Busy Weekend

It has been a busy and fun weekend in game! Saturday’s highlight was the Summer 2011 Blogmoot, at which we had a dozen or so bloggers gather to chat about our craft – including some newly begun bloggers (Hi Locney!) and at least one who attended in hopes of starting one up soon. Our main topic of discussion was the splintering of the LOTRO blogger community that resulted from the troubles with My.LOTRO after the release of the beta community sites in September. So many bloggers have departed to wordpress or other platforms and it is hard to maintain an audience the way we could when My.LOTRO was so vibrant with activity. We considered that when My Middle Earth launches its 2nd beta with wordpress platform, it might be a good place to re-form the LOTRO blogging community. We will hope it works out! In the meantime, I’m going to be compiling a web page listing LOTRO blogs from My.LOTRO as well as other sources in an effort to publicize the writers who are in need of audience. So leave a comment if you have a blog, or know of one, that should be included on the list!

The weekend fun continued with Book Club today. We’ve just begun reading The Silmarillion and today we had a great discussion on the “Valaquenta” chapter! It was delightful to hear the Three-Word Epithets folks came up with for each of the Valar, and to hypothesize which Vala would be each person’s patron if we were elves in Middle-earth.

Last thing tonight was a special Old Winyards gig. We play at Ales and Tales every Monday and did some performing or Weatherstock too, and it seems our fame has spread, for we were asked to play at the wedding of Lifebringer and Pengurion! We put together a wedding playlist (including me converting midis to abc for the bridal chorus, wedding march, and some other songs) and some matching outfits and had a blast playing for the ceremony as well as the reception afterwards. Hurrah for the creativity that LOTRO’s music system inspires!

The Road Goes Ever On – Now in ABCs!

A while ago I posted some midis that I made years ago from “The Road Goes Ever On: A Song Cycle” of music by Donald Swann with lyrics from Tolkien’s poems. Well, finally, with help from Fionnuala’s posts about ABCs on CSTM as well as Astleigh’s posts on My.LOTRO, I’ve learned enough to convert them to be played in game. Encouraged by this success, I’ve checked the book out from the library again and am working on transcribing some more of the songs. I hope to be able to finish the whole song cycle…and then maybe we can have an Old Winyards concert!

The songs are on The Fat Lute; easiest way to find them is searching for the Artist: Donald Swann. I uploaded a solo version as well as a group version (3-4 parts mostly) for each song. Lyrics can be found back on the midi post. Help yourself and enjoy singing a bit of LOTR lore in game!

Wassailing in the Shire

The Bounders of the Shire (or the Green Hill Music Society? I’m not sure which was responsible, but it was Falibrand either way…) put on a great Wassailing event Friday night. Folks gathered at the gate to the Shire Homesteads, then we went into various different neighbourhoods to hear some excellent bands play Yuletide tunes.

Caroling at the Prancing Pony

Last night the lovely ladies of the Tinnu uin Galadhrim of Nimrodel got together in Bree for a holiday jam session, making merry with yuletide carols that entertained a few of the passersby. I will send you to Tuiliel’s excellent writeup for more of the details; for my part, I will simply offer thanks to the random minstrel who, some time ago, drive-by mentored Linett in the skill of playing Cowbell when she was standing at a mailbox and did not even realize it was happening. Having that uncommon skill meant it was what I got to play for most of the songs. Christmas carols do sound rather merry with more cowbell.

We hope to do a repeat performance later this Yule season, especially as our dear minstrel Digger was taken ill and could not join us this time. So watch for Tinnu caroling yet to come!

Music! Some of it actually LOTR related!

It’s surprising what can be discovered in the deep, dark recesses of my computer. Today I came across a program I used to play with quite a bit in college: Noteworthy Composer, only mine’s pretty far from the current edition shown at the link. And so, in the spirit of “Oh my goodness I can’t believe I did this…” I have unearthed a few of the midis I made with the program back in bygone days, for to share with you all. Please just bear in mind that I was young and some of these are rather lacking in polish. But I still liked a few of them, even years later, enough to share.