Music Worth Commending

There are probably few things I like more than music (aside from the obvious, of course). A lot of the music I like reminds me of my writing, but even if it doesn't there's still a chance of me liking it. Some of my favorite bands include TobyMac, Owl City, Britt Nicole, and Needtobreathe. But there is one artist that I wish to commend above all the others, and his name is Howard Shore.

We'll see why in a moment. 

Lately, I've been listening to a lot of instrumental music while I do schoolwork. Since tracks from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey make up quite a few of my instrumental tracks, I've been listening to those quite a bit. And I've also come to formulate a theory hypothesis: Music cannot convey emotions nearly as well as words and images can. 

Why? Well, to start with, words. Words are probably a lot more "real" than music is, because in this day and age we are surrounded by the written word every day. On this webpage alone are thousands of written words. Any literate person can read this words and formulate their own mental meaning/image/argument/etc. to go along with them. So words are more "real" than music. 

Next up, images. Images are even more "real" than words, probably because most human beings input and process images constantly, day after day. Images can be taken in in a fraction of a second and understood in the next fraction of a second. Images generally have no problem conveying what they want to convey. So images are very "real". 

And that brings us to music. 

Music is abstract. We hear it in a fraction of second, yet what we hear does not immediately convey a message the way words do. This is especially true of orchestral/instrumental pieces. And so it can be a lot harder to use an orchestra to convey emotion. 

Which brings me to a final point. 

The only song that has ever truly, primally, scared me is an orchestral, instrumental piece by Howard Shore. It's called The Hill of Sorcery.

Now, it should be noted that I don't listen to a lot of "scary" music, so maybe that doesn't count. But this piece of music is also the only song out of the 208 songs that I like that evokes any sort of true emotion for me. The runner-up is probably Vanilla Twilight by Owl City. But that has lyrics, and works in conjunction with images from a movie-that-shall-not-be-named to make me sad. So it's not a very close runner up. The Hill of Sorcery has no lyrics and, though it is from a movie, is just as scary on its own as in the scene it goes with. 

And that is why I want to commend Howard Shore. 

(A note: If you just want to hear the scary part of The Hill of Sorcery, skip to 1:41 and listen carefully. To see the scene that goes with it in the movie, go here.)