Music Composition Techniques 2: Tension & Release

1. Welcome & Intro: Okay, Next, let's talk about the topic of this course, which is tension and release. Now, this is this is what I came up with for just kind of a broad way to put all the topics that we're going to talk about in this class together. So that doesn't mean that everything we talk about in this course is going to be about making tension. Tension implies a certain kind of music, right? That's not exactly true. Tension and release is one of the most fundamental compositional techniques we have. So what that means is we want to make something that gives a feeling of absence. What that really has to do is with is the kind of polarity of music were were in a certain kind of museum. But you get the point. It's this note that just kind of goes in there, and it changes the whole feel of it. It can get, uh, sinister, depending on what note you use. We use the dominant, so it kind of has Ah, an uncomfortableness. Now I've got that g just pulsing on the off beat. I'm gonna put that through this whole bloody thing. Don't worry, I won't make you listen to this whole long, long thing again. I just want to get the sense of it. Okay, So now, effectively, what I have is a pedal tone here. Pedal tone is not sustaining forever because I don't have that much sustaining. Hey, everyone, Welcome, Teoh. My composition sequence. Music composition sequence Part two focusing on tension and release. So let's just dive right in And let me tell you why you care about tension release. First of all, this is something that is fundamental to all writing of music. It's something we think about all the time. So what I've done in this class is I've taken a whole bunch of composition techniques that I use every day and that I kind of thought about how How can a bundle these altogether? What's the common thread here? And it waas creating a sense of tension and release. There's a whole bunch of different ways to look at that and to achieve it. So in this class we're gonna be talking about using rhythm to create a sense of tension release, of course, using harmony to create a sense of tension release, but also using meter using dynamics using form to create this sense of tension release. And we're going to wrap it up at the end of this class by applying those concepts to some film music. And we're gonna look at some projects where ah ah composer had to work with a director who had their own sense of tension release and how the composer achieved it. So it's a really fun class. I'm really proud of it. I think I I I use the umbrella of tension release to introduce a whole bunch of composition techniques, styles, processes on just ways that I do things. I'm gonna show you a bunch of different projects in this class, a bunch of different pieces of music, some of the mines, some of them other people's and ah, for the ones that are mine. Anyway, I'm talking about how I made them and what was going through my head and why I made some of those decisions all kind of based around the idea, creating a sense of tension and then resolving that sense of tension with the release. So I hope you decide to join us in this class. It's ton of fun. We could do a lot of really cool things and it's going to help you be. Ah, better composer. If you're interested in writing music, this is how you do it. So please jump in and we will see you in the first lecture. 2. Why Tension And Release: Okay, Next, let's talk about the topic of this course, which is tension and release. Now, this is this is what I came up with for just kind of a broad way to put all the topics that we're going to talk about in this class together. So that doesn't mean that everything we talk about in this course is going to be about making tension. Tension implies a certain kind of music, right? That's not exactly true. Tension and release is one of the most fundamental compositional techniques we have. So what that means is we want to make something that gives a feeling of absence. What that really has to do is with is the kind of polarity of music were were in a certain kind of music, and it wants to feel like it goes somewhere else. Tension wants toe, have a release. So we're always talking about How does this section of music that I'm writing now want to go to the next section of music? That's kind of attention and release situation. So in the first composition class, we talked a bit about form and about how we have a section in a B section and we want the B section to complement the A section, but also to make it feel like it. It's moving somewhere. It's moving in a direction. So in this class we're going to delve deeper into that. We're gonna look at this idea of tension release, creating something that feels like it needs a resolution to somewhere else, right? Like moving back and forth. Um, this is something that if you loosely define the word, tension is something you can find in any music. Always, there is always a tension and release relationship happening in all music, no matter what the genre everywhere. Um, it's really just about creating drama, right? Like drama is about tension and release. That's what ah is like the definition of drama to me anyway, So in this class, we're gonna be talking about ah, using kind of our main musical tools to achieve this sense of tension and release while we're writing. So we're gonna talk about using form to create tension release. We've talked about that a little bit in the first class, but we're gonna go deeper into it in this class. We talked about using meter to create tension release We're gonna talk about rhythm, harmony Ah, and then techniques for combining all of those together to make tension and release. So don't think about this as just making tension music like scary sounding stuff. It's really about this polarity kind of idea. Something always wants to go somewhere else. We're always moving in order to create drama in music. That's what this class is all about, and that's what tension release means. So with that being said, let's dive into talking about the tools you might need for this class. 3. Review Tools: Okay, um, tools. You've heard me talk about this before in the other class. And if you took the music theory classes Ah. Then you heard me talk about this a lot at the beginning of everyone, but I want to make it really clear. Um, some of the tools that I think you should have access to in order to be successful in this class. And lucky for you, the two main tools I'm gonna be talking about are both free. So the 1st 1 you should have a piece of software. A piece of software that we call a notation editor is kind of the broad name for these pieces of software. I'm gonna be using. This one, this is called Muse. Score is the name of the application is a free program. You can download it at muse score dot orig. It's actually pretty great. Um, what it lets us do is enter notes. We can move notes around. We can add notes. We can play it back. We can hear what we're doing. Um, we contest some things out. We can add a bunch of articulations and dynamics and really write music. Um, this is different than your main audio program that you might have if you're into, like, audio software. If you're and audio software, maybe you've got pro tools. Maybe got logic you've got able to live. This is a little bit different. This is a program designed for music notation. So I highly recommend getting this application. You score the two other kind of big ones are Finale and Sibelius. Ah, those air good programs to, um, they're a bit expensive, so I'm gonna be using this one just because I like to use free tools whenever possible. So check this program out. It's really great. It exists for back and PC and pretty sure so download it and use it. The other thing you should have just for scribbling down notes and things is just some good old fashioned staff paper, just the five lines on it staff. So I'm gonna give you ah, sheet of this in the next little segment, I'll give you a downloadable pdf of some staff paper, so print out like five or six sheets of that and just keep it next to your computer while you're watching these videos. It's handy to have that kind of paper so that you can just jot down notes real fast. And also, if you like, you know, going outside and climbing trees. Then, um, you can take that with you and just scribble down rights and music. We'll talk about that more in just a second when we talk about ah, process, which will move to right now. So in the next thing will give you some staff paper to download. And after that we'll go to, ah little review on some of the process ideas that we talked about in the first composition class. So quick review. And then we get to the meat and potatoes the good stuff. 4. Review Process: So the first composition class, Um, that we had the one just before this one. I talked a lot about process, and I thought I'd just do a quick little review on that. Ah, since we might be building off some of that in this class. So in that class, I gave you a lot of ideas for things I do to start. Ah, the silly of Sharp Trick coming up with program music. Remember, Program music is like, um, we're trying to tell a story with music, so we use a lot of metaphor, things like that. Character sketches and free writing. This is probably my favorite one that I want to impart on you in this quick little review session. Um, don't be afraid to take all these techniques that we're talking about and just kind of mentally set him aside for a second and just let your brain room free and just start writing. It's great to have all these techniques and to know all of these different things that were going to do. But it's also the most beneficial thing to just relax and just write music and just kind of follow your heart. Let it happen and then maybe go back and say, Oh, I had some good music. Here's in good music there. How can I edit that and use the techniques that I know and turn that into something get Don't be afraid to do that. Not everything needs to follow these rules or any rules. Its composition. It's an art, right? So you're always creating and nothing you do know note that you could possibly write can be called wrong because you're the creator. So don't forget that everything you write is correct. The techniques that I'm showing you in this class are things that have proven to sound good and can help you write something that sounds really good. Quicker. But ah, if everybody always followed all the rules all the time, we would have the same sounding music for the last 500 years. And we don't because people keep breaking the rules. That's where innovation happens. So take all the rules that I'm gonna give you in all the ideas I'm going to give you and process them, put them into your brain. But then, when you're writing, let yourself just be free. Um, let yourself go Climb a tree and write music and break the rules if you want. Do don't forget that this is an art that we're working with here. That's the most important thing you need to always be remembering. No one can tell you that you're wrong. Okay with that, let's start talking about our first big topic, which is formed tension and release in form or, in other words, using form to create a sense of tension and release Off we go. 5. Long Term And Short Term: Okay, So, um, when it comes to form and tension and release, I want to talk about form kind of two different levels. Um, I'm going to use these boxes to represent the different sections of a piece of music. So let's call the red box in a section. So I'm just gonna assemble a piece down here. So So for each section, what we're thinking about is like like, if this was a pop song, we would think about a section or one of these blocks being averse, Another one being a chorus, another one being a bridge. If this was a more ah classical style of peace, we would college section it might be the a section B section, the C section. Different melodies might be in their own section, different core progressions and kind of do it. How ever works best. But the main thing is that if you imagine this block is a piece of music and this block is a piece of music, they somehow contrast each other. So this happens and then this happens and they are contrasting. Okay, so here's what I mean by the different levels. So let's say are red section happens, and then we're gonna do our blue section. And then let's say we're going to do our red section again, and then maybe our blue section again, and then our green section for something different and then read section again and blue section. Okay, that's a perfectly normal peace. This was a pop song. It would make a pretty good sense. Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus. Okay, pretty fine. So the tension and release aspect here is between each section. Every time the color changes, we have a contrast that makes a somewhat of a release. We want this to feel like it goes to this, and we want this to feel like it goes comfortably into this and this, and the red goes into the blue. The blue goes into the green, the green goes into the red and the red goes into the blue, right? Easier said than done. But that's the way we want it to feel, so that it feels like it's always progressing along scared of that floating green guy up there. Now that's one level, but let's look at that in a slightly different way, so I'm gonna copy this whole thing. And let's take that down here. Okay? So I've just duplicated again into a new piece. So same deal, Remember, everything is its own section, and we've got this first course verse, chorus, bridge, first chorus thing. OK, but now let's look at it a little bit differently. I'm gonna make a new block. And let's color this one. Something that stands out is hard to do with those colors of Children. Maybe just black. Okay, let's just use black. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna take one step back from all of this, and instead of looking at each block as their own thing, we're gonna group some things together. Okay, So what I'm trying to represent here is that this black box is in a section and on B section, so I've got one step backwards. So now what I have is a repeat of the A B section or the black box, something different here, and then this. So, in other words, let's do that from scratch down here. Just make these a normal box. In other words, I have that. Okay, so let me walk through that one more time. That might have been confusing. So red box and blue box verse and chorus, right? Those are always paired together. So let's now take a step back and think of it as just one thing. Since since red and Blue are always paired together, we're gonna think of that as one unit. So that is an A section. Let's call it the two of them together. That still makes this green box the odd box. But when I think about it like this now so I have this this something different than this. Now, my tension element is more because I have this repeating. We've been hearing this a bunch, and then this becomes more impactful. So I would think about that while I'm writing. I would think about how can these two pieces together make this more of a release when we get there? Right on. And there are musical elements that we could do to do that. And we're going to talk about those born when we talk about harmony. That's the main way I would do it. But, um, let's do one more. Using the same idea with the black box. Oops. Didn't copy everything. Okay, now what? We know here from this little experiment is that when sections repeat, it adds to the attention. So this is gonna be more intense than it would be if there was only one of these. So by that same logic, I can make this odd peace this odd section of the music, I feel even stronger if I want this to be even a bigger release When we get there, what I can do is this Okay, What do we have now? We have this a section which is really two sections inside of it. But the a section that we're calling it the black box. Let's call it the black box Black Box four times That just keeps going and going and going . And then finally, we get something different. That's going to be a very satisfying release. That doesn't mean you should always repeat everything four times but the straw, the more you repeat it, this stronger. This release is gonna be right. So keep that in mind. So this is kind of the two levels of stuff. Ah, we can look at things as individual sections, but we could also step one level back and look and like pair sections together and look at them as one kind of big section. And then our kind of odd pieces stand out a little more. Um, so keep that in mind as we move forward, especially this idea of repetition to build up more attention and then make a bigger release. 6. Forms We Know: okay, before we get too much farther into the weeds on forms, let's do a quick review of the forms that we talked about in the last class, which were primarily to binary form internal reform. So let's use my little boxes here. Teoh. Talk about them. So let's call this red box in this blue box B and the green box. See. So in binary form we had in a section and a B section, and what we do in binary is we do typically the A twice, and then the be twice. And then that's the end. So a. B B um, sometimes we write that as a B with a repeat around it, with the repeat around each letter, so a repeated be repeated. So that's binary form A a B B. This one isn't fantastic for attention for that tension and release thing. This isn't a great form for creating drama are only big kind of shift is between this A and this be, and the repetition is a in A. So there's a little bit there, so this could leave lead to kind of a shift here, but it tends to be short. It tends to not make a lot of dramatic impact. Let's look a urinary form Internet reform. We have a then be then a again, so a B A. That one also doesn't lend to a lot of dramatic change is not a lot of tension and release available in the A B A form. So what we have here is you know, we have a change here in between A and B, and then we have a change again between B and a again. But, um, there's not a lot of time spent on this. A. There's no repetition of a, um, and again, it tends to be fairly short. Usually the harmonic relationship meaning the core progression is a 51 in between here, so this might start on a one chord and end on a five chord. And then this would be in the five chord, which is good but not great at that feeling of release when we get to the B section here. So while both of these forms are great, they don't do a ton for a more dramatic sense of music. Also, notice that R C section here are Green box didn't get used in any of these, so that one's kind of off on its own. So let's talk about forms that do lend themselves better to more drama. Ah, and more attention and release in our music. Let's jump to a new video and talk about some of those one in particular that I want to spend some time on. 7. Forms That Create Drama: So in this coming up next couple videos, we're going to talk about one of my favorite forms for creating a sense of tension and release, and that is something called Sonata Form. So we'll talk about that in just a second. But I want to tell you first why Sonata Form works, and then I'll tell you why I like Sonata Form. So let's take this, um, binary form and see if we can turn it into a form with more drama. So the key to remember here is that you're always going to get a better sense of release the longer you prolong the release, so if it's prolonged, it's more impactful. So let's do this. Let's get rid of this repetition. So now we have a B stretch that out and do this kind of Look what I did before. Let's do another A. So now we have a A a a A B. Now be is more powerful because the three A's that preceded it created more attention, and then we get the B as the release. If I do this now, the B is even more powerful yet because I have four a section so the longer Aiken DeLay this B section, the more powerful it becomes, the more impactful it's releases. Now, on top of all of this, you have to think about, uh, creating a really monotonous piece of music. So this is not something I might actually want to write, because then I'm just repeating something five times and then making a B section that is going to make a really powerful resolution here when we get to the B section, but at the cost of possibly having ah bunch of really boring music leading up to it because of all the repetition. So what you can dio is what we call ah prime. So we have an A section. But let's say we also had in a prime section when you use the word prime inform. That means that it's the A section, but slightly altered. Let's make that like a salmon color, right? So that means that this other thing we're that we're going to call a prime is actually the A section material, but with some changes to it. So in this, what we might do is a A A, and then we'll do like in a prime and another a prime. So now I've got some diversity in all of this, a leading into my B, right? So it can work out really well that way where you can create ah diversity in all this repetition and still make a lot of drama leading and to be so This would be called a. This would be called a. This would be called a prime. This would be called a. This would be called a prime. It's like a variation of a basically, and you can do it on B two and C you can be prime. See prime. You'll see all that shortly. Let's look at this one. How could I make this more dramatic? You know, one way I could do it just to do something different, B, I could prolong be This could even be more dramatic than prolonging a in a way, because the listener hears the A music and then the b sections of something different, and then b and B then B and they're like, when is the a coming? And they're gonna have this sense of wanting that a because in this case, they know the music of a up here. They don't know this be music here. They know what it is, and they're just gonna be waiting for it to come back all this way so we could change things up by making it a B prime. Well, just give it a little bit lighter color here. Case in, I've got a B b, prime B B, prime A. So that gives us some diversity in all of this repetition just so it doesn't get boring. So the key to remember here is that the longer we delay the resolution, the more powerful it is. That's what you need to remember. 