Animation is primarily a visual medium. But, as George Lucas pointed out in The New York Times in 1992, “Sound is half the experience in seeing a film.” Sound, as in dialog, audio effects—and music. Such is the case with The Dragon Prince, the epic fantasy adventure on Netflix. The show’s composer, Emmy-winner Frederik Wiedmann, discussed his talent with me on June 7th, 2023.

Frederik Wiedmann: The Dragon Prince is an extremely music-heavy show compared to other TV shows that you’ve seen. And we have so many themes. We have instruments designated to specific characters more or less we never take this kind of stuff too literal, but we do. And so at the end of the day, I’m just hoping that the music is noticeable enough and part of the story enough that it kind of becomes its own thing, that is almost equivalent to another character in the show.

Frederik Wiedmann: At the same time though, I don’t ever want to draw too much attention to myself because a good score is the kind of score that you walk out of a movie and say, “That was a great film, but I don’t really remember the music that much.” That’s ultimately what you want. Because, it’s not about the music. It’s about the show, the characters and the story and their goal rather than me. But my goal is always to make the music interesting and evocative enough that it still has a chance to be heard, especially in pivotal moments, to become like almost another character in the show.

Bob Miller: So, you assign an instrument to each character. Can you give me some examples?

Wiedmann: For example, I think the most prominent and most distinct one is the Irish fiddle for Rayla, and it’s not particularly just for Rayla, it’s the elves in general. Every time we go to the Silvergrove or anything thematically Rayla-related, you instantly hear her theme—which is mostly played by a violin in this sort of Irish fiddle style. It’s not a classical violin; it’s got almost no vibrato. It’s got little turns and twists on the note switches in between. We came up with that because she has this quasi-Irish Scottish accent. She has this Celtic element to her character which, how can we bring it out in the music? The fiddle seemed a really good place to start. We’ve used violins in other places in the score in different ways and shapes and forms, but the Irish-ness of it is really kind of tied to Rayla more than anything else. And the elves in general.

The other instruments blend into all characters and they’re more about their melodies, their tunes. I would say Callum has mostly cello.

Terry, our new character from Season Four, has a lot of flutes, ’cause he’s very light (laughs) in character to me. He’s almost floating above trouble. He’s so positive. So, I felt like something light and breathy, like a flute is a perfect instrument to accompany him.

And then we have a bunch of ethnic instruments too, like the Armenian duduk, which is used all over. I think in Season One it was more the dragons and the elves, but now it’s blended in with the humans as well. It’s more the sound of Xadia, if Xadia were a country and each country has its own folklore and original music.

Miller: Do you use leitmotifs?

Wiedmann: Yes. It’s such a nice opportunity to have such a character-driven show because it invites you to create melodies, which I’m a big fan of. A score with melodies is always a better score than one without (laughs) something that is memorable. Something that, when a character has at this a certain moment, a little motif comes in that you recognize instantly. It just has an emotional effect on you, as the audience, that is unmatched to anything else. Melody is always king.

So we have a theme for Ezran. And we have a theme for Callum, for Xadia, for the Dragons. We have obviously a Rayla theme. We have a Viren theme.

We have several Aaravos themes. Because he’s such a strong force, especially in Season Four, that he needed more than just one tune to go with. So, he has couple of things that can play on its own. There’s this low piano thing, almost like a really sad Chopan waltz (laughs) that then we have these slightly discordant tunes that go over it, but they can also play separately without the piano. It’s a juxtaposition of different elements that can accumulate together into this one thing—or be their own little ideas. But it’s all already set up basically from Season One, so we know it. So, the moment Aaravos is on there and doing something, or his evil is spreading even when he’s not on screen, you can bring that in and instantly you’re, “Okay, that’s his doing right there.”

Miller: Oh. A little bit of musical foreshadowing, there.

Wiedmann: Absolutely. Yeah. We’ve done this. I’ve ended episodes with his theme and he was nowhere near it, but people might pick up on it and go, “Ah, I guess that’s where we’re heading.” (laughs)

Miller: Let’s talk about your background. You were born in Germany.

Wiedmann: Yes, I was born in Stuttgart, and I grew up mostly in the Munich area afterwards. We moved when I was eight. The moment I finished school, I went to England to work with disabled children for a year. And during that year, I just kind of devoured those music theory books from Berklee College of Music in Boston because I knew this is where I wanted to go to study film music composition. And then I went to Berklee, did my degree in two years, ’cause I just couldn’t wait to get out here and do this. I just did it as fast as humanly possible and then went to L.A. and started working. I was doing the assistant thing for a couple of years to a bunch of composers and learned the ropes. Once you’re in the trenches with other people that are working, that’s really the best school you can have as a composer. This is such a complex job. College can prepare you to some degree on a technical level, perhaps, but there’s so much more to this business that you don’t get to really be part of or see or teach unless you’re in the trenches with another guy who’s doing a big movie or a big TV show. So, for any aspiring composers reading this, this is definitely the way to go.

