Photo: Matt Martin
With a CV that includes Westworld, Game Of Thrones and Prison Break, Ramin Djawadi is one of the busiest composers in Hollywood.
To mark the eighth and final season of the wildly successful HBO series Game Of Thrones, the Fender Custom Shop created the Sigil Collection, a set of handcrafted guitars inspired by the iconic houses of Westeros. In a YouTube video that has gained over 40 million views, Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave, Nuno Bettencourt of Extreme, Scott Ian of Anthrax, country star Brad Paisley and Game Of Thrones co‑creator Dan Weiss jam with the composer of the theme, Ramin Djawadi.
“That was a very special day!” smiles Djawadi. “They were all my guitar heroes, so to be able to play with them was amazing. I could have done it all day! When I was a teenager, I was a big rock guy, and the guitar is actually my main instrument. I’m a much better guitar player than I am a piano player.
“I have an Ibanez AM200, a semi‑hollow body guitar that I played throughout my jazz days in college. In the background, you can see the Ibanez Universe, which is actually the Steve Vai guitar — it’s a seven‑string guitar with a low B string and I’ve had that since I was a teenager. The acoustic guitars that you see were used in Westworld. The one in the front is played [like a guitar is usually played], but the other one, the Yamaha, I bowed using a violin bow, Led Zeppelin style.”
Theme Of Thrones
Ramin Djawadi’s score has helped to make Game Of Thrones one of the biggest hit TV series ever.
The 49‑year‑old composer, recipient of the BMI Icon Award 2024, has come a long way since he was a guitarist in a band as a teenager growing up in Germany. Djawadi’s music has accompanied dragons, ghouls, superheroes, convicts and an impossible physics problem over his two‑decades‑long career. This year alone, he scored three shows for three separate streaming platforms: Amazon Prime’s Fallout, Netflix’s 3 Body Problem and Max’s House Of The Dragon (Season Two).
One of his early gigs as a solo composer was the hit TV show Prison Break. It turned out to be a bootcamp in becoming a composer‑for‑hire, with Djawadi writing close to 45 minutes of music per episode, per week. It taught him, among other things, how to write fast — an absolutely crucial requirement in an industry where the deadline is always ‘yesterday’.
His career achieved escape velocity with Game Of Thrones. For eight seasons, Djawadi’s music underpinned the visceral power struggles between the warring families of Westeros, crafting a musical language that is vital to the show. For his efforts, he won back‑to‑back Emmys, took the soundtrack on tour, and was invited back to score 2022’s prequel House Of The Dragon. In fact, the Game Of Thrones main theme was so iconic that it was retained for the new series as well; there is no Game Of Thrones extended universe without Djawadi’s score.
When he first heard the finished piece, one wonders, did he sit back, knowing that he had an absolute banger on his hands? He laughs. “I don’t know what to say. At the time, for me, it was just like any other piece I’d written. Every piece I write, I do try to like it myself and stand behind it, but I could not possibly anticipate the amount of reach that piece would have.”
No Flutes
The original version of the theme features the cello as the main instrument. Djawadi explains how that came to be: “The one big thing that [showrunners] David [Benioff] and Dan told me was that they wanted to stay away from medieval flutes. So I came up with the idea of the cello being the lead instrument. It’s such a dark show where nobody is safe — any character can die at any moment — so I felt a cello was the right thing. There’s such a nuance to the way it can be performed, right? It can be very emotional and sweet, but it can also be very raw.”
To capture all the sonic textures of the instrument, Djawadi chose to mic it very close, “so you really get the [sound of the] bow; it feels very in front. I love many things about the cello, a big thing being the range. It has such a huge range: it can get really low, down to the bassy lower register, but it can also play up high into the register of a violin, yet it has a totally different sound than a violin, even on the same note — it has a much thicker sound. On top of that, it’s a lot more difficult to play that high for a cellist compared to a violin in that range, so there is always a little bit of that struggle that you hear with the instrument and that adds this extra emotion that I’ve always loved.
“It also has the ability, with the bowing technique — which other stringed instruments like the viola and violin have as well — to interpret the same notes ever so slightly differently depending on where the bow is placed, how hard it is placed, and how quickly it’s bowed. Also, just like on the guitar, you’re able to do a tremolo, and because you don’t have frets, you can really glissando between notes. There is so much expression! I could write for the cello all day.”
