"Make it a journey."
That's one of the first notes Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss gave to composer Ramin Djawadi regarding what they had in mind for the now-famous theme music.
In an interview with The Huffington Post, Djawadi explained, "I tried to create an overall thematic piece that captures the mood. There's this tiny little piece at the very intro before the melody starts playing — the piece is in minor, but for a split second it switches to major, and then pulls you back to minor. And I always intended that to be a part of the unpredictability of the show — not knowing the backstabbing or the conspiracies, the instability about the characters and the story, and never knowing who you can trust. I wanted to implement that immediately with the opening of that piece, where you go, 'Wait, is it in major or is it in minor?' And then it settles."
Djawadi followed the idea of unpredictability with his music for the "Game of Thrones" season six finale. In the week following its airing, the opening scene has been praised as one of the best in the run of the series, due in large part to the supporting music. Djawadi composed a television cue lasting nearly 10-minutes — something almost unheard of in television.
The piece of music, titled "Light of the Seven," begins with a gentle melody in the piano (an instrument that doesn't necessarily fit into the "Game of Thrones" world). The composer explains, "The big concern was the piano because we have never used it in the score [of the entire series]. It's not part of the language of the score. But what's amazing about "Game of Thrones" is that it's set in a fantasy world, it's a fantasy story. So I always say that with the score, we're open to do whatever we want. And we are using so many different instruments all the time, but we had never used piano. We were going back and forth because it has such a unique sound."
Read the full interview on the Huffington Post website. You can hear some of Djawadi's season finale score in the clip below (warning: spoilers).
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