Miller: Well, what was it about music that inspired you to seek that as a vocation?

Wiedmann: I had a huge obsession with Native American Indians when I was this boy in Germany. I loved Westerns and anything that had any Indians in it whatsoever. So, when the movie Dances With Wolves came out, I was 12 years old. That was like the greatest thing on earth for me. I think I went to the movie theater alone 10 times to see it, and that’s the first time I was consciously aware of a score. The music stood out to me so much that the first time I was like, “Wait a minute, what is this music playing in the background? Who made this?” And that’s when I realized, “Oh, John Barry. So, there’s a job that is composition for movies. How is that? That sounds really cool.”

From that point on I became a passionate soundtrack collector, so to speak, ’cause I discovered it. I was like, “Wow, this is a thing.” So, I got some Basil Poledouris; I got some Jerry Goldsmith, and whatever I could get my hands on.

Back then, it wasn’t nearly as accessible as it is now. I had to go to the drug store around the corner that had, like, this one aisle of soundtracks, random stuff that just popped up every week and bought whatever I could get my hands on. Then I started to study jazz guitar in Germany. When you study jazz, you instantly take a deep dive into music theory alongside the performance aspect of it. You have to understand jazz on an intellectual level to be able to do improvisation properly. Those studies instantly made me more passionate about music and music theory, which ultimately led to me starting to compose myself on the piano because I was like, okay, so I know about harmony now; I know what the scales are; I know everything about music theory there is to know and I love film music and I started to write my first pieces of music.

On top of that, I met this person who was the neighbor of my back-then girlfriend, who was a film composer [Nik Reich], living in that tiny town in Germany where I lived. Thinking back, the chances of that happening was really astronomic. But I got to know him and I hung out in his studio for a little bit, just watching him work, and that’s when it really clicked and I made that decision, okay, this is what I need to do.

Miller: And you were in high school at the time?

Wiedmann: Yeah, I’m like 16, 17 at this point, playing jazz guitar, loving soundtracks and having found someone who does this for a living. And that was like, “Okay, yeah. This is gonna be my path.” And then from this point on, I had this tunnel vision. I never thought about anything else. I had to find the best school for me that offers that as a course, which back then Berklee was one of the only ones back in the 2000s. Now it’s available in many colleges, but back then there were very limited options. So, I was lucky to get into Berklee, and that’s when I did the film music thing and then went straight to L.A. and started working and haven’t really stopped since.

Miller: So, jazz guitar is your primary instrument?

Wiedmann: Yes, but I am not very good. I always tell people, don’t ever put me on stage with something, ’cause that’s not my thing. But yeah, I understand it. I think I have a much better intellectual understanding of jazz than a practical understanding, and maybe that’s good for composition.

Miller: Could you name your other influences?

Wiedmann: John Barry was the igniting one, for sure. If I have to put it to one person that made me aware of this and that started this path for me, it was him. Every year I have my top three favorites that keep changing because of what they had recently done. It evolves, but some of the ones that I keep going back to is Christophe Beck, who did Ant-Man and the Hangover movies and Frozen. I think he’s absolutely fantastic. Everything he touches turns into gold as far as I’m concerned.

I love Benjamin Wallfisch. I think he’s a terrific composer and orchestrator. Can’t wait to hear his Flash score. And I think any composer admires John Williams like any other. Probably the G.O.A.T. of everything in film music. So, he’s definitely been an influence on me, too.

Miller: What about classical European composers?

Wiedmann: Somebody asked me the other day, if I had had the chance to conduct a concert at the L.A. Phil what would I choose to conduct? Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. I would instantly conduct that or Dvořák’s New World Symphony [At Star Wars Celebration III in 2005, George Lucas told the crowd that if he had only three CDs to bring to a desert island, they would include Dvořák and the Beatles]. Those are the two that I think I have listened to more than anything in my youth. To this day I just think they’re some of the most magnificent pieces. I’m also a big Stravinsky fan. I think you know Rite of Spring and Petrushka. All those things are insanely but deliciously complex that—from our perspective as composers—like to dissect the harmonies and the orchestration techniques that they’re using. It’s just a lot of fun. I have huge admiration for those composers. Yeah. I think mostly Russians, then.

Miller: How would you describe your composing range? I guess jazz would be at one end of the spectrum. Epic comes to mind for The Dragon Prince and action-adventure from what you do with the DC direct-to-videos [Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, Son of Batman, Death of Superman, Justice League: Gods and Monsters, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, etc.].

