Composer Ramin Djawadi offers insight into scoring Westworld

Ramin Djawadi reveals some of the magic behind the iconic music of Westworld.

Many elements make Westworld one of the best shows on television, one of which is Ramin Djawadi’s incredible music. Djawadi has not only composed the music for both seasons of Westworld, but also for HBO’s other hit show Game of Thrones.

The main title theme songs that accompany the opening credits of both shows are instantly recognizable to countless individuals and even familiar to those who don’t watch the series.

He recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter and provided insight into his composing process:

"Sounds begin to form 
in my head. I’ll go on walks or drive around while my brain works in the background 
to develop ideas. I can almost see the music. It comes in the form of colors — colors jump out at me, and that translates into notes. They come fully formed: the orchestration parts, not just the melodies. Even though they’re not always the right ones to use, the initial idea comes like that."

His nuanced understanding of his metacognition and creative process is fascinating in itself but is made even more so given the content of Westworld. The hosts are constantly trying to better understand how their minds work and how their programming influences their actions.

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In a way, Djawadi is doing the same thing here, working to understand how his thinking manifests itself into beautiful music. That visualization of colors that translates into notes and eventually into brilliant music sounds like something Robert Ford or Bernard might say when describing how a host’s consciousness works.

Most of the show’s music is completely original, but in certain instances, Djawadi has composed a new take on existing songs. The most well-known is arguably “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones, which Djawadi adapted for when Hector and Armistice ride into Sweetwater.

As part of demonstrating that the narratives of Musashi and Hanaryo heavily mirrored that of Hector and Armistice, the song played again in the Shogun World episode “Akane No Mai.”

Djawadi described how the rearrangements of such well-known music can occur when composing for Westworld:

"In this second season of Westworld, we used that Wu-Tang Clan song [“C.R.E.A.M.”]. They needed me to rearrange it before shooting 
so they could come up with the choreography and then play it on set for the cast. Doing that was something quite different because it was for this new Shogun World, and it had to have very specific instrumentation. But that’s part of what I love about what I do, getting new challenges like that."

He also revealed some unusual sounds that have been recorded for the show:

"On Westworld, we used some sounds recorded in space by NASA for when [the show’s robots] were offline and sitting in this room. We did it in order to give that room some ambience when [human] characters are talking to a robot and going through code."

It is this kind of depth and out-of-the-box thinking that makes Westworld such a unique and impressive show. Fans have heard this sound numerous times and whether they realized it or not have associated it with scenes when the hosts were offline and being analyzed.

Strange as it may seem, sounds recorded in space by NASA is the perfect way to give those scenes the sense of cold sterility and lack of humanity they’re intended to exhibit.

Westworld is lucky to have Ramin Djawadi as the show’s composer. We look forward to hearing new additions to the score in season 3 and in the meantime will listen to the existing soundtrack as much as humanly possible.