My Monday Morning: Ludwig Göransson

(upbeat music) I'm Ludwig Jarnason, and this is my Monday morning. Ludwig Jornson is one of the most successful music composers in the world. He's composed for TV shows like Community and New Girl, Produce for Adele and Alicia Keys, and scored blockbuster films for Ryan Kugler and Christopher Nolan, which landed him three Oscars. He also has a number of Grammys, Golden Globes, and Emmys, and he's only 42. His latest project is Nolan's The Odyssey, and for it, Ludwig went looking for instruments most people haven't heard for thousands of years. For his Monday morning, Ludwig told me about Predon Hikes, past coyotes in Griffith Park, who wise Swedes are entitled to daily cinnamon buns, and how he professionally collaborates with his wife, Serena. I'm Lane Floresheim, and that's coming up after the break. (upbeat music) This is a show where we get into morning routines, so what time do you usually wake up on a Monday, and what's the first thing you do after waking up? So it depends on where I'm at in my work, if it's like one of the craziest times, or if it's one of the lesser crazy times, 'cause during the final time of a project, two, three months before the movie comes out, I'm like, work very late, and stuff. But if not, I try to get up early in the morning, get up, I've actually got on a really great routine lately, where I get up at around 5'40, and I do a little hike around Griffith Park with my dog, Barbara, and it's crazy, because now it's so dark in the morning, so I almost need to have a flashlight on or something, because there's a bunch of coyotes and stuff in the park, but that's, so I do like a four to five minute hike, around Griffith Park, go around the Greek theater, and then it's like so beautiful over there. And then it come home, make some coffee, I wake the kids up. And we actually have, we started getting the newspaper, so that's like a nice thing, like right before you get into the front door, you just pick up the newspaper, put on the table, it feels like such an adult, uncomplished adult. So that's been great, and then at 7'30, we're off to drive to school. - That sounds like a really nice morning, minus perhaps the potential coyote sightings. How do you take your coffee, and do you eat breakfast in the morning? - Yeah, I do coffee, just black. I mean, growing up in Sweden, you kind of, you start, if you want to start drinking coffee very early in each, because that's kind of how you survived along winters. And also in Sweden, there's something called Fika. Fika means, it's a word for taking a break and drinking coffee and eat a bunch, cinnamon buns. At every workplace, you have to have at least two Fika's in the day. So it's kind of ingrained in the system, kind of drinking a lot of coffee, and I don't get too affected by it either, so I can kind of have it pretty late in the day too, so I can have, you know, one at six, one at eight, one at 10, and then at two maybe. I was going to ask if you take Fika's during your work day here too. - I do, but the cinnamon bun has been, you know, there's some great places in a lay now, where you can get Swedish in my buns, but I don't have it for breakfast, normally for breakfast. I usually, I'd really do the oatmeal, it's like steel cut oatmeal, and then usually also the tip is a trick is that you can put some banana in it while you're boiling it, so that makes it a little sweeter. - Nice. - And I also put the cinnamon and cardamom in the steel cut oatmeal. So it feels a little Christmasy when you eat it. - What's the first thing that you intentionally listen to on most days? Like a sound part of your mornings at all? - Yeah, I mean, I like, it depends, again, if I'm working, it's a great time to listen to, you know, the demos where I'm at in the process, not like listen, you know, to what I created in the studio the day before, how it sounds like. So that's a great time to listen to demos. Also, I love, you know, new music Friday, or you know, that's when you can listen to the new songs, and I'm almost trying to stay up to date with the current music, and then also, and sometimes a lot lately, I've been listening to a lot of podcasts, so I started listening to some Swedish podcasts, which have been great, actually. It really enjoy it, you know. - In general, what draws you to the work of scoring a movie? What are like the most challenging and rewarding parts about collaborating with people kind of across art forms like that? - I mean, I love learning things. You know, I love, I love when you, and that's so great with the films I'm able to work on, like nothing is the same, like every move is completely different. You know, I mean, I feel like I'm very blessed in terms of like every artist and director I get to work with are so creative and trying to push the world of music and cinema and experiences forward. I'm also being giving the freedom to experiment, and then the time to experiment, because normally, a lot of times when you work in a film, or to be like, the schedule is so congested, you're like, "Oh, you have two months to finish this." And if there's no time, you know, there's no time for trial and error, you know. And working with great authors, like, you know, with Nolan, Kuhler, like they're also writing their films. So I get to be involved at a very, very early stage of the process when I have a script, and they haven't even shot the film yet. So I, when they're shooting the film, I can just be, you know, traveling around and experiment and do things that I don't think is going to work and then end up working and that create. That's really where I can feel like I can be the most creative when