Kevin sez, "The Fellowship of the Strings finally recorded their hot new single, The Ballad of Helm's Deep! We think the Boing Boing crowd would definitely get a kick out of our music, and of course we've included the lyrics and guitar chords if anyone would like to learn it."

They're no Lords of the Rhymes, but that's still some fine, filky, nerdy fingerpickin'. The Ballad of Helm's Deep

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I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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http://twitter.com/Listener43 Listener43

Bluegrass? One cannot play the bluegrass music without the five-string banjo.

Furthermore, I hear no fingerpicking; it’s plectra all the way down.
codesuidae

Excellent. I’m more of a Battlelore (http://www.last.fm/music/Battlelore ) fan myself, but more is better!
ben levitt

It should be pointed out that today would have been the 100th birthday of Bill Monroe, the (as far as I know) uncontested father of Bluegrass.
franko

bravo!
http://www.facebook.com/phogan Patrick Hogan

Nickel Creek and its respective band members have had a few Lord of the Rings bluegrass instrumentals. In the House of Tom Bombadil on their first album (no relation to the Leonard Nimoy version) and then Chris Thile had a song called Riddles in the Dark on his solo album (which was also called “Not All Who Wander Are Lost”)
Ian Gilmore

Acoustic does not equal bluegrass. There’s no banjo, no fiddle, no mandolin and no bass. It’s just filk.
Harrison Kjos

I don’t know if a banjo is a requirement but you have to do a little more than strum an acoustic to be considered bluegrass.
Guest

They may also want to reconsider that verse right after the first chorus. The one that suggests that the Lord of their strings is Jackson not Tolkien.
http://www.grebmar.net/ Grebmar

Yeah. Big meh. Sorry dudes.
M Alovert

Cute, but not bluegrass, and certainly not fingerpicking.

Lord of the Rings bluegrass: "Ballad of Helm's Deep"

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