Game Of Thrones has one of the most recognisable scores on television and it’s all thanks to Ramin Djawadi.
The film and TV composer has been with the hit HBO fantasy show since the very beginning having previously worked on Iron Man, Pacific Rim and Warcraft and concurrently scoring another popular series Westworld.
Djawadi is currently in the middle of a world tour with Game Of Thrones Live Concert Experience, for which he conducts an 80-piece orchestra and choir, who perform music and set pieces from the show accompanied by LED telescoping, wall screens, special 3D designs and even special instruments made especially for the show.
During the Wall section, there’s an epic 12-foot Wildling horn played during the Wildling attack.
The live show comes to the UK from May 25-27 but Djawadi took time out before then to speak to Metro.co.uk about his work on the show and the secrets of being a composer.
When you first start out you’re not writing any music
I started out on an apprenticeship in Hollywood working as an assistant to Hans Zimmer and another composer Klaus Badelt. That’s how I got my foot in the door.
In the beginning, I wasn’t even writing any music. Now it’s all very technically based, on computers, and you’ve got to get a handle of all the equipment first which, at the time, coming out of college, I didn’t have any experience of that at all.
So at the time you just work in the background and just kind of observe, make sure all the machines are working and then slowly I was allowed to arrange some of the things on their films. That’s how you gain experience so you’re ready to do your own.
Every piece that gets written is a collaboration with the showrunners
As a film composer, you have to be a good collaborator. In the case of Game Of Thrones, it’s the showrunners, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who before I even began to write any music at all I just sat in a room with and talked.
I asked, thematically, what do you want to achieve, what’s the mood, what’s instruments you like and what’s the instruments you don’t like?
You won’t hear any flutes in the show
The famous quote we all laugh about is where they said ‘we don’t want it to be a stereotypical medieval show’ so we should stay away from flutes.
Those are all the things I took into account so I know whatever I’m going to write I’m not going to write for the flute.
He sees the show months before anybody else
I read the script and visuals that are available to me at that point and watch the show with them in what’s called a spotting session.
We watch the whole episode and decide at this moment this music will start and end, thematically what’s it going to do. Should it mislead the audience? Should it enhance the scene emotionally?
So we talk about that sort of stuff. Lengthy meetings, and when I have all that stuff I get to work.
But it’s never as good as seeing it when it finally airs
It’s three months before anybody else and the thing is it’s not as fun as people might think because – and this is why I’m good at keeping secrets – I believe people should see a show when it’s finished, mixed perfectly and the visual effects are done.
When I get to see it it might still be on green screen and the sound effects are not done, the sound is not great and still on a production track so it might be noisy while they speak in the microphone.
All that gets cleaned up in post, so it’s not as exciting, you have to look past a lot of things that still need to be finalised. You wanna see the big dragon and all the fun stuff that makes the show.
The Rains Of Castamere was set up two seasons early
The other [famous] song is The Rains Of Castamere, the lyrics are in the book and David and Dan told me when they finished season one that they were shooting season two.
They said ‘OK, you need to take the lyrics, write a song, and that’s going to be the Lannisters theme and eventually it’s going to be used in the Red Wedding.’
So that we set up two seasons before to know we’re going to end up there. Those are the things that we plan way ahead of time.
You rarely spend any time on set
It’s very separate. Every once in a while I get to set but, usually, my work begins when shooting is done and post-production starts so I come in at the very end.
In the case of Game Of Thrones, I’ve been to set a couple of times and it’s really exciting and inspiring for me to see the set and the actors in action, meet them and talk to them, so it definitely helps. If I can go to set I will.
Same with Westworld, and because it’s shot in LA it was a bit easier to go to than flying to Belfast!
He doesn’t listen to other film composers’ music
I listen to everything but score or that kind of music that you would hear in film and TV. I listen to either romantic classical music, Brahms or Beethoven or something like Mozart, or I go all the way contemporary and listen to Metallica or Adele, Radiohead, jazz, whatever it is that is completely opposite.
So I don’t listen to other music to get inspiration, I get inspiration, again, from conversations with my directors or showrunners or just life I guess. I try to dream up the music.
He didn’t meet Ed Sheeran when he performed a song on the show
I wrote the song but I didn’t get to meet with him unfortunately. They did tell me he would sing it and be in the episode but the lyrics are from the book.
George RR Martin wrote the lyrics, I wrote the melody and then Ed sang it.
The showrunners are really good that if I don’t have to know something right away I actually prefer not to know. They’re really good at not telling me something early.
Not every piece he writes makes the cut
[W]ith David and Dan… they really have an overall vision of what they want to achieve with the show so it sometimes takes some time to develop.
Also we have to look at the overall arcs so sometimes we pick a piece that will be here, here and here, then we watch the episode from the beginning and then we realise, maybe it shouldn’t have music at this bit at all.
No piano was used until season six
From season six the piece that’s called Light Of The Seven, that was the first time we used the piano in the score. So for six seasons, we’ve never had piano as part of the instrumentation in Game Of Thrones.
So this is a good example of where it’s been a very different scene, and we’ve said we’ve got to use a different instrument. So I wrote it on piano, presented it to them and then we got a little bit concerned. Did we push too far, is it the right language for the show?
So we rearranged it on different instruments like the harp, but realised it didn’t have the same quality of the piano so went back to that instead. The audience really picked up on it.
Each episode takes three months to score
I usually get a couple of episodes at a time. It depends how available they are editorially. Usually, I get them when they are overlength so I can get an idea of the overall arc of where it’s heading.
It depends how much music is in an episode, sometimes it is a lot sometimes not. Overall a season is usually a three-month process.
He hasn’t started writing season eight yet
I’m not working on the final season [yet]. I don’t know anything yet either. So I’m just as curious as everybody else!
For more information and to buy tickets for Game Of Thrones Live head to www.gameofthronesconcert.com
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