Here’s an experiment: imagine a cartoon of a skinny, bare-chested old man on the streets of Cairo, noodling on a flute while a cobra emerges from a wicker basket and sways back and forth to the music. What’s the tun...

The themes to Skyrim and Game of Thrones have a lot in common—they’re both driving, building melodies with a kind of “Nordic Triplet” groove going on. Sure, they’re in different keys, but that̵...