Disclaimers

My apologies to the music majors out there. I know just enough to be dangerous, so please forgive where I sound ignorant.

I am not responsible for any damage to your keyboard when you get too caught up in the jam.

Getting Started

If you want to play original music with others (or even by yourself) there is a fairly simple trick that can provide amazingly good results.

The use of a 'pentatonic' scale prevents combinations that sound extremely bad. Basically a pentatonic scale is one that consists of only 5 notes, each a full step from the next. On a piano, this is most easily played by using only the black keys.

In LOTROs standard mapping, this means using only CTL-2, CTL-3, CTL-5, CTL-6 and CTL-7. You can expand this range by mapping additional keys to the other notes that include the '#' indicator. Or go all out and map ONLY the # keys. (See suggested mapping below)

Pentatonic music has natural 'flavor' appropriate to LOTRO, as much Celtic and traditional folk music is based on this scale. Many of the period instruments (including early 5 hole flutes) use this tuning, and almost anything you produce will sound 'period'.

Improvising with yourself

For best results, I suggest you use the mapping below.

(Lute and Harp) With your left hand, choose one or more notes from the bottom row, and start playing them repeatedly with a set beat and rhythm.

With your right hand, play with the notes on the second and third rows, playing them simultaneously with the bottom row notes or in the 'off beat'

Explore, find patterns you like and repeat them. Start with a pattern you like, explore a way from it, then come back to your base pattern.

(Single note instruments) Best done jamming with others but you can still do quite a bit. Explore runs up and down, find patterns you like, put them together into larger patterns.

Jamming with others

To jam with others, start with the drummer, laying down a constant repeating rhythm.

Next, assign one person to lay down the 'ostinato'. All this is, is a repeating pattern of notes and rhythm. It can be as simple as a single note (ctl-3) repeated with each beat of the drum, or a simple repeating set of 3 or 4 notes. However, for safety, limit it to ONLY notes on the pentatonic scale (the CTL keys above)

Then the last person can improvise the melody on top of those. Playing the melody line an octave higher than the ostinato makes it easier to distinguish (since we don't have volume control of our instruments). Play with patterns, run up and down, the only rule you MUST follow is stick to the # notes. If you have a midi keyboard, stick to the black keys. When you find patterns you like, repeat them periodically. If you can, match the ostinado periodically as a 'home' to start your improvisations.

Give this a try and I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the results.

Mapping key suggestion.

For a pentatonic scale, each octave has only 5 notes, and we have 3 octaves for a total of 15 notes.

map keys Z,X,C,V,B to C#2 D#2 F#2 G#2 and A#2

map keys H,J,K,L,; to C#3 D#3 F#3 G#3 and A#3

map keys Y,U,I,O,P to C#4 D#4 F#4 G#4 and A#4

With this mapping, you can pretty well jam away on those keys, and you'll never sound 'bad'. And with a little fooling around and practice you may find yourself getting applause, dancers and others to jam in.

[From Gorudil: I changed the mapping from the original post, this one is much easier to actually use.]

== External Links Original Article Source, courtesy of User:Gorudil