Former Oklahoman composes a soundtrack for Middle-earth

Since 1998, Thomas has composed scores for 10 computer and video games (three unreleased) based on Tolkien's “The Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

“Tolkien had spent a lot of time thinking about the way his world sounded,” Thomas said in a recent phone interview. “He spends a lot of ink describing musical instruments the various races use, the songs that were sung, the various emotions that were conjured up by the music and the lyrics.

“I wanted to become expert on how music in Middle-earth is supposed to sound based on the literature and intelligent inferences I could make based on that information. Thus began a multiyear project of pulling out, understanding and collating every sound and musical note.”

He collected his notes in his “Tolkien Music Sound Guide” and has used them as the basis of his scores ever since.

His scores are featured in several video game titles, including a few that borrow their names directly from Tolkien. They include “The Hobbit,” “The Fellowship of the Ring,” “The Two Towers,” “War of the Ring” and three “Lord of the Rings Online” games. The most recent, subtitled “Riders of Rohan,” was released last year to acclaim from critics and gamers.

The Rohan soundtrack is available on iTunes, Amazon and Spotify.

Thomas' connection to gaming began in 1996. Several years earlier, Thomas had graduated from Brigham Young University in Utah; he and his wife became paid entertainers on cruise ships sailing through the Caribbean.

By the early 1990s, though, Thomas was back on dry land. He opened a music production company in Salt Lake City. Then a friend told him that Sierra Online, then a big player in the computer gaming industry, had an opening for a composer.

At first he wasn't interested. He hadn't paid attention to the increasing sophistication of video games, which had come a long way since Pac-Man. When he played some recent games with his friend, though, he was impressed.

He applied for the Sierra job, auditioned and was hired to compose music for “Quest for Glory 5,” the latest in a series of popular games combining the action and role playing genres. Things went well, and in 1998, he was given the task of composing music for a proposed massive multiplayer game called “J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth.”

That's when Thomas began compiling his Tolkien sound guide.

Although that game was ill-fated (within a year Sierra underwent a massive reorganization), it brought Thomas into the Tolkien fold. As years passed, more titles went into development, and some made their way into production.