A Minstrel’s Journey, Part I: A Time of Learning

Mae govannen, readers of LOTRO Players. My name is Fionnuala and I’m going to be a new contributor on this space, focusing on articles about the music system including news, interviews and articles about music groups and music events. First, I thought I tell you a bit about me and the long, strange journey I’ve taken to become a Minstrel of renown in the lands of Middle-earth.

Four and a half years ago my husband and I left World of Warcraft for LOTRO, where I hoped to find greener pastures. One of the interesting things that attracted me was LOTRO’s player music system. I didn’t really understand the references I read to bands playing Don’t Fear the Reaper in Middle-earth and such, but I definitely wanted to find out what it was all about. It was January of 2009 when we finally rolled characters on the Landroval server.

In March we attended our first concert in Michel Delving and was a joint effort by band from the Hobbiton Philharmonic, Gweth Valacirca and others. I remember Gweth Valacirca playing their signature song, a magnificent in game rendering of music from the Riverdance stage show which began slow and slowly picked up speed until the drum notes seems to be coming impossibly fast. Saying that I was blown away by my first experience of music in concert in LOTRO would be putting it lightly. I was amazed, enchanted, seduced beyond the point of no return. I joined the kinship Gweth Valacirca, husband in tow, and threw myself into the music.

The first thing we learned from Gweth Valacirca was not to get files from The Fat Lute. This was a kinship of experts who had been using the music system since its inception and were masters of the abc format. When they found out we were playing duets from The Fat Lute, they quickly brought us to the kinhall for a massive music session where we were set up with their huge collection of abc files and taught the ins and outs of playing music in a group. We took to it instantly and were told that we were “naturals”. We began to play impromptu concerts on Saturday nights in Bree with GV and signed up to be a part of the band they took to the first Weatherstock.

In the meantime, I received a mentoring session in creating my own abc files from Eske, the leader of GV. He took the time to walk me through the process step by step. I didn’t start out small. While most people might get their feet wet with a simple solo piece before moving onto larger things, I started by creating a 4 part abc of the song Across the Universe by The Beatles (one of my all time favorite songs). Though he did convince me that learning to do drums parts should be postponed due to their added complexity.

My first file was a triumph, due to Eske’s guidance, of course. So I immediately started trying to make more on my own. My first lone efforts were frustratingly hit or miss, but whenever I had a question or ran into an obstacle someone from GV was there to help me out. Aside from Eske, Earnal deserves recognition for the help he gave me, always with the upmost patience despite the messes I got into from rushing headlong into transcription. Some songs I had to abandon, some I hammered at mercilessly until they resembled something like music in game. But inspired by the greatness of the music played by GV, I never gave up. I’m not sure I would have persevered so if it hadn’t been for their example. I cannot thank them enough. I, in turn, passed on what I had learned to my husband and he gradually began his own forays into abc making.

Weatherstock came and went (I’ll talk about that experience another time) and soon afterward most of the veteran players of GV announced that they had grown unhappy in LOTRO and intended to leave the game. Well, I was crushed, and not only because I hadn’t yet learned how to transcribe a drum part. Eske, Earnal and Kiapan who had built Gweth Valacirca up as one of the premiere music playing groups on Landroval at that time, left LOTRO and the few of us left the pick up the pieces. We tried for a while. My husband and I ended up being the remaining members of the kinship with the most musical knowledge, meager as it was at that time, and so we took up the duties of organizing music meetings and impromptu concerts in Bree and trying to make new material to play.

There was a lot of trial and error in that time and a lot of learning by doing. It was, in a way, very exciting. We met new players, we taught them to play music and in teaching them we taught ourselves. We slowly began to come to a place where our abcs were good more often than they were bad. We made some wonderful new friends in some players that we had recruited into the kinship: Dyjia, Sanjali and Hildibjorn. They were enthusiastic and supportive of our musical efforts. And yet, due to circumstances I will refrain from going into, ultimately our relationship with the new leader of Gweth Valacirca began to descend into drama and we decided our best course would be to leave the kinship.

Despite its inglorious end, I treasure our time spent in Gweth Valacirca. It was a time of discovery and learning and growth. I miss Gweth Valacirca to this day, but I know that I’ve also grown beyond them. I’ve become my own Minstrel.

Next- Part II: Days in the Cottage of Lost Play