Beyond The Orchestra
Ramin Djawadi writes for more than just the cello, of course. Each project he’s worked on has a distinctive sonic signature. The post‑apocalyptic drama Fallout on Amazon Prime is his third collaboration with creator Jonathan Nolan, and features three different main characters to interpret sonically. Djawadi elaborates: “We have Lucy, who starts off very pure and innocent, so sonically we stay pretty straightforward with strings and piano for the most part when she’s still in the Vault [a luxury underground fallout shelter]. Then we have The Ghoul, for whom we have a lot more sounds from the wasteland: broken instruments, loose strings, things that rattle. One sound I can point out that we used quite a bit for him was the fretless electric bass, so he has that gunslinger tone and there’s a yodel too, a callback to the classic Morricone spaghetti Western. For the third character, Maximus, it’s more of a militaristic sound: very rhythmic, and with a melody that is often played by the French horns. As things go sideways and Lucy leaves the Vault, her themes and her motifs blend with that of The Ghoul and Maximus as they cross paths.”
Character‑specific composition is not new for Djawadi. As far back as 2008, he left his signature on Iron Man, which marked the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In what now looks to be a rare choice, the standard sweeping orchestral score was eschewed in favour of a distorted guitar‑heavy soundtrack, inspired entirely by the lead character’s personality. Djawadi recalls, “I give [director] Jon Favreau full credit for that, because he always said, ’We need rock guitars! Tony Stark is a rock star; he listens to AC/DC when he’s in his workshop, and that needs to cross over into the score.’ I thought that was super cool.
Ramin Djawadi: What’s interesting about distortion guitar is that if you have it in a rock band it can be very punchy, powerful and up front, but when you have it with the whole orchestra — which has such scale and size — all of a sudden, the guitar can feel very small.
“It was actually quite challenging, because what’s interesting about distortion guitar is that if you have it in a rock band it can be very punchy, powerful and up front, but when you have it with the whole orchestra — which has such scale and size — all of a sudden, the guitar can feel very small; you lose all that power, so to find the right balance was a bit of a struggle. In the mix, we kept going, ‘Oh no, now the guitar is too quiet! Oh, now it’s too loud!’
“We did a fair amount of doubling of the parts — nothing crazy or overly big, though, I think most of the guitar parts are just doubled twice. In fact, if it was [doubled] too much, it actually became smaller again, so we thought that less would carry more. In the mix room, we [shaped it using] volume and EQ. Also, the great Alan Meyerson mixed that score, so he definitely is a big part of why it sounds so good.”
On both Iron Man and 2013’s Pacific Rim, Djawadi had started to blur genre lines and his rock background came in handy, “where we decided to cross over into the rock world and have the orchestra play very guitar‑like riffs. That’s very powerful, when you have a full orchestra playing guitar riffs.”
The genre‑bending really came into its own in 2016’s Westworld, a dystopian sci‑fi neo‑Western, which became a sensation not just for its original score but also for Djawadi’s piano and orchestra arrangements of hit songs including the Rolling Stones’ ‘Paint It, Black’, Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’, David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’, Lana Del Rey’s ‘Video Games’, Lou Reed’s ‘Perfect Day’ and Radiohead’s ‘Fake Plastic Trees’. Djawadi recalls: “[Creator] Jonah Nolan said, ‘This is a theme park for adults, so why not treat [the player piano] like a DJ or a jukebox, and the people running the park are basically playing the music that they like.’ I don’t think we expected to do as many [covers] as we did, but it became this fun thing where every season we said, ‘What haven’t we done before? Where could we place it?’
“It was really cool because I would do the arrangement, then take the MIDI file and send it to the company that created the piano roll for the player piano to play — so when you hear the piece and see the visual [of the piano playing it] in the show, it actually matches. ‘Paint It, Black’ was the first one we did, and it was also one of the biggest arrangements because that was a full on five‑minute orchestral action piece.”
Capturing The Moment
With all the crossovers, cover versions and blurring of genre conventions, the common thread that runs through Ramin Djawadi’s work is that pieces resonate with the audience independently of their original arrangements. Which begs the question: where does power in a musical piece come from? Djawadi ponders the idea, abstract as it may be, before answering, “For me, first of all, I think the emotion has to be right. If the notes are not right, it’s very hard to get power from something. So I think if the theme captures you emotionally, you’re already onto something.
Guitar is Ramin Djawadi’s first instrument, and he says it’s still his strongest suit as a player.Photo: Matt Martin
“I tend to write more on the piano, which is kind of interesting when I think about it. Like I said earlier, I’m a much better guitar player than pianist, so when I compose, I’m just not as comfortable on the piano as I am on the guitar. I have to think more about what I’m playing and writing, so I slow down a little bit, which actually helps me. Back in the day, if there was no instrument in sight, I used to scribble things down, but I don’t do that any more because now I usually have my phone with me and I just sing into it, which is very helpful.
“I struggle with capturing the energy of the initial idea sometimes, because I feel like my brain is much faster than I can possibly put all the pieces into the sequencer. Sometimes I will just play things in with wrong notes. It can get messy, but when the energy flows, I try to capture that in one go rather than creating an exact piano map.”
