An Interview with Keli – Fellowship Walk Contributor.

Come join the fun!

There are many contributors to the Fellowship Walk.  It just isn’t the organisers that create stuff to make this year’s Walk as entertaining as possible to participants.

I hope to do a few interviews with other contributors as well.  This is the first in that series, an interview with Keli who kindly gave this year’s Fellowship Walk two pieces of original music.

One piece we will be using in the broadcast intro while the other is our vendors theme, aptly titled Plum Jam.

Here is what Keli had to say about his music and about the Walk.

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Mysteri: What made you start playing music in LOTRO?

Keli: Well, the music in Lotro always intrigued me as it’s such a unique feature. Having said that, I spent a couple of years playing on Evernight ignoring the music as I was having too much fun levelling with good friends there. Eventually though I felt I needed something more or else I would lose my interest in the game. Happily, at that precise moment I first heard about Weatherstock.

This was in 2011 and it was just after us European players gained the freedom to create characters on US servers. So I rolled a character on Landroval and attended Weatherstock.

And crashed. And crashed again, and again. But I saw just enough to know I had to be a part of this.

I applied to the Lonely Mountain Band who, at that time, were expanding rapidly and they were looking for more European players. That and being an Old Fogey meant I was a shoo-in. Ain’t looked back since.

Of course, I knew nothing about the music in Lotro but there are some great teachers in LMB (Hello Aegthil, Astleigh and Beorbrand). Now, I think I’m pretty adept.

The other part of the story is that after a few months I organised a new band to cater for the Europeans and the afternoon US players – and so The Andune Ensemble was born. Closing in on 100 concerts now 🙂

Mysteri: What made you become interested in the Fellowship Walk?

Keli: I got involved in The Fellowship Walk when CSTM asked for a band to play, oh, 2 years ago I think. I also put on a concert last year. It’s a great cause and we love supporting it.

Well, when you guys put out a request this year for some original music, I had a piece lying around that was sort of like a fanfare piece and I thought that might be suitable and sent it in. At the same time I was finishing another tune. While I was going through the usual agonies of deciding what to call it (it became Plum Jam) it occurred to me that it was a nice, jolly, tune that could be used somewhere in the Walk. So that got sent in too.

I was surprised that you liked them enough to use them, especially after hearing that awesome tune from Achazia.

Mysteri: The thing is, your songs were totally different from Achazia’s and more what we were looking for the uses we gave them.

Keli: Well, I’m mighty pleased of course.  My music character, Geoffroi, is really arrogant so don’t let him hear  you say that or he will be insufferable. Luckily, the band is filled  with very talented people and they keep him in his place, which is mostly in jail until they can be bothered to come up with the bail money. I don’t know why they stick with him really; there’s no money playing for The Andune Ensemble, we get paid in pies.

I have to say I’m not any kind of musician but I do have a good ear and know what sounds good in Lotro.

Mysteri: I like your music 🙂  I look forward to Andune playing on 12 October.

Keli: Thanks.

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Keli has also donated a lesson in transcribing midi files to abc files.  If you would like a lesson on how to do this (I know I would!), look out for the auction A Lesson with Keli and make sure you bid.

Have fun