8. Sonata Form Definition: okay. One of my favorite forms to use for this kind of thing is called Sonata Form. Now, Sonata form goes way back. Um and it's Ben developed and used by modern composers in a very kind of liberal way. So if we take the classical definition of sonata form, it means three sections. We start on our tonic kiwi end in our dominant key in the third section. We either stay in our dominant or sometimes you go back to the tonic or sometimes we go to the relative minor. And then the third section, we stay in our tonic key. That's like the classical definition of it. But don't worry about that. Um, what I want to focus on is a very modern interpretation of it, which means we kind of slice away some of the rules. What we're gonna do is takes an out of form and treat it as these kind of this block idea that I'm working within my colored boxes. So I'm not even going to really care about keys and things like that yet We're gonna talk about that shortly, but right now I'm going to talk about is just forms and a sections B sections in C sections . Now Really, What we haven't snot a forum is something like we have in a section. We have a B section, then we do in any section again and a B section again. Then we do a C section, and then we do in a section again and a B section again. And that's kind of if we wanted to slice it down to just a B a B C A. B. That's one way we could look at it, but it's a little more complicated than that. And the reason is that all these boxes are not created equal, necessarily in Sonata form. So let's chop this up into boxes, and we're gonna have to pull back our black box to look at the larger picture things if we really want to get to the bottom of Sonata form. So let's do that in a separate video. Off we go 9. 4 Elements Of Sonata Form: Okay. So, actually, in sonata form, there are three or four sections depending on Ah, what definition you're following. There's a lot of different definitions of this. I like to think of it as four sections. So I'm just going Teoh, use some text down here and label them. So the 1st 1 is called the Exposition. They're kind of fancy terms, but I'll explain that in just 2nd 2nd 1 is called de development. 3rd 1 is called Recap Situation. Hopefully, I'm spelling things right And the 4th 1 that is sometimes included as a separate thing and sometimes just included as recapitulation. But I like to think of it as a separate thing. Is the coda. Okay, so let's make these look a little different here. Okay? Let's do that just to separate it from my song piecing here. And I left off a letter there. Okay, so let's look at just are exposition first. I'm gonna just take those away for a second. So our exposition is gonna be a and then be repeated. So that is the exposition. So let's do this. Okay. There's our exposition now. The development is gonna be our C. Now it's gonna be different here is that it's not that we're going to a C section that's equal to the B section or the A section. Our boxes are kind of tricky here. What the this is it is actually roughly equal to the exposition. So that doesn't mean it needs to be the exact same length. But it's comparable. Let's just call it comparable. Okay, So I'm gonna go away off my screen here because I still got more to go. So it's zoom out. Just touch. Okay, so that's my exposition or my development. Sorry. So this is the development section. Okay? Now let's jump back and look at our exposition. Now that we've seen this development, what that means is that this a B A B pattern is actually probably could be easily defined as that black box situation that we looked at before, right, cause all of those together could be called the A section in a way. So the exposition is this big four block thing. Then we have the development. Okay, Now let's pull back our third thing, which is our recapitulation. The recapitulation is basically a fancy way of saying, Let's bring back the stuff that we've already heard. So for that, I'm going to do in a section and a B section, but I'm not going to repeat it. So this is significantly shorter. So this is our recapitulation and a and A B same as we heard back here. So you could think of this as 1/2 exposition, sort of. We get to play with it a little bit, so let's actually call those. Maybe prime. Just for fun. Now, remember, this is a modern interpretation of this is not necessarily the clock classical interpretation of it. And then for a coda, the last piece, What we can do here is, um I'm trying to find a new color to show that it's basically anything goes. Um let's do Yes, I don't know. What color have I not used yet? Purple. Now that's kind of like the other color. That's hard to come up with. A new color Blue straight up, blue, yellow. How about yellow? More yellow. There we go. Yellow. OK, Kota can be something totally new. Um, it's short and it kind of wraps everything up. So that's our sonata form. So if you look at what I did here. It's really similar. Here's our A B A B thing, but now I'm just gonna call it the Exposition as this one big block. And then the development is actually significantly big. But it's a playing around with all of this stuff. Recapitulation is reminding everyone what are A and B section was before, and Koda is just kind of a way to wrap it up and say, This is the end Now there's a little more to this. What we do is we think about this is the way I like to explain. Um, Sonata form. Imagine it's like a ah kid playing with toys. The exposition is when you pull out all your toys and you say, here are my toys that I'm going to use, That's your A and B right here. These are the toys I'm gonna play with, and then you're A and B here is the kids saying No, really. These are my toys that I'm gonna play with right now. So we're introducing the toys and we're reaffirming. What are toys are? That's the expedition. The development is playing with your toys. So in this section, I'm gonna take those toys and I'm gonna just play with them for a while. So the melodies and the harmonies that I introduced in the A and B section I'm gonna experiment with I'm gonna go kind of weird with him get, you know, get a little funky. Then after I'm done playing with all my toys, I'm going to say, Hey, these are my toys. I'm gonna remind everyone what my toys R. But maybe I broke some of them in the process of playing with him. So it might be a little bit different here. I might have a little bit less toys. I might have invented a new toy. Um, some of my toys are broken, lost, covered in snot. Whatever. My toys air slightly different. But I'm going to show you one more time what my toys are, Then the coda section is me packing up my toys and putting them away saying Those were my toys. Now I am done. That's the way I think about this. So it's not just that this development section is completely unrelated. It's actually related to some of the other things we've used. So when it comes to tension and release our biggest release is here. When we go back to our toys, when we reaffirm the material that we've been using, we can also have many tension. And release is all over this development section. I could have lots of different moments inside of here where we pull away from the material , reintroduce some of the material, suspend the resolution of the material, all kinds of things like that. So those could be all over the development section. But then we have a big one when we had back to the recapitulation have all this time to be expecting to hear this material again here. Right, So that's a big moment of release that we have in the sonata form. Okay, so let's talk a little bit more about this and maybe look at some examples. 10. Sonata Form Example: Okay, let's look at a kind of traditional classical sonata and see kind of how this is done. Um, what we're gonna use here is what we have on the screen, which is Moonlight Sonata. You've heard this before? Probably. Ah, either if you took some piano lessons or it's in a lot of movies, it's on the radio. You've probably heard at least the beginning of this before. The odds are, if you haven't, that's totally okay. Um, this one is a little tricky to look at because it repeats this triplet figure for pretty much the whole thing that triplet is going. So there's not, like a real definitive line in between the sections, right? If they stopped, if he stopped that triplet, it would be really obvious where the sections changed, right? Cause he would do it in between sections. But it goes on forever. So we kind of have to listen a little closer to hear the different sections of the Sonata. Um, but I like this one because it also has a great release moment when it goes back into the A section. So when we get back here to the recapitulation, after all the development stuff. There's this great release. I'll point that out when we get there. Okay, So, um, let's play it through once just so you can hear it and then we'll go through and talk about it. So here we go. And Okay, - okay . I think the easiest way to go through this and talk about the form as it relates to these topics that we're talking about is Teoh hit play again and kind of talk over it. I hate talking over music, especially a piece is powerful is this, but ah, I think we have to do it. Um, But before I do that, let me do one thing in another class When we were talking about for him, I think it was the first composition class. One of the things I did is I said, Well, weaken. Sometimes we can kind of see the form really easy if we lay it all out on one page. So if I go to this continuous view here, so we just see this in a big, long line, and then I zoom out. Sometimes you can see the form just is kind of blocks that emerge, and there are some things I can see here by doing that. But the pieces just too long. Um so everything just gets too small if I was gonna fit on one page for that to be useful. So while that is actually a handy technique for looking at form, it doesn't really work in this case because those triplets just keep going forever. So instead, let's walk through it and let's maybe no. So let's walk through it. So here we go. Okay, So this is our A section, right? This is our main thing. So let's let this go. And then I'll point out when we get Teoh RB section. But keep in mind this melody that we're hearing that goes from the beginning all the way to write there. That's the main kind of baseline relative. Now we have this top melody so we could actually call that an intro. And this the a section if we wanted to split hairs. Okay, so there's our melody for a So now something's changing, right? Something changed there, and now we're getting the melody again a little bit differently. So let's call this a B section. Something very different there. Here comes the end of the melodies is probably ended The B section right there. Now we have something a little different. I don't think we're quite in the development yet, So this might still be part of the B section because I think we're gonna hear this again later. So I think this is actually a B melody. And before we were hearing a twice So something a