Once the initial idea is in place, it’s time to tackle the arrangement of the piece. “That’s when the dynamics come in. How do you structure a piece so that you feel the impact? Because sometimes, going at 110 from the beginning might not always be the right approach; sometimes it captures you slowly and then grows.
“There are obviously different techniques and it depends on what you’re writing for, but it’s always hard, especially in film, because we tend to have so many elements in a piece of music. It’s not just straight‑up guitar, drums, bass and vocal; there are so many layers of synthesizers, percussion and other different elements. Sometimes I catch myself when I structure a piece. If I hit mute and I can’t hear the difference, I realise, ‘OK, that part is not even necessary, let’s get rid of it.’ So sometimes it’s about the ability to go back, look at what you’ve written, and decide to get rid of some stuff to make a bit more space.”
Second Fiddle
Composing for film and TV means, among other things, always bearing in mind that your music will be sharing space with dialogue and effects, and often needs to be the junior partner. “It’s very important to always keep in mind that dialogue is king, and if you don’t pay attention to that, the music will get turned down. They will dial you back, so you might as well dynamically write around the dialogue if you can. Especially with percussion, depending on the actor’s voice, you might walk right into the frequency range of the dialogue. So you either have to work with EQ to get around that or just use a different drum, but that’s definitely something to always consider. Panning can also help.
“When I work on a piece of music, what I usually do is have the dialogue on. It’s not at full volume, but I will have it sitting a little bit below the music where I can still hear it. That always helps me keep in mind, ‘OK, I have to back off dynamically here,’ or, ‘They’ve stopped talking, so now I can open up.’ Later, I turn the dialogue off, fully arrange the piece, and make sure I mix it correctly. For the overall shape, though, you have to be able to work dialogue into the scene you’re writing for — that’s very important.”
Similar considerations come into play regarding sound effects. “That’s hard too, because often, the sound effects are not finalised and the department rolls in much later with a whole batch of huge, beautiful effects. Things like rain and helicopter sound effects are always big enemies of music; it is hard to go up against that and it helps to keep that in mind.”
The solution is to be proactive: “The production track, many times, can already give you an idea of what you’re up against. For example, if there’s a helicopter scene, put in a little bit of that sound effect to see [if the music cuts] through, frequency‑wise. The piece might work on its own, but then you put the sound effects in and all of a sudden, the melody is gone. So then you go, ‘What if I add just another octave on the strings and go up higher?’ That’s what you’re going to hear better.”
Desktop instruments in Djawadi’s studio: clockwise from top left, Arturia MicroFreak, Oberheim/Sequential OB‑6, Novation Peak and Waldorf Q. Visible beneath the rack is his Kemper Profiler amp.
Listen To The Music
Hearing better is a process of continual self‑improvement, and Djawadi has developed a system for critical listening over the years. “When you work on a piece all day, you really get into the zone, and as you’re writing and adding parts, I feel like you almost get too close to it. I’ve also noticed that when you see the parts in [a DAW], psychologically, it plays a trick on you. When you see a part, you often feel like it’s louder than it actually is, or even the other way around sometimes. I’m very visual, so I see different colours that really jump out at me, and the mix can either feel right or wrong.
“So at night, what I like to do is record the music as audio into Pro Tools, and then the next morning when I come into my studio, I don’t look at my sequencer or at the parts. I play back the audio track and just listen — I don’t look at it at all. That to me is always when I get the most honest answers about the mix: about whether it feels too bassy, too loud, too quiet, et cetera. The important thing is that you do it the night before, step away, and come in fresh to listen. It’s like a reset button and this process really helps me.
“I do the same in the mix room when I work with Chris or with Alan. When I make comments — and it’s usually about volume — I never look at their hand on the fader. I just use my ears, so even if they change it by 2dB, for example, and I feel like it’s too quiet, then clearly my ears are telling me something. But if you look, you go, ‘Oh yeah, it sounds much better now.’ And say, by accident, they’re moving [a different] fader up, you could think it’s better when nothing has actually changed. The visual can play tricks on your mind, so I always like to not look, and just listen.”
Becoming Ramin Djawadi
After Ramin Djawadi graduated from Berklee, he worked at Remote Control Productions, the film score company set up by Hollywood legend Hans Zimmer who, in an article, eloquently articulated what makes Djawadi stand out: you could tell “it wasn’t just a good musician at work, but a really good brain at work”. Looking back at his early years in music, Djawadi recalls that one of the big ideas he grappled with was building an identity as a composer. “I realised that having an identity as a composer is something that happens over time. The more you write, the more you keep working, your voice just comes out naturally. I never really look back at my own work after I’ve written something, but in situations like now, when we talk about pieces, I think about it. I’ve noticed over the years that a lot of pieces that I write are in 6/8 time [including the Game Of Thrones theme] and I wonder if that has partially to do with my background — I’m half German and half Iranian, and a lot of music from Iran is in threes. It happens subconsciously. I don’t really sit down and say I’m going to write something in 6/8, that’s just the way it flows out of me sometimes. It’s an interesting thing how that rhythm just flows. It’s definitely something I didn’t think about, but those things will come out if you stay at it and keep doing it. Of course, you study other composers to learn from them, but ultimately you have to do your own thing and I think that’s the most important thing: to be true to yourself.”
