The music for the fantasy TV series Game of Thrones is composed by Ramin Djawadi. The music is primarily non-diegetic and instrumental with occasional vocal performances, and is created to support musically the characters and plots of the show. It features various themes, the most prominent being the “main title theme” that accompanies the series’ title sequence. In every season, a soundtrack album was released. The music for the show has won a number of awards, including a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series in 2018 and 2019.
The process of composition is essentially the same throughout the series. Once the filming is nearly completed, episodes are sent to Djawadi either singly or in batches of multiple episodes as they were being edited together but often before any special effects added to the footage. Benioff and Weiss would also inform Djawadi in advance of the need to expand a theme or create new themes for characters.
Djawadi composed an individual leitmotif or theme for each of the major houses, as well as for some locations and some characters. These themes are often played in scenes involving them and they can be used to tell a story. Not all characters would have their own themes due to the large number of characters in the series. The theme for House Stark is the first theme to be composed and it is played on a cello. Most of the Stark characters only have variations on the same theme on cello. Arya Stark is the first of the house to have her own theme, first heard when she started her lesson on swordplay in episode three of season one, with the music featuring a hammered dulcimer. A new theme for Jon Snow, previously using only the House Stark theme, was created in the sixth season and prominently featured in the episode “Battle of the Bastards”. It was first heard at the end of episode three when he said “My watch is ended”, signifying a shift in the character after he had been resurrected.
Various pieces of music are also composed for particular plot lines in the series. A notable piece is the “Light of the Seven”, which is played at the beginning of the final episode of season 6, “The Winds of Winter”. This piece, which is over nine minutes long, is unusual in its choice of piano as that instrument had not been used before on the series. Additionally, such long pieces are seldom used, although in season 6 soundtracks cover a 10-minute section in the Hodor scenes in “The Door” episode and a 22-minute sequence in the “Battle of the Bastards” episode.
A series of concerts which featured Game of Thrones music, Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience with composer Ramin Djawadi, took place in 2017–2018. First to be performed in Saint Paul, Minnesota, it then went on to tour across the United States, Canada and Europe. This is followed by a world tour starting May 2018 in Madrid. The music of Game of Thrones has inspired many cover versions; the main title theme is particularly popular. There are also decidedly non-medieval renditions of songs from the series’s source novels by indie bands. These adaptations, according to Wired, create attention for the series in media that wouldn’t normally cover it, but are also notable for their musical merits independent of the series.