little different there instead of a b a B . I think he gave us a a prime B which is ending right now. Now I think we're in the development section. It's subtle, but you're going to hear him start taking this melody and start playing around with it like that a little bit more so the harmony is going to change. The melody is gonna be slightly different all over the place. This is the experimental portion, right? The development. This is when he just kind of having fun with the material he's got that we're off kind of far away from the melody were not really We don't really have anything that resembles that melody from before so very clearly were in the development section. Now, now pay attention to that base note. We're gonna come back and talk about this in a minute. So here's the end boom. That is the end of the development section. We're now back way Have that melody again. So we're clearly back into the a section a repeat of the A section. Okay, there's the end of the A section. Are we gonna get it again? Sort of think this Is that a prime section that we heard before? There's the end of that. Do we get a B section here? Yep. I That particular harmony was the hallmark of the B section earlier. So we're now in the repeat of the B section. Now I think we're heading into the coda here. This is the beginning of the coda. So now we get that melody again. But it's all the way down in the base really low, and it's not gonna develop. It's really just those three notes. It's just staying down there in the base while the upper triplets just kind of keep roaming around, wrapping us up, leading us to that final cord. Two chords at the end. Okay, And there we have it. So our form is a little different than what we expected, and that's okay. Uh, composers took liberties with the sonata form. So instead of the A b a b, What we got here is let's take the black box away for a second. What we got is a a prime be. We may have gotten a repeat of B, but I don't think so. So that was what became our exposition in this piece. A little bit shorter exposition, which is totally okay. So that was the exposition. You see, if I could just line this up Rio And then the development we played with all that material the recap we got the we have a a prime and be again. So we had Let's stretch this out and sneak in in a in their red box. So the recap we had a a prime and be again. And the Dakota and Kodo, remember, Just means the end literally. It means tail, like, you know, the the tail of the peace, the back part, the end. Um, so you can kind of do whatever you want in the coda. It tends to be pretty short. So there we have it. Now I want to look at one aspect of this piece, and we'll break to a new video for it. But the thing I want to look at is what happened right here getting out of the development into the recapitulation. What did he do that made that feel really strong? Because there was a cool tricky did there that really sent us into the recapitulation really well, from the development into the recapitulation. So let's break to a new video, and we'll talk about that. 11. Using Sonata Form for Tension: Okay. Remember how earlier I said that you always make a greater sense of release The longer you prolong it, right? So sometimes that doesn't mean just doing like, ah, prolongation of be like what we looked at before we had, like, a a a be, you know, something like that where we've got all of this a Then he's gonna feel really Ah, like a huge resolution. Doesn't always need to be that literal, because we have that here. So here we are, in the development section I'm gonna go to the end of the development section is going to be right about There's the end of the piece here. This is when the melody comes back again as the A section. Okay, so this felt really nice. It was like this. Ah, big opening. And let's look at why what? He was prolonging in the last part of the development section all through almost this whole page from here all the way here he was prolonging something and it wasn't a formal aspect. It wasn't the melody, the a section of the B section. It was something different that within the development that he was prolonging what it was was a simple as this bass note. Okay, this is a G in an octave, and that g goes all the way through all this stuff. He just keeps hitting it over and over and over. Keeps going, Keeps going. Prolonging, prolonging, prolonging, prolonging, prolonging. Then we get to hear one more time. Step up, stepped down back to it. And then the huge resolution here. That bass note right there. All of this G leads us to that. See, now, if you remember your music theory, IFC is our route. If C is the key were in then G is the dominant of it. And if you're gonna prolong something for a long time, the dominant is the way to do it. Five notes away from C So if you count up from sea, we we can't see as 12 d t e toe f to G. That's five notes that fifth note. The G is what's gonna always lead back to see really strongly. We'll talk more about this when we talk about harmony. But I want to point out here that during the development here, he's got this g going through all this stuff. He's just pushing it and pushing. It is like g g g g in his big fat bass note all the way to hear when it ends and we get back to the melody and it feels so rewarding. Let's hear just that part. Okay, so here's where that G start. So keep your here on this base note, - but right. Did you feel it? Did you feel that? See, as the resolution to this entire pages stuff all the way up here all the way down, Prolonging that g made that see, Feel like we are back to a and there is just nothing you can do about it. Really strong resolution. So tension all throughout there and then this big release, that big bass note G just gives us a ton. Attention leading here, and we're finally let go. Okay, uh, up next, um, I want to give you this file, so I'm gonna give you, um, this music or file, and I'll give you a pdf two of, uh, Moonlight Sonata, and you can play around with it, See what you think. Ah, and then we're gonna talk about more modern interpretation of this. Ah, using a big rock song. So let's do that 12. Modern Uses Of Form and Tension: I want to look at another song Now we're gonna leave Sonata form behind for a little bit here and I want to just, like, look at the form of Ah, a different kind of peace. Let's do a big rock song and I'm gonna do a little formal analysis using my boxes here and my colors and I'll call things by a bee in a Now remember normally in like a rock song. We would have first course and bridge those be kind of the three main Lego pieces. And then we put things together. Um, but what I'm really looking for here is a song that has a lot of some kind of point. That's a big tension buildup and then a release of it. And that doesn't always need to be a big point. It can be a really soft release where it where. It's not the loudest point of the song, but it creates a big sense of relief. Um, how can I explain that better? We're gonna listen to a song where it's a big rock song and it's loud and it gets very and has a ton of energy in it. But the actual release that we're going to hear when there's a big tension moment and then released. But the release is actually the quietest point of the song, but it still feels like it has this very strong moment of release when it happens. So, um, listen for that Listen for when it when the release happens doesn't need to be loud. It doesn't need to be the highest energy point. Um, so the song we're gonna look at is by a band called Muse. If you're into rock stuff, you probably know, Muse. They're great band, really talented musicians in the span. Um, I am big fan of a lot of the stuff they do. So in the next video, let's do an analysis of a song of theirs, a very kind of odd song of theirs called Butterflies and Hurricanes. 13. Muse: Butterflies And Hurricanes: Okay, So what we're going to do here is we're gonna analyze. The band is called Muse. Song is butterflies and hurricanes. Okay, so what we're gonna hear here is we're here, really just two sections, because what they do in this song, that's really peculiar, as they have in a section, and then in a prime section and then another prime section. So you know something slightly different. Let's do it really dark. I guess so. All of these are a but they're actually kind of building on each other. So a prime a we would call this double prime. So it's another iteration of a and what they do is they start off soft and they give us kind of the same material again, but they get bigger and louder. And then again, what they get bigger and louder, and they just keep going. And in fact, we could even represent this maybe even better by, instead of using colors sort of Onley using colors, doing something like this, this is kind of more accurate for what it feels like. A bigger, a bigger a. And then we'll see what happens from there. Okay, so let's think of the form this way, just for fun. Now there is a video to this, um, online that you confined of this song. I'm not going to use it because they shorten the song a little bit and they cut out some of this middle section that's so powerful to me. So I'm just gonna play. Ah, the recording. And then I will, um, I'll put together this outline while we go so you can see what I'm doing here. Here we go. Way. Oh, way. Okay. And then that's the end. So pretty weird song, right? So check it out. A a prime, a double prime, a triple prime. A quadruple prime. A quintuple prime, a cept Uppal prime a HEPA topple prime be. Although I wouldn't really call this a b section, I would call this Ah, bridge. So really, I'd probably call that all part of the next section because it was really transitory. It really just kind of served to get us to the next section. This is that big long piano solo. And then here was our big resolution going out of that into that we went back into the A section, but the quietest part of the A section. Let me let me get back to that real quick here. Okay, so here's the piano solo. We're in here and now, very delicately, we go back into a right there and it's very fragile. But then he very quickly jumps to a full steam, skips a couple steps here and just gets really loud, really fast right here, but still leaving us room to get even bigger in our here for the last one. So that takes us out to the end. So I love this piece because our resolution are are released back into the A section is so delicate, and this transition is so long. It's like this crazy, weird, bizarre piano solo all the way in the middle of it. It doesn't need to be that long to be that effective. It could be just a short as everything else and still be equally effective. Could be like that, and it could still have Justus much power. Ah, if it was done carefully. But the longer you make this, the easier it is for this to be really powerful. Even though it's one of the quietest moments of the song, it might be the quietest moment of the song other than the very, very beginning. So kind of a goofy form, sometimes using ah, the size of shapes to depict form can be handy. Ah, it's not normal. Um, if you were just if you had a professor ask you to right out the forum for a song, you wouldn't do that necessarily. But in a case like this, I think it really shows more clearly what's happening than just shapes and colors. So check out that song used as a lot of really interesting stuff with form. I really like the music. Okay with that, let's move on and let's talk about meter. Ah, some things we can do with meter that really pushed this idea of tension and release. 