I think the thing that music can do is be unsettling. It is abnormal - music that's perceived to be different in an unresolved or unusual way.
I always like to think I build in historically accurate musical in-jokes that are so precise that like maybe there's 7 or 8 people in the world watching the show that will sit up and go, "Oh my God the music being played is the right kind of music!"
Tension, especially with regard to horror, is a very difficult thing to sustain in the big sense.
I'm not a good enough musician to like completely master something in a couple of days and turn it around.
When you change showrunners, it's like getting divorced and getting remarried.
I have been very fortunate in that I'm not doing all network shows or all cable shows, television has really become a year-round process in the way that it's made.
While the accompanimental [sic] figures come from Prelude, the melody is wholly original to this theme. First stated on a lonely duduk, and then in octaves by the violins and violas, it is a melancholy and contemplative tune.
What I love more than anything is Jerry Goldsmith's 80's music and Bernard Herrmann's genre music from the 50's and 60's.
If I switch showrunners and I get to stay on the show, I approach it like it's their show, and I'm here to write their music for them.
If I were doing five cop shows, I'd probably start struggling to find an identity for each one and struggling to find inspirations.
I've always approached television from a little more cinematic perspective, if not a much more cinematic perspective because of the shows I have been fortunate enough to work on.
With television you are producing hours and hours of music and for film it is a shorter experience for both the audience and for you as a composer.
The showrunner relationship in television is what the director relationship in film, there's really no more important relationship.
Sometimes I find bringing in my old ideas is just detrimental.
