Prepping music for The Hobbit's "The Last Goodbye"

I was delighted to play a small role on the final song on the soundtrack for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. As was the case in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the tremendously wonderful Victoria Kelly was called on to write the arrangement and orchestration for the final track, “The Last Goodbye”, and so I landed the music preparation role.

This time around there was a lot of going back and forth with revisions, tweaks and rewrites so there was plenty more time to enjoy the process, as opposed to the work-through-the-night-marathon of the first film.

So from a combination of audio and MIDI parts I transcribed and prepped the vocals, horns, choir, harp, dulcimer, piano, acoustic guitar and mandolin (both as TAB and notation), and strings for the recording. What a ridiculously amazing job I have.

It was such a pleasure to work with Victoria once again and to be involved in such a special project.

The song is sung by Billy Boyd (who plays Pippin in The Lord of the Rings), who co-wrote it with Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens. It was recorded in Wellington and Auckland, and then the orchestra at Abbey Road in London.

You can read more about the song here (Billboard) and here (Entertainment Weekly).