14. Meter And Tension: Okay, let's move on to talking about meter and how we can use changing meter to create a sense of tension and release. Um, now, what we're really talking about here is expectation. We can mess with expectations by adjusting the meter in different ways. We can also give a really satisfying sense of resolution by giving them by giving the audience finally what they expect. Right? So you change the meter. It's not quite what they expect. And then you finally give it to him, and it feels comfortable. It feels like home. It's a great resolution. So we're gonna talk more about expectations. Just a second. Um, I thought we'd start this section with I want to go back and play. Um, I'm just gonna play one of my tracks. What? My something I wrote. And I think this is a song I played in the intro. Actually, this is an electronic piece of buying called Circadian. Now, I'm gonna do the thing I hate, which is talk over it just to point out some meter things. Okay, so it starts off with his bell thing. Now, if you counted this and you tried to count it in 44 You would have a really hard time. 123412341234 c We're already off, it's in. It's in a shifting meter here, but that's not the point I want to make. So this synth is about to come in, and it's also in a shifting meter this. So if you counted the pattern and four starting at the beginning, which is right here 123412341 See? Nothing's lining up on a beat. Now we get a study, eighth notes. We at least know where that is. But again, it's not gonna line up in a 44 pattern. 44 is always what people expect. So it's this. There's this attention made right now from this this odd meter, and we don't know where it is. If you try to dance to this, you'd be falling all over the place because the meter is just shifting around. It's actually changing every bar. You can't you don't really feel it that way, but that's what's happening in order to create this Uncertainty keeps going longer and longer. - Okay , here comes the resolution. Now After all that, everything's gonna Kwan ties into 44 and you'll be able to count 1234 and it feels really satisfying. 23412341234 Want to. So everything that was jerky and in different meters suddenly snapped into 44 there, and it made sense. Um, I had to change the music to do it, to make it work, but it gives this great feeling of like it's like you're juggling 10 balls in the beginning , is what it feels like. And then it gets to that beat and it's just like, Ah, OK, I get it Like everything fell into a pattern. We like patterns. It's comfortable. There's a sense of resolution there, and it feels really good. So that's how meter can influence this tension and release thing. So remember when I talk about 44 what we really want is this, um, we want to be able to count. 12341234 so let's go into that a little bit more. Um, in the next video and this one, I just wanted to kind of give you this example and the next video we're gonna talk about stylistic concerns will also do a little bit of definition on what that 44 pattern is. 15. Stylistic Concerns: Okay, I'm gonna leave Muse, score for just a minute and work in my sequence or here. This is able to live. The reason I'm going to do that is I want to look at, um I want to use drums as an example for this. Now, this applies whether you're writing piano music, string quartet, music, Elektronik music or anything. Eso I don't think that just because I'm using drums that it's the only thing that applies. Ah, but it's just easiest to explain with drums, so let's just do it with drums, Okay? So if you've taken some other classes, you know what I mean when I'm saying for four or common time or something like that. But let's just do a really super quick little refresher here. What that means is, if you look up here, this is one bar from here to here. That length of time is one bar and you see it notated appear as 11.21 point 31.4. And then to what that means is this is bar one. This is beat to This is beat three and this is beat for now. I am in 44 time here. That means there's four beats in a measure. This is always what we expect. If you're in like a Western audience, there can be other things you can do that are pretty normal. Like 34 having three beats in a measure. Um, but depending on what style of music your writing that may or may not feel comfortable and normal. So here I have a drum beat. And if you're doing drums, you're pretty much gonna put a kick sound a bass sound on one and three and a snare sound on two and four And this particular kick our ah, drumbeat. We also have another kick on in between Beat three and four since this year. That really quick? Okay, let me actually just, um, loop that. Okay, so we can count to four with this. Right? Started the beginning. 123412341234 Right, Fine. That's great. That's what is the most predictable thing you can do. So if it was in 34 it would be like this. Okay? So if I tried to count four now, I'm gonna have a hard time. 1234123412341 It doesn't line up. Right? Um, I needed to be the same every cycle through. So I count to 3123123123123 Now it lines up. But this is where the stylistic stuff comes in. If I'm playing rock music. Ah, singer songwriter style music. Ah, and definitely anything that's designed to be dance music 44 is what you need. Um, if I tried to dance to this, let's speed it up a little bit. Try to dance to that. You're gonna be falling all over the place because it's in three. Let's move it back out to four. Let's hear it at the faster speed. See, that already feels like a resolution, right? That feels more comfortable than it did when it was in three. So you can play with that as long as you're willing to, um, skirt that stylistic stuff a little bit. Some styles of music are better in three, and some are in four. Um, but you can get even weirder than that. We could do it in if I did like 1/2 a beat. Then we drop it down to an eighth note and we would call this each of these we would call to eighth notes, so this would be to four and then half of a bar that be five. So we would call this 58 time, right? It's weird. Um, we do 38 time, right? What if we did? Ah, whole bunch of all of it. Check this out. Let's do something. So here's a 38 bar. Here is a 58 bar. Let's add Oh, let's do a 34 bar and then let's play with that a little bit. So let me show you what happens. Here's another 38 bar. It's 2338 bars. And then there. 58 bar. And then do our 34 bar another 38 bar and another 58 bar. Okay, that's probably enough. Let's get rid of that one for a second. Now we're going to hear this running through 3858 and 34 none of which are are most comfortable. Uh, loop. Right. So let's just hear it first, and then we're gonna resolve it, so to speak. Okay? so you couldn't dance to that. That's not a definitive pattern, but watch this. Let's add one more and let's make it a full 44 Think so. The 44 measure, actually, let's start it right on the beat so we can see it more easily. So this is the 44 measure, and then I'm just looping it here. So let's make it not so confusing here. Okay, so here's my 44 bar. Gonna copy that. Put it here, in here in here. Decided a couple times. So this is gonna rhythmically feel like it resolves when it gets to hear. Let me even just change the color of that so we can see. Okay, When we get to that orange one, there should be some kind of feeling of resolution. Here we go. Right. So it feels like it just kind of snapped together. It was chaos, and then it became controlled. That is a great example of tension and release, Right. We were creating tension with all of these changing meters that we had here. And then boom. We locked it in and it became a a a predictable for four. Okay, next, let's talk about, um, compound meters and how compound meters work 16. Compound Meters: Okay, I'm back in. Muse. Score. Let's look at this and more traditional notation. So this means we're in 44 What that means just as a refresher. It's 5/4 notes. That's what that bottom four means. I can fit four of them in a bar. Oops. So top number tells me how many of the bottom number I can fit in a bar quarter note is, you know, notated 1/4. So that's where we get that for. Let's change our time signature here. Let's do 24 So what is to four gonna tell me? That means I can fit to quarter notes in a bar. Okay, easy enough. About 54 Same logic. I can fit 5/4 notes. Now let's look at some of our eighth note based meters. 38 We were just looking at 38 That means I can fit 3/8 notes in a bar, which also means I could fit 1/4 note and 1/8 note. It doesn't have to be all eighth notes. Let's do 98 Another odd one conf it. 9/8 notes in that bar, and we tend to group them in sets of three So 9/8 notes or three groups of 3/8 notes. Now, when you look at these, we have two different kinds of meters. Here we have meters that we can divide by two and meters. We can't divide by two, for example, for four. We could cut it in half and it would work out just fine. 24 We could cut in half and it would be an even number 54 We can't quite cut in half, right, because it would be right Here is the halfway point, so we'd have to cut this note in half. It's gonna make for an odd number that is Compound meter, same thing with 38 same thing with 98 So let's do a little bit of, um, a refresher on what compound meters mean, and then we'll come back and we'll talk about using compound meters to create tension and then resolving them with a ducal meter. A do pull meter is the one ones we were just talking about here that we could cut in half even numbers, basically okay, so ah, couple of videos on review of Compound Meter and then well, this is review if you took my theory glasses. If you didn't take my theory glasses, then this will be new. Um, and either way, it will be good for you. So two videos on that Ah, and then are no sorry. Three videos on that, and then we'll come back and talk about, um, alternating around with them. 17. Alternating Compound And Duple Meters: Okay, let's try doing something. Ah, in 98 and then resolve it. So to speak to for, for now, this term resolved that I'm using is you wouldn't want to use that in like your college music theory class. Resolving means something that happens between chords, and it's a harmonic thing, but I like to think about rhythm while I'm writing music as having resolving moments. Um, this is not like a music theory thing. This is like a composition thing. So, um, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start off in an odd meter. Let's use 98 then I'm going to try to resolve it to 44 Now, first, let's think about the difference between 19 and 44 What this means is that 98 has actually won more eighth note than 44 does so because 44 has 4/4 notes, which means it has 