“A lot of it is based on sort of excitement and inspiration,” declares composer Leopold Ross about crafting the score of the FX limited series “Shōgun” alongside Nick Chuba and Atticus Ross. The series is a new adaptation of James Clavell‘s epic novel about 17th century feudal Japan. Despite the project’s epic scope, the music is quite haunting in its intimacy, something Chuba says came out gradually. “It’s a lot of rumination about death and honor and all of these different things that are driving all of the characters,” he says. Watch more of our exclusive video interview with Chuba and Ross above.
In researching the music of the time period, Ross and Chuba learned a great deal about Gagaku, music commonly heard in the imperial court of Japan. Working closely with Japanese music producer Taro Ishida, they captured specific sounds using period Japanese instrument, then used technology to manipulate them and create a completely unique sound for the series. “I think in a sense our color palette is taken from sort of traditional [Japanese] phrasing, but then we make new sounds with that material,” explains Chuba.
The team spent a great deal of time working on the music for the show’s main title sequence; Chuba jokes that they were still working on that sequence at the same time as they were working on the final episode. “We needed to basically go from this serene, tranquil Zen garden to a time of war and the garden is disturbed,” he says. “Getting to that level of intensity took us a while.” The sequence also feature a group of Buddhist monks chanting in their own temple. “Something about the way [the monks] come in in the main title I feel help bridge from the ambient into the more intense outro,” argue Ross.
Both Ross and Chuba believe that in tackling such a huge and epic project, their job becomes easier thanks to the work of the individual episode directors and showrunners Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo. “I think a lot of it is dependent on how the showrunner or director has executed the scene,” argues Ross. “It’s hard to make something epic that doesn’t look epic, but I feel as though with “Shōgun,” we were very lucky in that it looks mind-blowingly epic. Therefore it makes our job slightly easier.”
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