Wiedmann: Yes. You know, I’ve been blessed with a huge variety of projects over the course of my career. Thankfully nobody has really pigeonholed me. Last year I was working on The Dragon Prince which is adventure-fantasy. Orchestral slightly eclectic with these instruments. I was working on Firebuds for Disney Jr. There’s a lot of that a lot of “Mickey Mousing,” a lot of hitting a lot of comedic beats. I was doing a movie with Sam Neill [Bring Him to Me] which was super-dark kind of like traffic or heat. You wanna compare it to perhaps very ambient brooding.

Then I was doing Star Trek: Picard for Paramount which is Goldsmith, Alexander Courage, like orchestral science fiction extravaganza. I did Big Nate for Paramount which is punk rock music. I’ve enjoyed every little project that came across my desk. All of those are so vastly different but they all bring out something in me that I find immensely exciting to work on even if it’s just night and day. I mean, I literally went from a punk rock guitar queue to the old crew discovering the Enterprise.

I always love a challenge and I’m always interested in things that I haven’t done before. And that’s when I get the most excited. I don’t really like too much repetition. So, when things come out my way that are outside my comfort zone, I’m usually all about that.

Miller: I interviewed the Dynamic Music Partners about Batman: The Animated Series and its spinoffs. And we were talking about the budget cutbacks at the turn of the century. They couldn’t use orchestras anymore. They had to rely more on synthesizers.

How is it you’re able to achieve an orchestral style for The Dragon Prince? It sounds like you use a real orchestra.

Wiedmann: Oh, thank you. That’s what we’re aiming for. But truth be told, we don’t have the ability to record every piece of music with an orchestra. We have had a couple of sessions where we pick pivotal key scenes, things like the Main Title and End Title. And then usually there’s pieces in season finales that have very heavy sections where the music’s very exposed. We focus on getting those recorded as well. But every episode has a violin player, a cello player, a wind player who plays the duduk, clarinet, and flutes in an array of ethnic PVC pipes and things like that. And often vocals, too. Female vocals is another one that I use quite a bit. They add that layer of human touch on top of everything that makes you believe, “Oh maybe everything is live.” That’s really important. While sample libraries have come a long way and they sound extremely realistic, adding that one actual human thing on top of it elevates everything. I’m really trying to make it feel like as live as possible.

My programming chops have obviously gotten pretty good over the years, ’cause I do it every day all day long. You know your sample libraries inside out almost like an instrument. You have to learn each one of them, what are their strengths and their weaknesses. And then you apply them accordingly to benefit your arrangement the best way.

I would never write something on a violin patch that I know will sound bad. I would find something else that will sound good with that particular instrument. So, you need to really understand the architecture and the strengths of each individual library that you’re using to create these scores, that you can come up with something that sounds legitimately live or real.
Miller: How many pieces of live orchestra do you use?

Wiedmann: When we do it, it’s a 40-piece orchestra. For Dragon Prince we recorded in [Skopje,] Macedonia. They [FAME’s Studio] have a beautiful hall and fantastic musicianship. Actually Macedonia and Budapest, we’ve kind of gone back and forth depending on stage availability. Sometimes they’re very busy and you can’t really get a spot, so you have to go to the other one. But both Budapest and Macedonia have phenomenal musicians that they knock it out of the park every time. Very happy to go there.

Miller: Do you hand-select the musicians or is this an actual orchestra that already exists?

Wiedmann: There’s a contractor and they do the assembly. It’s basically almost the same people every time, ’cause there’s not that many top level session musicians. There’s a lot of great musicians in Macedonia, of course, but they know how to sight read well and adjust to U.S. film aesthetics, which can be sometimes different from European ones, especially with the brass. So, there’s contractors that do that and they’re great. You just tell them, “This is what I need, this is my lineup.” They show up, then I trust them 100% and the results always speak for themselves.

Miller: Did COVID affect any of these recordings?

Wiedmann: No, not really. Mostly, they had still sessions going on, it was just masked in that case. In Europe, the restrictions have been a lot less strict as here.

In America, we did Star Trek last year in the summer, and COVID was still on everybody’s radar, so there was a lot of parameters. We had a COVID coordinator on the session. Everybody had to be masked up. Everyone had to be tested prior to the session, including the engineers, and show a negative test before walking into the session. So, it was an expensive endeavor because you had to do all this stuff up front to be able to even do it.

In Europe, it was different. They just put masks on and that was it.

---

In Part Two, Frederik Wiedmann talks about how he became involved with The Dragon Prince, and reveals more behind-the-scenes tidbits about his score. Stay ‘tuned.

---

Season Five of The Dragon Prince premieres July 27, 2023 on Netflix.