Quotes from Ramin Djawadi

With 'Game of Thrones,' the most dominant instrument would definitely be the cello. That's something I just felt really captured the mood of the show very well.

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

I love to do animation movies, and those might be some scores that are lesser known, unless you really kind of dig through my work and see.

I collect many ethnic instruments, and as a guitarist, I'm usually able to play any sort of instrument - as long as it has strings. That's why I like to experiment with different sounds.

I feel choir just has a great sense of power when used with an orchestra, or even by itself.

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 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.

I would sit at the organ and just start making up things by myself - I was maybe 7 years old, which was too young to even know how to notate music. So I never wrote anything down, but when I'd make things up, I'd memorize them.

What I love about film music is the variety. On one movie, you might be asked to do a completely electronic score, and then another might ask you to do orchestral only.

After high school, I moved to the U.S. and studied music in Boston, at the Berklee College of Music.

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

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.

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