Capturing emotions through music…

I wanted to post my thoughts on something a little less tangible but equally as important as technical knowledge, and that is how to capture your audience’s emotions through music.

I guess the techniques used will vary depending on the genre but I believe this concept is far more difficult to master than you might think. The principals of how humans react to stimuli (don’t worry I won’t get carried away) is evident in everyday life, and understanding how certain things effect humans emotionally can help when writing music. Ever watched a really scary movie? I’m not talking about “Scream or freddy” I mean really scary! notice how the director builds tension!

Walking down a dark hallway, strange sounds fill the air etc.

I’m just throwing ideas at you, but why not try and think of a particular emotion (i.e Strange and uplifting) and create your track towards that feeling. Instead of thinking about production from the perspective of techniques (genre rules and structure) lets try producing using emotion. This concept may seem a little wishy washy but to me inspiring music always captures my imagination and explores the unexpected. 

I’ve also realized that this concept is the highest point of music knowledge and it why we make music right? Creating music to influence peoples emotions requires intimate knowledge of sound design techniques in order to convey your emotional message. However while all of this may even sound like common sense to you, ask yourself this question, do my productions (no matter what the genre) successfully convey the emotion I intended? 

Here are some areas of sound design that I believe you should focus on to enhance your ability to create more emotions in your tracks.

  • Music composition (Arrangement etc)
  • Atmospheric FX (building tension)
  • Creating your own sounds from scratch
Again I know this is straight forward information but If you think about it there’s a lot more to it than just studying other artists work. Personally I love Vibrasphere, I love their concept and the emotions of their tracks, and listening to their music I decided that I would explore just what makes their sound, sound like a Vibrasphere sound. I noticed that Vibrasphere uses a select set of keys that support their signature emotion, followed by a hand made sound set and finally their own arrangement style.
So what does this mean?
Put simply, defining your style (your favourite emotions) is finding out what keys you like, then building your own sound set i.e percussion,presets, hand made leads, FX, chords etc, followed by your own unique way of telling a story (arrangement).
  • Key choice
  • Signature sound set
  • Arrangement
By defining your style allows you to specialize in producing a certain range of emotions and a carefully chosen selection of keys will support the journey or story of your live performances. I recommend studying your favourite artist and the way he/she tells their story and the way they “build the tension” you tube is great for this as you can watch how the artist effects the audience with their arrangement (mix). Another great example of this is a DJ who plays tracks in the same key for lets say an hour, while slowly building tempo throughout the hour and then finally dropping a highlight track in a new uplifting key. The Dj has conditioned his audience therefore the key change was unexpected and even more satisfying, this method accentuates the emotional transition tenfold and is a good example of the power of arrangement.
Well once again thanks for taking the time to read this, I hope I have sparked some interest for you and perhaps even helped you think about production in a more creative way.
Feel free to add your thoughts.
Hyphen.