8/8 notes, right, So it is essentially 88 and we're gonna do something in 98. So what that means is that, um, throughout the 98 section, I'm gonna be giving them one extra eighth note and then and that's gonna feel odd and then I'm gonna take it away in the 44 Now, in addition to that 98 patterns, we tend to feel it as groups of three. So if I did something like this over and over, it's gonna do something really repetitive so that it feels, um we get the sense of it fairly fast. So here I have 9/8 notes in 98 Okay, I'm gonna repeat that a couple times. Do it. I don't know, Bunch. Okay, that's really good. Not only will switch to 44 here. Now, I'm not gonna put in the exact same music. Because this feeling of 123123123 is gonna be gone. We're gonna feel 1234567812 So we're gonna feel it a little differently. So instead, I'm still gonna use eighth notes so that it feels kind of the same. But let's just alternate like that. They asked three bars of that. Okay, Let's see if I did it. So let's look back at it. So it's ignore this measure. So 98123123123123123123 All the way to here. When we get here, we're suddenly gonna have 121212121212 Right. Actually, one and two and three and four and five and six and groups. Sorry. One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four end. So that should feel like some kind of resolution to me. Let's hear it way. Okay. No, it doesn't hit you over the head, that's for sure. In just this simple, you know, three note pattern. But it it does have a feeling of change, Like a big feeling of change here. But, you know, to be totally honest, what I kind of felt like was this was the tension. And this was the release because we were getting so used to this 98 pattern. This starts to feel like we're being deprived of one note there, so that feels like the tension in this particular case, which is interesting. So let's resolve it by going back to our 98 Okay, Let's see if this now feels like the tension and then this feels like a resolution when we get there. It's interesting. I kind of think it does. So I think that's just a case of using just such a simple melody where what we actually did is made the feeling of taking away this e this e note here, um, on the pattern and then we bring it back. That's the kind of resolution that I was looking for. Interesting. But you can see no matter which one is the release in which one is is the tension maker. Um, by shifting meters, we definitely created some kind of dramatic shift in the feeling of the music without really doing much else. It's just the pattern. Okay, with that, um, let's move on and talk about just rhythms without changing the meter, but just rhythms how you can create interesting rhythmic moments, um, that have a sense of drama and a sense of tension. Release without changing meters in our next section 18. Rhythmic Patterns: okay, up next. Let's move from the discussion on meter into just a discussion on rhythm. So I'm gonna leave meter out of this. Um, although it's kind of related to meter a little bit. So what we're gonna look at here is how we can use rhythm to create a sense of tension and release. Um, for example, look at this pattern that I've made here, so I have just two notes alternating and quarter notes to know it's alternating corner notes. The alteration stops here, and then we have a silence, and then it starts up again. Let's hear that. Okay, now there's a couple interesting things that this example points out. Um, three things actually over Larry. I remember all of them. So first, let's look at what this does. So we changed the pattern here, right? The patterns stopped going from two notes. G two notes. D The pattern now went four notes D that left us a bit of tension because we're expecting this G. So just by changing the pattern slightly, we've created a sense of expectation. Now, thing number two is that this rest now really built up some tension because we're expecting the G again. So in this rest we had a break in the pattern and we expected to hear both the pattern and the sequence of notes from two G's two D's and back and forth. So this created quite a bit of tension leading into this this next G. Nothing Number three that happened in this example is when it started back up, we shifted our downbeat right. I just started on the downbeat which over here I did one and then two and then to to to to write so is too low to high all the way through. But I started on one. So that means over here When this started up again, our downbeat felt like it was here. It felt like 412341 So we shifted the beat. Now, this could be interesting if I was doing something where I had an accompaniment to this and I wanted it to feel like the beat shifted here. This is exactly how I would do it. Put a little rest, let the recent tension and then reintroduce the pattern on a different beat while the accompaniment stays on the previous beat pattern that would be a way to create some new material just from this simple pattern. In fact, maybe let's do that. Okay, I'm gonna create a bass clef. Staff here. Now, let's just add really simple some bass notes on our downbeat. We have g nd So let's do like a big old G. Let's do it as whole notes. Okay, And then let's go to I want this to sound kind of dark and creepy. Um, relative minor will be goods that b a B flat. So throw B flat in there next. Okay, now, let's do I don't want this to be a to note pattern. I want this to feel like it's got ah longer sense of motion to it. So let's go up to an A. It might be kind of fun. Be a tad dissonant. Oops, I went to a C Let's go down to in a Okay, now let's go. Let's go to a C. Now that sounds fun. And then back to a B flat about just kind of walking around inside the scale here. Okay, Now, let's hold on to this B flat here because I don't want a new note here. Case we're gonna tie that over while this D just keeps ringing. And now this is where the pattern changes. So what was happening over here is we had our base note and then one low note and then to high notes and one low note. That's what kept happening. One low note to high notes. One loan out over here. We're going to shift it. We're gonna use this rest to do a little shift. So let's just start my same pattern over How about that? You mean a copy of this and put it there. Now my pattern is shifted to low notes to high notes. That's gonna feel kind of jarring. That's going to give us a sense of, uh, for at least a bar, maybe two. We're still going to kind of feel, ah, little question mark, and it's going to create a little bit Attention. All right, let's hear. It is the amount of hair here. That's what we did, - right ? So that shift created a whole new sense of something here. It was a little bit of tension throughout this rest, and then the release happened here. But because of the shift in rhythm, the release was a little confusing, and then it kind of slowly resolved as you get used to it. So that is like a slow resolution using rhythm, kind of interesting. There's a lot of really cool, rhythmic things you can do like that to create. Ah, tension and release. And one of the most obvious ways of doing this is to take a pattern and add or take away notes, kind of like what we saw with the changing meter. This is really popular in Ah, the Minimalists of the eighties and still popular in a lot of modern music today. So this is something that I just call a pattern obfuscation. Let's look at it in the next video. 19. Pattern Obfuscation: okay. Pattern obfuscation. Basically, what I'm talking about here is taking a pattern and confusing the listener temporarily. Um, let's do it in kind of a minimalist style. So let's take like, ah, just something like that. So just a a minor triad up and down and let's I want oh, sufficiently repeat that to get it in our head. Okay, Now I'm going to use the same notes, but I'm gonna kind of confuse it a little bit. Let's do Let's do it purely rhythmic confusion here. Obfuscation, if you will. Let's go like this. I better know Tate this correctly. Hold on. Okay, so this is this rhythm is a little confusing, but basically what I have here is 12 3/8 notes in the middle, and then 1/16 note and another 16th note on the outside. So that makes 4/8 notes. It's kind of goofy. It's kind of hard to read because all of these air gonna happen, actually, in between the eighth note, because this one sets them all forward, kind of nudges them, so then just even make it more confusing. You put another 16th note there and then do the same thing again, and then I'm going to tie these two together. So now what we're gonna here is the same pattern as we had here. But this little 16th note at the beginning of it is is gonna jerk it just for a second. And all of these are gonna be then on the off beat all of these notes and then we'll make it reset here. Okay, let's give us to just for the fun of it. So this is going to create a sense of tension because it's just it's gonna make everyone kind of go wait, what? And then it's gonna come back to what they expect by repeating this. We're setting up a series of expectations that are gonna happen. So let's hear it and see if I'm right. Okay. When it's totally naked like this, it's less obvious. So let's add some kind of pedal point here. I think it's still worked, but it could work stronger if we had a sense of the beat. So let's just do this. Let's just put 1/4 note all the way through this. Some in bass clef here, Actually, let's go. Okay. A string of A's. I was gonna put quarter note is all the way through this now, right here. This is gonna be a lot more obvious that it's off the beat because we have a pattern. A very clear beat happening here. So it's hear it again now that we have some kind of grounding to it. Cool. Right. So now you can really clearly feel that we've kind of confused the pattern here temporarily and kind of like through everything up in the air. And we're like, Wait, what's going on here? And then it lands back down here and then we latch back on. So it's a cool way of creating this tension and release without really changing any notes or anything. It's just a rhythmic thing. Now, while I was doing this, I was kind of like, Hey, there's kind of something cool here. Hold on. Um, I was hearing this, um, some actual music we could make out of this little example. I wanna move this note down to a G, um, when we're playing this through, I was like that. No would sound cool if it moved down right there and then down to an F. And then let's keep going down E e. And then we'll stay up at will. Go back up to one and then down to a gene and then maybe e g a. We'll just walk right back up to the A here. Now. The reason I'm doing this is just because I think it'll sound neat. I like the sound of taking a pattern. We would. We might also call this Justin ostinato Austin Otto's fancy word for a pattern, Um, and keeping the pattern the same. But then kind of moving a baseline down diatonic Lee, meaning down through the scale, which is all I've done here. I moved it from anade all the way down to an E back up to in a down to a G and then stepwise e f g a. So that it resolves right there. Let's just hear it. I think it will sound