Quotes from Ramin Djawadi

'Game of Thrones' is one of the most groundbreaking series on TV. The fact that I get to make music every day is such a privilege, and I'm incredibly grateful to be doing so with an amazing show such as this.

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.

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.

What I like about 'Game of Thrones' is that there's such a wide range. We have everything from very small, just solo instrument pieces, just the solo violin or solo cello, and then we go all the way to these bigger action moments.

'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.

I just always hear music in my head. I thought that was normal. My wife said, 'Ramin, that's not normal.'

My dream that I followed and that I'm living now is that I actually always wanted to go to music college, play in a band, do a world tour, and then eventually get into film 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.

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.

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 actually enjoy the fantasy world quite a bit. You have no boundaries.

I love performing on my own scores. I do it quite a lot.

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.

I myself am a huge Radiohead fan.

The piano has a huge dynamic range that almost no other instruments have. It can play very low, and it can play very high.

The piano is not really in the language of the 'Game of Thrones' score.

You could argue that 'Game of Thrones' has been around longer than 'Westworld,' but honestly, either one - I don't have a side or anything - I love them both equally.

What I love with 'Game of Thrones' is, every season, I get to continue to develop the existing themes; every season, I also get to write new themes.

My task is to tell a story with the music. I always like to have themes in terms of characters or plots, and things that can tell a story always interest me the most.

Many times, the way I write my themes or melodies is that I hear it, and then I sing into my phone or something, or I'll scribble down on a piece of paper.

In 'Westworld,' I really got to explore new areas, stylistically. We had the Indian world, we had Shogun world, so I got to play with new instrumentation - and also, a lot of new themes.

I think it's great to see that there is such a connection to film music and the way people react or connect to a character or scene.

When you know you have great support from the studio, that's a great feeling, and when it's the creative support, that's great.

I always try to pick projects by: Is this something that excites me? What are the people like to work with? Obviously you spend a lot of time in a room together with them, so I always try to find projects that hopefully have great people attached.