Ramin Djawadi

“The tonality of the flute almost has a mystic element to me.”

“Silence can be a very powerful tool. Sometimes it's more powerful to leave you with nothing.”

“The computer is limited in expression. It can't do what the human player can do. What's dangerous is that you fall for writing for the computer and what sounds good on it instead of writing something that actually sounds good when a player performs it. It's dangerous when you go down that road.”

“There's been a great development with scale on TV, but my approach is always the same across projects, whether it's a video game, a movie, or a TV show: I always try to set up my sounds and my themes. I really try to stay with the characters and do the storytelling through the music.”

“When I write music, these colors pop out of me. It's hard to describe, but basically when I write music, I paint, and I add colors, and I add notes.”

“I'm actually really good at keeping secrets.”

“Most of the time, I'll be conducting the orchestra, but there will be some pieces that I'll be playing an instrument as well, just because I love playing. There's pieces where I want to grab an instrument and play with the rest of the group, like 'The Light of the Seven,' for example; I would love to play the piano for that.”

“I guess with any type of music or any art, there's always an evolution.”

“Absolutely, I'm living my dream. Yeah. My wife always jokes, says I'm a big kid, you know, playing in the studio and coming up with melodies and sounds. And, you know, I wouldn't know any other way because I just have music in my head all the time, and I just love it.”

“One of the most fun parts about my job is that when the music gets recorded live at the end of the project and real musicians play it, I still get goosebumps every single time.”

“I've worked with Jonah Nolan on several projects. I really love collaborating with him.”

“I think a melody is a melody. And the way I usually start is I start writing my themes without even writing to picture to just try to find the tone for the movie or the TV show.”

“Really, I get inspired by just switching projects and instrumentation and things like that - that creative part of just being different every time is really what inspires me.”

“There's so many great themes from the '80s: 'Magnum,' 'Miami Vice.'”

“I'll say, 'I really like Daenerys,' and then I go, 'Wait, but I like the Stark theme, too, and I like the Lannister theme.' I keep jumping around. But I think that's kind of the beauty of 'Game of Thrones,' that there's so many different ones, and they're all kind of different, and they do different things.”

“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.”

“For me, always, the big inspiration really comes from talking with my creators, my showrunners and my producers, and seeing what is their vision for their project.”

“When I work on a movie, I look at the script or watch the film, and I talk to my director or producers and make a plan: this is our main character; we need a theme for this plot. We need a love theme.”

“I associate colors with music, or music with colors.”

“At the beginning of each project, I like to create a palette of sound for that particular project.”