Quote Originally Posted by veti View Post
Lord of the Rings: Gandalf uses Pyrotechnics several times, he uses Knock (unsuccessfully) on the doors of Moria, and Hold Portal (equally futilely) inside it. In The Hobbit, he casts a Lightning Bolt at least once. However, no-one talks about "spells" as far as I can recall.
I can recall a few:

Quote Originally Posted by The Hobbit: An Unexpected Party
The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells....
Quote Originally Posted by The Hobbit: Roast Mutton
Then they... carried away the pots of gold, and buried them very secretly not far from the track by the river, putting a great many spells over them, just in case they ever had the chance to come back and recover them.
The reader isn't given any details, though, so it's not clear what, if anything, is the difference between "spells" and the spontaneous sort of magic that Gandalf uses, other than that Dwarves apparently use the former but not the latter.

As an aside:

Quote Originally Posted by The Hobbit: Roast Mutton
They... came on a big door of stone leading to a cave. But they could not open it, not though they all pushed while Gandalf tried various incantations.
Gandalf is apparently really bad with doors.