kind of neat way I need. So I did like the way that sounded except for right here. I wasn't really into that. This last measure would want to change those based notes. I didn't love that. So, just out of this simple example, by moving this baseline around and having this cool break here of the rhythm. I can create a nice sense of tension right there. And then it kind of propels us back into this G. So it's a nice sound. Okay, Now, this kind of technique of using this rhythmic, um, obfuscation thing is really popular. Minimalist music. So I want to look at, um, one of the probably most famous composers for doing this kind of thing. And that's Philip Glass. Let's look at a Philip glass piece next. 20. Example: Glass: Okay, so Philip Glass does a lot of this thing where he's doing an arpeggio. Um, that's playing chord. One note at a time. Um, as as in ostinato. That's like a pattern and then kind of messing with it. I can't find a really good example in the of some sheet music of his where he does that a lot. His the sheet music for his earlier stuff where he's really doing that. A lot is kind of hard to come by. So I found this piece. This is from, ah, the score to the Truman Show. Um, and Philip Class doesn't do a lot of film scores, but every now and then he does one. And he did this movie, Um, which is interesting. I didn't know he did this movie, but apparently did, um And so what we have here is this pattern. So let's just hear that pattern really quick. Okay, that's the pattern. We're gonna hear that a bunch of times, and it's the notes are going to change. It's gonna cycle through a core progression, and but the pattern is going to stay the same. All the relationship of the notes will keep going you'll hear this data data you. Dude, I do that to do Daddy do data that even though the notes are changing, the pattern stays intact all the way through to here. And then we get this weird section for actually the rest of the peace where there's a definite feeling of absence of this pattern. So he takes the pattern away and just goes to quarter notes, which is really interesting. And what's uncharacteristic of Philip Glass here is that this pattern, this pattern doesn't actually come back. That's probably because this is a film que so the scene ended and the pattern never came back. But let's hear it. And you can get a sense of what I'm talking about where this pattern becomes so ingrained in us that the absence of it from here forward just kind of feel strange, right? It feels like it's it creates a sense of tension that we don't have that pattern anymore. Okay, so let's hear it. Way, way, way. - Okay , so you get a sense of what I'm talking about. This pattern is so just normal at this point in the piece. We've heard it all the way through and then here it stops and we just get these big quarter notes. It creates an absence of the pattern, which is attention, so just taking the pattern await creates a certain amount of tension. Um, now, if you like Philip Glass, check out some of his music. If you like this, check out a lot of Philip Glass's music. He writes a lot of really interesting stuff. It's very accessible in that it doesn't use really complex harmonies. Um, too often, but sometimes he does. But it's also, you know, very rhythmically pulsed. It's like when I'm teaching a college class, you know, I might play a bunch of really weird and strange music and have a bunch. Students feel like this is weird stuff. I don't know if I like it, but then I play Philip Glass and they're like, I totally dig this. Um, so it's very It's a very good launching point for, um, getting into modern music through Philip Glass. Ah, and if you like Philip Class, go down that rabbit hole deeper and find Steve Reich, his music is even more interesting to me. Okay, I'm gonna give you this file so you can listen to it and play around with it if you want, and then we'll talk about one more example of this idea in the next video. 21. Example: Aporia: Okay, um just to give you a very clear example of this, um, I want to play you one of my tracks again. This is a poor area, which I think, actually is the track I played in the intro about me thing. I know. I said it was circadian, but I think it was important. Um, anyway, so here it is. I'm gonna talk over it, Which again I hate doing, but way trick, rhythmic trick. I did hear way gone through all this stuff. Jump ahead. It really thins down here. But that ostinato has been going the whole time. That little Marine? Nothing high. High notes here. Listen to what happens right here. Did anything things sound a little off right there. The thing I did, there was the same thing that we're talking about. I changed the rhythm. Just a hair just enough to make you go. What? And kind of shake your head and kind of wonder what's going on for about a beat. After that, you locked back in. What I did was I took away 1/8 note at the end here. So I'm gonna count this, and I'll show you where it gets weird. 123412341234123412 So, you see, when it comes back in, the beat doesn't line up. Something went weird, and the thing was, I just snuck an eighth note out of it so that when everything comes back in, everything is an eighth note early, and that creates this little hiccup that adds this kind of rhythm attention to it. Just It's kind of like a shock a little bit. It's subtle. It's subtle here, but, um, it would have been a heck of a lot easier when I was writing this track to just have it come back in on the downbeat. But I went through the hassle of realigning everything to come in and eighth note early because I just wanted that little bit of a shock, and not just for it to come back in when you would expect it to, but rather in a snowed early, and it creates that sense of tension. And then it kind of resolves over the course of a couple of beats. As you get re acquainted with where the beat now is, give that to you one more time, and that's it. So I just wanted to point out that one because it's one I know particularly well because I wrote it. Um, and it's just a little trick I did to create some tension. I just cheated. Ah, eighth note out of it, that's all. Um okay, so with that, let's move on. And let's talk about harmony. Doing this with harmony. There's a lot of tricks we already know, um, about creating tension. Release with harmony, Weaken Dio, you know, dominant chords to suspend the harmony. But let's go. Let's go into some of those, but also some new tricks like pedal tones and things like that which are going to get you really far with this, especially when we get into film composing. Pedal tones are going to be one of your best friends. Off we go 22. Consonance And Dissonance: Okay, So when we talk about tension and release in terms of harmony Ah, the more typical terms we would use would be continents and dissidents. Right? So if you've taken my theory classes or done any theory work at all, um, you know a little bit about continents and dissonance. Um, let's look at it in a couple different ways first, So we have certain intervals that are considered dissonant. Um, let's do a whole note and let's use see as a basis here. So, looking up our scale, if I go up a major scale C to D is that sound that's a major second. That's kind of a dissonance. But if I go out of the scale and go to a minor second, that is Ah, much stronger, Dissident. So minor Second is a very strong dissonance. Sounds like that. Ah, Okay, so a minor second is any two adjacent notes eso notes that are right next to each other. That's a minor second. That's probably one of our strongest dissonances. Um, always when we go outside of the major scale into the more chromatic notes is where we're gonna get the stronger dissonances if we want them, um, back in the scale. Good of the third. That's not a dissonance, really at all. The minor third, uh, could be considered a dissonance, but not really through the force. Ah, see, toe f is actually really interesting because in some periods of time it was considered a dissonance, and in others it was considered a continent really interesting. Um, to us, it's pretty much a continent. It sounds pretty OK, so let's call that a continent, this one. However, um, this is our tri tone. This is another very strong constant or a dissonance so very much like the minor. Second, this one is very dissonant. So here's two strongest dissonances are a minor second and a tri tone, which is another way of saying a an augmented fourth or a diminished 5th 4th that's 1/2 step too big or 1/5. That's 1/2 step too small. Same thing. Um, let's keep going to see what else we have here. We go up to the sixth, uh, not a dissonance, cause it's an inverted 3rd 1/7 can be considered a dissonance, but if you put some other notes in there, you make 1/7 chord, which can sound really nice. So seventh is is interesting, but if we invert 1/7 we end up with a second. So and so the same rules of the second apply a major second, uh, is sort of dissonant, but a minor second is very dissident. So if we invert that, that means that a major seventh is as dissonant as a minor second. Ah, if that's confusing, review the rules on inversion from the theory stuff. So a minor seventh, which is what we have here, uh, inverts to a major second. So it's a little dissonant, but not a ton. It's kind of dissonant if we go to a major seventh that inverts to a minor second, so that's fairly dissonant. Ah, so let's call her our strongest dissonances. Three. Um, a minor second, a tri tone and a major seventh. Now let's look at our cords so I don't want to go through the whole diatonic chord progression system here. Ah, we've done that in other classes, so review that if you need help on figuring out what chords will go in, what key? But ah, remember that accord built on tonic? Let's do it here. Okay, so a C major chord, a one chord court built on tonic all the same thing that's gonna be our least dissonant chord in any key. Um, if we're in the key of C major, it's gonna be see if we're in the key of D major. It's gonna be D etcetera. Um, that's going to be released. Dissonant chord. Um, it's hard to say what are most dissonant chord is because I could say, Well, any combination of dissonant notes is gonna be our most dissonant chord. So let's talk about our most, um, tension making cord. That's probably going to be our five chord. If I'm just using major and minor chords because our five chord always wants to lead to the one court, it has that tendency, right? So that five court is going to be our best way to create this kind of tension because it has some where it wants to go, and the longer we stay there longer were preventing it from going where it feels like it needs to go, which is what makes attention. So this five chord by itself is not dissonant, but, ah, it has a feeling of wanting to go back to one. Uh, and now you kind of want it here. That again, um, we could make it even stronger by adding 1/7 to it that even more so feels like it should go back to one. So this will feel good. This will feel confident. This will feel like we've stepped away. Ah, and it's something farther away, and there's a little bit of tension in that. And then we go back to this, which is what we want to do. Okay. Now, what if I did this? What if I put a measure of rest in here During this measure of rest, we are going to feel like we're going to be waiting for this cord. That's going to be a silence of tension, because we're gonna want this cord toe happen, and it's we're gonna be waiting for it here. So hear me out. I said during that rest, you were like, Where is that chord? That is tension, and that is release. So what I want to do in this section is look at a couple different ways. We're playing with one in the five chord to create this kind of tension release. We know how to work with core progressions already. So what I want to do is talk about a couple of different treatments for this dominant tonic relationship. That's what we would call this. This is tonic. This is dominant so dominant tonic relationship a couple of ways we can look at that to create even more attention than just having a tension filled core progression. Um, okay, so let's move on to another video, and we're gonna talk about prolonging the five for a while. 