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  We've heard that while recording the music for Children of Dune, you were in one part of the world and your orchestra was in another, and you conducted them through a video monitor.
 For part of it, yes. We recorded different players in different parts of the world, and at one point we were recording the Czech Philharmonic while I was in Los Angeles. It was surreal but futuristic, kind of in the vibe of Children of Dune. We also recorded an orchestra in Seattle, which I conducted in person.
With the Czech orchestra, were you actually conducting through the video monitor?
There was a Czech conductor there. In the situation with the monitor, they had me talk and give comments, but the Czech conductor would conduct because he spoke Czech. I made comments while he conducted and gave suggestions as he went along.
Was this a new experience for you — remote musical direction?
It was the first time I'd done it on that level. It was a very large orchestra, with 95 people at one time. So it was very interesting, and in fact I couldn't be happier with the results.
There are a number of surprising music choices you make in the scoring, including one action-packed scene in which the music is solemn and meditative.
Well, for action scenes we had two approaches. When action came from evil characters, the music was Wagnerian and militaristic, but when it came from the Atreides we wanted to juxtapose it with an almost elegant, haunting beauty. In the scene you're speaking about, there's no sound but music — [this was intended] to bring the audience in and evoke both the Atreides and the Fremen. The lyrics are actually in Fremen.
How did you manage that? Is there a class in conversational Fremen?
[Laughs, unleashes a string of Fremen speech.] Basically, I thought the message would be more beautiful in the native language. So I read whatever I could of Frank Herbert's books where he had Fremen and also written-out translations. It was a difficult task, composing in a language that exists only in the world of Dune and then making the lyrics rhyme. I think it works very well. It's very beautiful. It's a lot about life ending and life beginning at the same time.
There's a lot of music here that uses non-traditional sounds.
My parents were into world music; my father traveled and lived for a time in Asia and the Middle East, and that's a big influence. And a lot of the instruments that are on this score are inventions. I have hundreds of instruments around the studio that I've made. There's an interesting instrument in there when the [Cast Out] come in — it's a three-foot tube of kelp that's been dried up, and it makes this really cool sound. I used it in place of a flute.
What made you think dried kelp would make music at all?
I don't know. When I see an object, I automatically wonder what sound it will make. If I walk by a pole or mailbox, I think "percussion instrument." Everything is an instrument.
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