Flute player performs haunting ‘Lord of the Rings’ melody in mile-long tunnel

2 December 2022, 14:08

A flautist finds his very own Middle Earth – and turns it into a subterranean concert hall…

This is the haunting sound of a flute player performing music from Howard Shore’s The Lord of the Rings, in a nearly mile-long tunnel.

Paul Harvey is an ironworker and self-taught musician who specialises in flutes of the Native American style. The instrument he’s playing in this video is a ‘walking stick’ drone flute, which can produce drone notes under the melody line.

In the video below, Harvey plays ‘The Great Eye’ (Gondor’s Theme), which features throughout the film franchise. The LOTR fans among you may recognise it from The Return of the King as Pippin rides with Gandalf on horseback towards the White Tree.

Close your eyes and drift into the soundworld of Minas Tirith, as Harvey adds beautiful harmony to Shore’s melody, through drone notes…

Read more: The Lord of the Rings soundtrack – a guide to Howard Shore’s score

Harvey’s playing is atmospherically accompanied by the sounds of dripping water inside the abandoned tunnel, located in Wisconsin, US.

After playing the beautiful Native American instrument in a previous video, Harvey told Classic FM: “It is a walking stick drone flute, which means there are two flutes.

“The one on the upper half of the stick is the drone flute, so it has no holes in and makes only one note when blown. That note matches the lowest playable note on the melody flute, which makes up the lower half of the walking stick.”

Harvey is becoming a bit of an expert in finding great acoustics in unusual places. Here’s the time he took an Irish low whistle to an abandoned church, an duetted with a violist on the classic hymn ‘Amazing Grace’.

Find even more on his YouTube channel, where he goes by Paul Harvey Flute guy.