Ramin Djawadi explains how he composed key musical moments from Game of Thrones season 7

Somehow, some way, Game of Thrones composer Ramin Djawadi has never won an Emmy award. This is despite him working on the show since the beginning and penning everything from the iconic opening theme to “Light of the Seven,” the haunting melody that plays over the destruction of the Sept of Baelor.

But this is his year…we think; if it’s not, life is going to get unacceptably confusing. His work on Game of Thrones season 7 is nominated in the category of Outstanding Music Composition For A Series (Original Dramatic Score):

• Game Of Thrones, “The Dragon And The Wolf”
• Marvel’s Jessica Jones, “AKA Playland”
• Once Upon A Time, “Leaving Storybrooke”
• SEAL Team, “Pattern Of Life”
• Star Wars Rebels, “Family Reunion”
• Westworld, “Akane No Mai”

And since Djawadi also composes for Westworld, he’s got double the chances to win. He’s gotta win; he’s just gotta.

But we’ll find that out when the 70th Annual Emmys air on NBC on September 17. Before that, Djawadi is talking up his work to outlets like Indiewire, which asked him about the difference between composing for Game of Thrones and Westworld. “‘Game of Thrones’ offers such a wide range of instruments that I use and stylistically for what I’m doing, but ‘Westworld’ is the same,” he said. “There is so much for me to explore. It goes all the way from these acoustic and organic instruments to ethnic instruments this season. But then it goes all the way to the other side by experimenting with sound designs purely with synthesizers.”

"I haven’t started on [season 8] and don’t know anything about what’s to come, but I thought the setup for Season 8 was really great with the different houses coming together, now having to deal with the threat from the north. The two big additions are the Jon and Daenerys love theme (‘Truth’), and the White Walker theme (‘Against All Odds’)."

Those songs both debuted in season 7; if you ask me, “Truth” is the best piece of music Djawadi has written since “Light of the Seven.”

“The theme is played in a low register, harmonically neutral, but with the capability of being more expressive and emotional with the full orchestra,” Djawadi said of the song. “This new theme provides a sense of progression.” You can hear that throughout season 7; the theme first crops up during an early scene between Jon Snow and Daenerys on Dragonstone, but doesn’t really kick in until their intimate encounter in the finale.

In stark contrast to the elegant “Truth,” “Against All Odds” is a dissonant, hard-driving track with a lot of menace behind it. “Season 6 was the first time we used the piano, and it was an opportunity to play with it more with the new White Walker theme,” Djawadi said. “In [the first episode of season 7], you see this unstoppable force coming in the snow and it develops melodically. Then, it fully plays when the wall comes down in the final scene of the season.”

Hey, snippets of “Truth” sneak into this song, as well; Djawadi’s melodies always have hidden goodies if you look for them.

We’re especially big fans of Djawadi’s work on Thrones, but he done great stuff on Westworld, too, where he gets to “experiment with a lot of ethnic instrumentation: shamisen, koto, various taiko drums, and shakuhachi flutes.” One of the best musical moments from that show’s second season came when the characters entered “Shogun World,” and were treated to a Japanese-style remix of The Rolling Stones‘ “Paint It Black”:

And in season 1, we’d heard an American frontier-style version of that song back in Westworld. “I removed the more Western percussion, like the snare drum and base drums, and replaced that with various sizes of taiko drums. Instead of some of the piano lines, I replaced that with shamisen, which is like an ethnic banjo type of plucked instrument. Also, instead of harp, I replaced it with the koto, which is the ethnic version of the harp.”

Djawadi is about to start the North American leg of the Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience, but we’re sure he’ll be happy to stop by Los Angeles to pick up his Emmy.

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