orchestra's Andy Barclay.
Barclay is a percussionist, and I'm meeting him at one of the final 20 or so sessions the orchestra did this autumn to record Howard Shore's Hobbit soundtrack â€" and that was just for part one. "If you feel like you've been pulled through a mangle backwards then the music's good and it's done its job," he says. In hindsight, it's a slightly unfortunate choice of words given the nausea-inducing quality of Peter Jackson's 48 frames-per-second film.
Not that Barclay and his fellow musicians are able to see the film at any stage of the recording. "We don't even know what scene we were filming today," he says. "All the information we need is on the page, in the score. Howard has done the work: he's looked at the picture, he knows what he wants and then he writes it and we do it. If you had the film going nobody would be concentrating."
Barclay is a fan of Shore â€" "he's great to work with" â€" and the feeling is mutual. "I wrote the score specifically for the LPO," says Shore, whose relationship with the orchestra began in 1986, on David Cronenberg's The Fly. The orchestra recorded all of his Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings soundtracks, and Shore knows the players well, writing to their strengths. "This is very much an LPO sound that they've created for Middle-earth," he says. His soundtrack to the Hobbit trilogy will be "lighter" than the Lord of the Rings, although this isn't in evidence the day I visit the recording session â€" the scene they're working on is the attack of the Wargs.
Barclay says Shore's love of the London Philharmonic stems from the texture of its music. "We can do the powerful stuff but, for the tender moments, the orchestra makes a lovely warm sound," he says. Peter Jackson is meticulous in his recreation of JRR Tolkien's Middle-earth and no detail is left unconsidered, no matter how minute. In accordance with The Hobbit's quasi-medieval (well it's certainly pre-electricity, pre-guns) era, Shore uses only acoustic instruments in his score; there is nothing electronic.
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Today, Barclay is playing a taiko, a japanese drum. Shore also writes for the djun djun, an African drum. "They sound good in the background, and they're animal-skinned so sound particularly earthy â€" fitting for this naturalistic soundtrack," Barclay says. Listen carefully and you'll hear that not only do different characters and places have their own themes, Wagner-style, but Shore uses different instruments to establish theme, mood and location too.
To the uninitiated, the recording process can seem astonishingly detailed. For the two hours I watch, the orchestra cover only five or six minutes of the film. Shore's score is time-coded down to the last millisecond. Before they see the sheet music, the players don headphones to listen to a clicktrack which paces them so that their music fits the on-screen action. After every few bars Shore stops the orchestra. "Less vibrato. More French horn. From bar 49 it should be fortissimo." Occasionally he makes adjustments to his text. "Some film sessions, everything's preplanned absolutely and they put the clicktrack on and you just have to play it," says Barclay. "I find these sessions very relaxed because Howard's almost creating it as you go along. It's a much more organic process."
While the orchestra break for supper, Shore Skypes Jackson in New Zealand, to play him what has just been recorded. Some 80-90% of the film has music â€" it's a crucial element for Jackson â€" and he listens to every note Shore and the orchestra record. "Jackson thinks of the music as part of the creative process," says Barclay. "It might influence how he wants to edit a scene … we're often coming back to music we've recorded to make something a bit longer."
"The art is to sound as if you're playing Brahms with Kurt Masur when actually you've got clicks in your ear." And then there's the odd curveball that comes your way when you're a percussionist. "We've got all these different instruments â€" and then the other night Howard said: 'You got any spoons?'"
• This article was amended on 17 December 2012. The original said that The Hobbit was shot at 48 frames per minute, instead of 48 per second. This has been corrected.
Peter JacksonClassical musicLord of the RingsScience fiction and fantasyAction and adventureFilm adaptationsJRR TolkienLondon Philharmonic OrchestraImogen Tildenguardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/dec/17/the-hobbit-soundtrack-london-philharmonic
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