What an interesting topic! I really need to spend more time here at the fora.
I am a self-taught musician, from the time I managed to pick out my older-sister's two-hand practice pieces on our family piano at the age of 7. I play piano and other keyboard instruments reasonably well, and I have also taught myself guitar. I have some basic proficiency on the trombone, although nothing to brag about. More practice!
The "Concerning Hobbits" theme is not hard to follow, but difficult to arrange for a single instrument like the piano or guitar, as are most of the other movie-soundtrack themes from LOTR. I prefer to layer in several instruments using my Cakewalk software on my computer. The soundcard I have, however, produces barely-adequate results, and I am saving my pennies for a decent sound card or external MIDI keyboard which has higher-quality instrument-sound reproduction.
Someone mentioned a band using all our talents, and it spawned an interesting (but perhaps impractical) idea. Each of us could play (or play along with) a selected section of the soundtrack using his/her computer's recording software and a cheap microphone. Then someone with a computer and the right software, and more spare time than I currently have, could take e-mailed .wav files from each of us on a selected theme, and layer/merge them into a single wav or mp3 file. Voila! Instant orchestra!
There are of course, several logistical and practical issues involved with such an undertaking, such as which theme to use, what sections to play, how to keep everyone in-tune and in-time (tweaking an out-of-tune or out-of-sync instrument is fairly easy using Cakewalk). But it would be a *really* fascinating exercise.
I wish I could volunteer to be the nexus of such a project, but work and family issues would make it impossible for me. Anyone want to step forward?
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The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. ~~ Marcus Aurelius
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