I'm not locked inside in front of a screen, in front of a media keyboard and in my studio, which is also a huge part of the process, but that's in a way it's not. I don't feel as creative as I do when I'm just completely free. - Yeah. - Well, you have these ongoing collaborations with both Christopher Nolan and Ryan Kuhler. What is it like working with each of them process-wise? Like, how are they different from each other? - I mean, one thing that they're very similar to each other is that they. I feel like they know everything. I feel like they know in terms of everything that I'm doing. Like, if I didn't work at Tuesday night or Tuesday morning deal, they know exactly what I was. They didn't work and I was. Or if I'm working on a certain section of a movie. I don't know, they both have an immense understanding of my process, you know? And I think that's really important when you have. When you're working with some creative and they really are involved in my process and available anytime for a question or can talk about music in a very break it down in a very real way. Like, they point out the instruments, point out the feelings, talk about music in musical terms, you know? So that's very similar. And then what's different about them, you know, everyone has as different process. But for me, like, that's the great thing because, you know, not doing the same thing over and over again is, I think, very helpful. Coming up, Ludwig gets into his musical journey, scoring the Odyssey. Your most recent project, of course, was the Odyssey and for it, you and your team recreated ancient instruments. Can you tell me about some of them and the research that went into making and using them? Yeah, you know, I would say it was one of the things that Chris Nolan was very interested in. He, you know, that what we know from that area, you know, the Bronze Age is very limited, but there's some paintings of these ancient instruments like the Aulus and also in the actual Odyssey, the liar is part of the Odyssey as well, the pluck of the bow sounds like the pluck of the liar. And so we just needed to find the right people, find people in the world that can still play those instruments. And there's, you know, maybe not that many in America, so what I did was going to Europe and I found some like specialists, you know, working with Rosa, Fregoraption, an incredible liar player, and Kalamazdong, an incredible ally. play and these are, you know, instruments that I never worked with before. And also, I think what's so interesting about these instruments is that they're so unique. So, you know, I had written music for the film, I had early demos for the film that I, so I knew what the themes were and I knew what the chords were. But I needed to sit down with the musicians and, you know, they're also researchers. And I need to sit down and see, listen to how they're using their instruments. And what, and really understand what it is that makes this instrument unique. And then I can infuse the music that I've written for the film into those instruments, once I learn how they're, how to best optimize what makes them unique. How do you write music for an instrument like the alos that I, well, I thought it hadn't been used in over a thousand years, but I guess you found someone who plays it. But, you know, what are the challenges of that process? Yeah, I mean, I've, not only does, does Colin play it, but he also makes it together with his companion, Max. They have to recreate the instrument. And his friend is an incredible woodworker, so they actually make the instrument from replicas, from what they've seen in the museums. And also, they have to make the reeds as well. So these are two, basically two flutes to double read pipes that you play at the same time. And what's unique about this is that when you play them at the same time, these, the two notes create these overtones. But, you know, the air that comes out creates these overtones. So you get an incredible dynamic range of sounds. And you can play it super, super soft and you can play it super loud. And the shift in tone is so interesting. And it makes sense that this was the most popular instrument, you know, four thousand years ago. It was, it was like the most popular instrument for about two thousand years in ancient, in ancient, in ancient world up until I think 300 BC when, when Christianity became very popular. And they said the instrument was, was too pagan. I heard an interview where you talked about how, as you've got an older, you've realized the importance of reflecting after a project and thinking about the impact it had on you. And I was wondering what that looks like for you. Are you journaling and writing things down? Or are you just, you know, kind of taking time to contemplate or. I'm definitely taking time to contemplate. I think that's a very important part of it. And sometimes, you know, you're just forced into getting straight, jumping straight into something new. Which is tough, but having some time afterwards to contemplate what you did, what you went through your experience, because it's not just music. Like, you have to also understand what it did to your life. You're like, what effect did it have on me, you know, on, you know, my relationships, what effect that I have on my family, what effect, like, how did I change as a person while working on this and the person I am afterwards? Because, because I do, I do like to, you know, when I do really like to dive into the, the probably that I'm working on, like, very, very, you know, heavily sell like a if I mean to something, I mean to it, or, you know, 110%, you know. And so it's, it's, you get into it so hard. So when you get out of it, you need some time to kind of compress and, you know, what do you call it? A diver. And when you're down as a diver, you have to compress before you go up, you know? Have you had time to have, like, have those kind of reflections for the odyssey and think about what impacted how do you? Yeah, I feel like I'm going through it right now. Yeah. Like right now is through talking. Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's been, and I do feel like kind of what I was saying in the beginning of our, of a conversation was like, I love going into ever projects with the, with the curiosity of, of like learning something new. And I'm feel very, so, so happy and lucky that I'm able to learn a lot of, like, meeting people from, from completely different cultures or the play completely different music. And, and so at this time, you know, this, the, yeah, I'm, I'm having some time to reflect about kind of what we did and, and, and how fun it actually, you know, it was so much fun. What's one of your most fun memories? Um, I think it was just the places I got to go to. First time I started writing for the odyssey was actually in LA in January during the crazy fires. Oh, wow. And I remember Serena and the kids, they went up, you know, north to her parents and like, so where I was staying, there was a, it was, it was about to vacate, but we didn't have to, but, but I was in the studio and we, I rented about like 40, 40, uh, bronze gongs. So, and I had a week in the studio. And so it was a time where it was like ghostly quiet, you know, but I was in there trying to make songs, compositions just by playing these huge gongs, um, and figuring out how I can come up with a system where I can just make songs, uh, with just gongs. So that's where the journey started. And then a couple of months later, I was in Italy and lippery. They were all there on set shooting the sirens, like shooting the sirens. And then I got to go on the boat and, you know, just, just, just step in that world for a little bit before I went on to my next adventure was, which was going back to LA in the studio, write 10 more days in a studio. And in my studio, write more songs. And then after that, I went to Southern Albania recorded with some incredible musicians there. So I got to, I got to just travel a lot, um, and a lot of incredible people. It sounds like you went on your very own journey. Yeah. That process. Um, this is kind of a silly question, but where do you keep your awards? Right now, they're in the studio, which is about 10 minutes from the house. Uh, it's on the bottom shelf. And I have this bookshelf about behind my couch. And that's where, that's where the awards are right now. Um, and I think I'll, I think I'll keep them there. What, you've, you've talked about being someone who always has a five or a 10 year plan. What are some of your current goals? Do you have a dream project? Do you have it worked on yet? Yeah. I mean, right now, my goal is to, uh, I, I do want to finish my record, which has been on the sitting on, on in the back of my mind since, you know, almost eight years ago, I started it. So that's, uh, so that's my goal now before I start my next, my next movie, uh, project to finish my own record. Um, and, you know, just just, uh, you know, we always, I think everyone, we're all, we're always looking for the perfect balance. So I feel like every year, I'm getting closer to that, you know, and, and, and, and, and also just thinking about kind of like, you know, what makes you happy in life, except from, from work, you know, you know, and I know that work makes me really happy and, and playing music, but finding those things, you know, outside of that, that also makes me happy. Um, it's something that I'm working on too. And sometimes in the series, I like to ask people with the secret to a happy marriage or relationship is, and I know that you and your wife Serena, who's a violinist and producer, also frequently collaborate together. So I wanted to ask you what's the secret to working together so well. I mean, first of all, it comes down to, you know, respect, you know, and, and we have a mutual respect for each other in terms of, you know, human beings, but also as musicians and, you know, I, I really trust her, um, opinions as a musician, and what are cases as a, as a musician. Uh, and I think that's a huge part of it, you know, uh, like whatever she has to say of, of, of the music that we're working on is, it's always just extremely important. And she's able to, and she's also able to hear things that I'm not. And, and, you know, together, we're able to, you know, take it to the next level and, and bring it further. And, you know, yeah, I'm just being able to do that with your, with your partners is, I think, incredible. Well, it was so much fun talking to you for this. Thank you so much for joining my Monday morning and, you know, telling us about your mornings and your work. I think Elaine was, it was great to be here and great talking to you. My Monday morning is part of the journal, which is a co-production of Spotify Studios and the Wall Street Journal. I'm Lane Floreshime, and we'll be back with another episode of my Monday morning next week. Follow us on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and follow me on Instagram @LaneFloreshime for more behind the scenes stuff from my Monday morning, and to let me know what you think of the show. This This episode was produced by J.J. Juvika Verma with help from Pia Guttkari, edited by Catherine Brewer and Sarah Platt, video production by Peter Leonard, original music by Nathan Singapore. Thanks so much for joining us.