Djawadi’s output to date has been prolific, musically diverse, and incredibly successful. One wonders if there’s something he wants to do in scoring that he hasn’t done yet. He thinks for a moment before answering, “I wouldn’t mind doing a little bit more jazz, actually. I studied it at Berklee and I feel like jazz is definitely a style that is not as common any more in movies and TV shows, at least not the ones I have done. We touched upon it a little bit in Westworld in the last season, but I would love to do a score that’s just jazz. That would be super cool.”
If any composer currently working in Hollywood can pull off a breathtaking jazz score that will be inextricable from the visuals on screen, it’s Ramin Djawadi.
In The Studio
Ramin Djawadi’s studio setup is all about immediacy. “I like when things are simple,” he explains. “If I’m inspired and I want to play a piece of gear, if I can’t instantly capture it, I won’t use it at all. If I have to do a two‑hour setup, I’m already onto the next thing.
“I always have a line input for my guitar, which I use with a Kemper Profiler amp. I also always have a microphone set up in the room so I can immediately grab my string instruments or anything else that I want to record, and start immediately. I have the Universal Audio Apollo x8 interface, which is my analogue‑to‑digital converter, and an RME Fireface card that connects everything into the computer. I have a bunch of outboard synthesizers, including a Moog One, an [Oberheim] OB‑6 and a Novation Peak, and a little patchbay so I can patch the analogue signals into the Apollo and record everything. Everything is set up very simply — I just need to turn it on and I can play.”
Among the instruments ready and waiting in Ramin Djawadi’s studio are an Arturia Polybrute and a Moog One.
The setup is completed by a Doepfer LMK2+ 88‑key MIDI keyboard controller and Djawadi’s DAW of choice, Logic Pro. “I like the layout; it’s very functional to me how the program works. I like the colour scheme as well. I have a thing about the way I see colours with the different tracks, and I really like the colour tone of Logic. It’s kind of funny that colour would influence me on a DAW!
“The new studio I have here at home is actually based around two computers: I have a Mac Studio that runs Logic, and from there, everything goes into another computer — a Mac Pro tower, which runs Pro Tools. It used to be my sequencer, but I transitioned it to be my Pro Tools machine after I got a new M2 Mac Studio. I sync Logic with Pro Tools, which carries the picture, and when I hit Play, it makes it easier for me. I know you can put picture into Logic as well, but this way I can always have Pro Tools up with the picture and the dialogue, and then I can switch my sequences but the picture stays up; I don’t have to have a sequence up in order to see the picture.
“All the different groups of outputs from Logic — percussion, strings, brass, plucked instruments, keyboards — get recorded into Pro Tools, and from there I’m set up to send either stereo stems or surround stems to the dub stage. There are a lot of projects that I mix myself, but on projects where Alan Meyerson or Chris Fogel will mix the score, it goes from my studio to them, and then gets delivered to the stage. When I mix myself, Pro Tools is where I finalise everything. It’s still the industry standard on the mixing stage.”
When it comes to plug‑ins, Djawadi highlights Native Instruments’ Guitar Rig as an important source of effects, and NUGEN Audio’s Halo Upmix, which he uses in Pro Tools to create a spatial upmix. “Guitar Rig is a great multi‑effect plug‑in that I go to quite a bit. It’s a very creative tool that’s very easy to use; it’s easy to drag in the different modules and get a good sound out of it quickly. I use it quite a bit for distortion, and sometimes even for delay and reverb.
“Having Halo Upmix was a big change for me because I always struggled a little bit with getting stereo versus surround properly set up, and that plug‑in really helped me because it does that; I’m able to do stereo stems and surround stems at the same time.” Djawadi does the overall mixing in Logic itself, using both native Logic plug‑ins and others such as the Liquidsonics Cinematic Rooms reverb.
Djawadi’s microphone of choice is the Neumann TLM103. He says, “I’m not a trained engineer — I studied film scoring and guitar — so everything I’ve learned about engineering and recording, I’ve picked up over the years from watching great engineers like Chris Fogel and Alan Meyerson do their thing. They’re so amazing about [sharing knowledge] and I guess after being in the industry for so long, I’ve picked up a few things here and there. I remember, years ago, I said to Alan, ‘I want to get a microphone that can record a bunch of different instruments. What should I get?’ And he recommended the TLM 103, so that’s what I did, and I put that on almost everything I record.”