It is yule! The Hobbit movie is out! So what better time ter run into those misty mountains again? Here is the video, this time with vocals, kindly provided by Floradine! So here is our little yule present to the LOTRO community.
Misty videos
Two months back, I made a video based on the poem Far Over The Misty Mountains Cold, written by... eh, yer know who, hm? I was really pleased with the result meself, and it is by far the most-visited post on this burrow. Yer can see the original video here. Oh, and here is how it was made.
Happy though I was with the video, there was something missing: Vocals. While subtitles work too, they tend ter distract a little from the visual experience. However, my own voice wouldn't make the cut, no no. Screechy mountains cold or somet? Brr. Rest assured, roleplaying a bard doesn't half make yer one in real life.
Yesterday, though? Enter Floradine.
Breaking that server barrier
One of the grand things with playing massively multiplayer online games, and LOTRO in particular, is that yer meet some truly special people from all over the world. There are many on me home server Laurelin, but there are also a lot of lovely people elsewhere. Sadly, playing mostly on one server, yer never get the chance ter meet them.
However, mid-June each year, there is the Weatherstock concert series held on the Landroval server. Here bands from all over meet to play and compete and not least have a lot of fun together. By participating here twice with The Songburrow Strollers, I have had the pleasure of meeting those grand folks from other servers, who have the same interests in the LOTRO music system as meself. Many of them are members of The Lonely Mountain Band, the kinship who (among many other things) hosts Weatherstock. Which I can only assume is an oliphaunt undertaking of band scheduling, logistics, safety for low level players, crowd control, and so on. Rest assured yer efforts are much appreciated by the rest of us!
One of them Lonely Mountain members I have met during Weatherstock is Floradine. Floradine obviously loves LOTRO music as well, which is obvious if yer visit this page with songs, poems and adventures.
Kicking it up a notch
Yesterday, Floradine added a version of Misty Mountains Cold to twitter. It was based on the same midi I had worked on, but arranged by Keli (one of them other Lonely Mountain Band players, also The Songburrow Strollers roadie during Weatherstock 2012). And ooh - it had vocals!
Which made me rush to download the file and try put it into me video. Sadly, Floradine's version of the song was slower than me own, so I had ter speed it up a little. And this made the sound quality suffer. Oh well.
Flora's response? "send me your abc, I'll sing it faster for you"
/faint /dustoff /cheer
Three hours later, a new recording of the song lay waiting in me quick post. How lovely was that?
And finally, the video
So with the yule spirit of cooperation and sharing in mind, below yer can see the Floradine and Lina version of "Far Over The Misty Mountains Cold". Full screen and HD quality is recommended if yer system can cope with it.
Should yer just want to listen to the song, without video and me silly sound effects, yer can do so right here!
A grand and merry yule to each and every LOTRO player out there! And a special wave to them lovely dwarven roleplayers on Laurelin, I hope yer like this new version of the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pSFswglyI8 Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold: Vocals Version