"A Speculative History of the Music of Arda", Steven Linden

[Aiwendil]

Perhaps a new member, Steven Linden, will register and post his replies here?

Or perhaps an old member will!

Had Linden any opinion or argument about music in the ME in comparison to different musical cultures of the real world or is it just based on western musical tradition? So is it just the reversal of western musical history brought by applying the myth of the fall from paradise?

I intentionally restricted my speculation to western music. As Bethberry states, this largely stems from 'authorial intention'; I'm pretty firmly convinced that when Tolkien thought of music, he naturally thought of western music.

Of course, resting an argument on inferences about Tolkien's thoughts and intentions invites all manner of (the dreaded) canonicity issues. As a matter of fact, when it comes to canonicity I'm a Text (rathern than Author or Reader) person, so I am myself a bit uncomfortable with that argument.

I do think a weaker argument to the same effect can be made from the texts themselves; to wit, all of the instruments mentioned (as far as I can recall) are western instruments (fiddles, viols, clarinets, flutes, harps, etc.) I grant that 'flute' and 'harp' can refer to a variety of non-western instruments beside the western varieties; moreover, we are probably not to understand these instruments to be identical to their modern counterparts. Rather, names like 'clarinet' are translations of the original, Elvish or Westron, names for instruments that no longer exist. But this does, at least, suggest that those instruments resembled western instruments more than they did those of any other culture.

I confess this argument is not a supremely forceful one; and one could construct a history of music in Middle-earth that is not so firmly based on European music. But taken together with such things as Tolkien's Gregorian chant version of 'Namarie', his English folk song version of Sam's troll song, and the generally European character of Middle-earth in general, I at least am convinced that its music resembled western music more than it did any other modern tradition.

I should perhaps say 'the music of the Elves and Edain' - for I do think it would be quite in keeping with the spirit of Middle-earth if the Easterlings and the Haradrim, for instance, had rather non-western music.