Part I: The Contribution of Atmosphere
In my efforts to elucidate “what is unnerving music” I remixed the Silent Realm Guardian theme from the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword with the express goal of altering its atmosphere. The original song is adrenaline-inducing and quite unnerving in context and reflects a chase, which is actually what it accompanies. Music that can be described as pounding often has an unnerving effect to it, especially in a video game where music impacts how a person plays. The Space Pirates theme from Metroid Prime has a similar feel to it where the atmosphere of the piece creates anxiousness in the player. Music being unnerving is highly subjective, but from my experiences a pounding sound is unnerving. To many Penderecki’s Kanon for Orchestra and Tape is extremely unnerving, but I find it beautiful. All three of these tracks have a dark, even rough feel to them that makes them ominous. It is interesting what music unnerves me and what doesn’t. The contribution of atmosphere is, simply put, the unnerving nature of a piece due to its overall feel, regardless of how it is written. (At the same time, composition goes hand-in-hand with atmosphere.)
It starts off slow but it builds to the main part of the theme:
Now that you have heard the original, hear the remix:
[Silent Realm Guardian Theme Remix]
At first the remix seems to be just a slower version – as one of my friends noted – but through this change it attains a more ethereal and even more eerie atmosphere. The music becomes less solid and more dreamlike, taking away the concrete sound that many listeners expect; wet reverb was also used. The tempo of the original made it pounding but when I slowed the theme down I noticed how the same feel was still present, suggesting the role of composition. Speed/tempo alone does not make music creepy. I’ve heard upbeat songs that aren’t unnerving and slow songs that are a bit scary. As previously stated the components of a song merge to make eerie music; the parts cannot be totally isolated.
I added another subtle touch that perhaps changes the atmosphere as much as the reverb and change in tempo. This change draws upon the listener’s expectation of tonality or at least some form of structure. I added a flute, an instrument associated with the Western classical tradition, and essentially placed random notes. At the same time I mixed the flute low into the remix so that the listener can barely pick it out; the effect likely psyches him or out a bit. At the same time, he flute sounds clean. If the flute were more audible it would not be as perturbing. Its soft sound also creates an odd contradiction with the ominous piece. It adds to the atmosphere and makes it odder, while adding a new timbre.
Part II: The Contribution of Composition
This part was veritably an accident. A while back I showed my friend the raw recording of a song I named “Gangster,” obviously inspired by the Godfather. This piece was at that time focused on the piano, so the effect of other instruments is trivial. He likes piano and he plays but he found the dissonance and complete atonality (there is a structured form of atonality pioneered by Schoenberg and others) to be distasteful, even slightly unnerving. The simple yet violent piano playing was “random” to him and chaotic, so clearly the issue was based upon composition. To some people at least the lack of melody is offensive and makes the music hard to follow. Dissonance and lack of melody often make music perturbing to listeners of differing backgrounds. “Gangster” was in fact a minimalist piece dominated by lower pitches, which aided in a jarring sound. As I noted in Part I, listeners tend to be more unnerved by lower pitches (which the body feels more than hears). These elements converged and ultimately created that darker tone, thus fulfilling my objective for the song.
I realized that though I had reached my goal perhaps I was being too harsh upon the listener. I realized that my friend had a valid point which led to another: perhaps this song is indeed too demanding. To counteract the song’s unnerving nature I created a high-pitched synthesizer that modeled strings so that the sound would become fuller and therefore less disturbing. Admittedly my friend enjoys music where multiple instruments play against each other. The widening of the sonic arrangements make the song more accessible but retain the dark edge I want. In terms of the synthesizer’s composition I went for a drone approach; in other words, I used mostly sustained notes.
Since “Gangster” will be going on my as-of-yet-unfinished album, I’m not going to show people it. Instead, I’ll show my song “Statues” where the lack of structure did not necessarily create a harsh sound; the piano solo focused on high pitched instruments and created an icy sound, rather than an unnerving one.
Part III: The Contribution of Production
In some cases the production may make music unnerving, especially in the case of lo-fi music. Black metal – which tends to be low-fidelity – for example is harsher and has that increased capacity to unnerve. At the same time indie rock, which has a similar trend to a lo-fi sound, is usually not unnerving on any level; this observation lends strength to the importance of atmosphere and composition over production. Screamo for example, which tends to have a cleaner sound, can be as unnerving due to similarities in how they play. In some cases production can have a role but it has to be in the way instruments are mixed. The perceived volume of music does not have a great impact, at least not for the track as a whole. One case where production could be useful is in taking an instrument and distorting its sound to create creepy music. Honestly, production has a greater capacity to aggravate the listener, even though a rough sound can unnerve.
For example, Bathory’s music is very lo-fi but the weak production values result in an annoying, forgettable sound dominated by mediocre vocals and generic black metal guitar. The music itself is not unnerving and in fact is fairly boring and predictable. Low fidelity is not the absolute way to create a creepy sound and can only be a small help.
Two of the songs I listed, Silent Realm Guardians Theme and Space Pirates theme, are both fairly clean-sounding (at least compared to Bathory) and do not get a creepy sound from production; at the same time, the instruments mesh well and nothing is particularly louder. These two songs quite frankly throw a wrench into the impact of lo-fi production upon the scariness of music.
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