Though music and score are some of the less acknowledged components of a TV show or movie, they're fundamental in creating an experience for the viewer. The music makers of our favorite Sunday afternoon binges aren’t necessarily on Bach or Beethoven’s level, but “Game of Thrones” composer Ramin Djawadi (who earned two Emmy nominations for music composition this year) may have something in common with one of the greats: synesthesia.
Said to be a trait of Mozart, synesthesia is a consistent blending of the senses that causes some people to hear colors, taste sounds and the like. Chromethesia is the form of synesthesia that blends colors and sounds, which Mozart reported when he said things like the key of D was orangey and B-flat was black.
Other musicians, like Pharrell Williams, Mary J. Blige and Billy Joel have reported evidence of synesthesia along with a whopping 20 percent of the general population. Frankly, I’m jealous.
Djawadi, a German native who has been composing for over a decade, namely for HBO, told The Hollywood Reporter that he likes seeing scripts, costumes or set photos before beginning his work to trigger some inspiration.
“I can almost see the music. It comes in the form of colors -- colors jump out at me, and that translates into notes,” he said.
Anyone else thinking Djawadi is landing these big jobs -- he’s written music for “Westworld,” “Iron Man” and “A Wrinkle in Time” -- because he’s a low-key synesthete?
But other impressive techniques go into creating the music we think about almost unconsciously. For example, Djawadi said they used sounds quite literally from space courtesy of NASA in “Westworld” to give the robots some ambiance and he rearranged the Wu-Tang Clan's "C.R.E.A.M."
"They needed me to rearrange it before shooting
so they could come up with the choreography and then play it on set for the cast. Doing that was something quite different because it was for this new Shogun World, and it had to have very specific instrumentation," he explained.
Composers, though, generally have a long road ahead of them when it comes to producing appropriate music for their projects. Blake Neely, who composes for The CW’s “Arrow,” once hired a 30-piece symphony (out of his own pocket) to convince execs that they needed a orchestral sound for the series -- just for the music to only be used for one episode.
Djawadi clearly hit the jackpot with “Game of Thrones” -- he headlined an entire concert tour based on the opening sequence of the series.
If that doesn’t deserve an Emmy, I don’t know what does.