23. Prolonged Dominant: Okay, Sometimes we can create a really cool effect by just prolonging the dominant for a while. So let's look at how we might do that. Okay, Let's say we're still in C major, but I'm going to do something like I'm gonna do something really obvious here. Okay, Pretty much nails home. See, Major? Right. So let's let's do something where we really want to get that in her head. So it's maybe do that three times. Now let's move that to the dominant. Okay, I'm just doing that on G Major. And let's maybe do that three times. Sure. Now, instead of going back, Teoh the tonic here, let's keep playing with the dominant. The longer I can do it, the more ah, attention it's gonna be created. So let's add in the seventh. Okay, so now I'm leaving off the G. But I'm still going Be d app. So I'm adding in the seventh. I'm just working my way up the scale. I'm gonna do it again, and I'm gonna go at in a g. So I'm just walking up inversions here. Oops. I did it wrong. I want start on D. Oops. Okay, let's do one more, but And now let's just scramble around on a d or on a G chord for a minute. A g seven chord. I'm just gonna kind of noodle around up here, go between. I'm just going between the different notes working my way down. Yeah. Um, yeah, yeah. And and up soon groups, uh, get a little too low for my taste. You can go back up to a G. Okay, Now, I've just kind of prolonged this dominant for quite a while. So now let's see if my resolution to see we'll work after all of that. So that c in there. So this see here should feel awfully welcomed after all of that, because throughout all of this, I'm just playing notes in the G seven chord, and I'm just kind of running around. At first I'm doing the same pattern that I move the pattern up. Then I just kind of go up and down, down, down and down and down and down and down and down and down and then back up and then I resolve it to see, So let's see what happens. We want that to feel like we're just kind of in this suspended animation of this dominant chord for a long time way thing. I think it works. You know something that would help this kind of a gesture A lot would be, are retired right here, just slowing down a little bit. And then that would help push it into their. But let's not do that just because we're focusing on harmony here now. One thing. It's weird. I think I have a wrong note here, Um, reading way down in ledger lines. So that is a de so D c B a. That's a wrong note. That's what I want. Way go. Um, hate reading that loan ledger lines. It's hard for everyone. Okay, But I think I made my point. I could just prolong this dominant Let's look at it. So if I look at this whole thing in once one go, OK, so all of this from here to here is dominant. That five chord. So I've just, like, kind of stretched it out and stretch it out, stretch it out so that when c finally comes back, the tonic, it feels like, Oh, we're back. You know what? We were in this journey for a little while, and then we came back. So prolonging the dominant chord can be something really valuable for creating this kind of sense of tension and release. 24. Emphasized Resolution: So while we're on this particular kind of example, I do want to talk really quick about emphasizing the resolution. There are things we can do that will make us even more powerful of a resolution. One of them I just mentioned the last video that's putting a little retired on there retired means to slow down. If I have never explained that. Um, so let's see if amuse score will let me do that. I don't know if I've ever put a retired. Okay, so, um, I can't figure out how to write in a retired in Muse score. It's kind of hard. We use theatre Alec R I t and then a line usually so, but I can do it manually just with this little tempo thing here. So I'll do that just to emphasize this. So what I'm gonna do is, as we get to right here, I'm gonna start slowing down and slowing down and slowing down. And then right here, we'll go back to our initial tempo. Um and it'll feel even more powerful. So let me just demonstrate that for you here. So let's go to a 100 or so. Theo Theo, Very subtle there, you know, I just slowed down like a little bit, but it's still just, like, really pushes into that. Another thing you can do that similar to this. To really emphasize the resolution here is with volume. And it might not be the way that you would think you could do it this way. So this is a crescendo. So this means things get louder. And then, ah, weaken Give a dynamic here so we could save Forte. So if we're gonna do that in the beginning, we need to say what volume we are. Let's say piano, which means quiet. So we're quiet and we get louder into the resolution. That's kind of the obvious way to do it and let me show you what that sounds like, but that I'm going to show you another way that can be sometimes even more effective. - Okay , so we got louder into the resolution, you know, like, kind of neat. But check this out. What if we did it backwards? Sometimes this can be much more effective. It's a 40. Their forte is loud. And here, let's say piano means quiet. And then here we won't do a crescendo we will do a day crescendo means get quieter. So now if we combine these two are we do a retard Slow down, plus a day crescendo. It can be really powerful because we're gonna be allowed. Then we go down. Down. Don, don't, uh, don't, you know, could be quite effective. Ah, let's try it. I think right, we got quieter leading into their but sometimes that can draw even more attention to it. So you don't always have to go get louder at the point you want people here. It's really a contrast that you want people to hear, so sometimes you can actually pull it back. And that will draw people's attention in. Okay, so I just want to point those two things out while we were on this example. Next, let's move on and talk about pedal tones. One of the ah favorite tricks of film composers in the next video 25. Pedal Tones: Okay, pedal tones. These are Superfund. What this means is it's think of it as a low note, although doesn't have to be a low note. But just to explain it. Let me. Let's stick with the idea of a low note, a low note that just goes, You know, it's like this long, low drone of a note that goes underneath the music that we're hearing, and it completely changes the way it sounds. Um, I believe, and it could be wrong, but I believe the term pedal tones comes from an organ pedal, so they would play something with their fingers, and then they have the pedals That's like a hold under keyboard. But they're really low notes, so check this out. Ah, here's how I like to explain pedal tones and show how powerful they can be. So I'm going Teoh, right? A little melody here, one that's probably familiar. Okay, let's just stick with that much. Okay, so this is Mary, head of the lamb, obviously. Let's stretch it out a little bit. I'm just gonna repeat these four bars several times. The 1st 4 bars of Mary had a little lamb because I want to make a lot of context. Now, I've written this in C major. It's important. Keep that in mind. Okay, That's good. Okay, Now let's add another staff here which I could do it on the same staff, but I just want Teoh. It's a little bit easier to see if I do this on a second staff. So I go to instruments. Let's even do this in a different instrument. Let's add a base. Okay, so I'm gonna add a bass part to this. So remember, this is what we have. Okay? Just over and over and over. Now. Oops. Go down here. And I am going to add just the whole note and let's not even add it here. Let's have it come in on the second time. Now we're in the key of C. So see would be a good thing to do. Remember, I'm in bass clef here. And this little symbol here, this eight that's hanging out down there, That actually means we're in bass clef and active lower. So we're really low here, so I'm gonna actually write a G. It's the five, Remember? Um, and I'm gonna do it an octave on, but I'm just gonna let that sit there and hang out for a long time is the pedal tone. Tie it together. Let's just let that go for a long time. That's enough. Tie these in between ones together. Now, this is gonna give Mary had a little lamb, a whole different feel, but it's on Lee the beginning. OK, so check it out. - Okay , That goes on an almost. That instrument at Joe's just sounds like a foghorn. Um, but you get the point. It's this note that just kind of goes in there, and it changes the whole feel of it. It can get ah, sinister. Depending on what note you use, we use the dominant, so it kind of has Ah, an uncomfortableness to it. Um, but not a, um, extreme dissonance, necessarily. It's kind of in between one, but it kind of distracts you from the C major quality of the melody. Now, one thing we can do here is I want to come back to pedal tones in just a second. But what happens if I start moving around this pedal tone and one of the things I really like to do is just move it down chromatic Lee. It's totally crazy. This makes it kind of not a pedal tone, because remember, a pedal tone, a pedal tone means it's not moving. But hear me out. I'm just gonna move this down to an F and then here I'm gonna move it down to an e. And then here, let's get really weird when we were down to an e flat. So we're going totally chromatic here. Okay, so hear me out. This is gonna sound pure evil. - Okay , you get the point so you can start moving that low note down or up chromatic lee, and you'll start getting these really sinister sounds and they just pull us farther and farther away from C. And because we're in the key of cease, we want to hear. See? So if I did this and then right here, I took us back to see that c is gonna feel amazing. Oh, let's listen to it one more time. Because now we result. It uh right when that see finally came. It was like the sky opened in a weird way. So Ah, that's kind of a different use of like adding these load notes was moving him around. It's not exactly a pedal tone, but while we're here, I wanted to point that out. Now let's go back to pedal tones. Um, I want to talk about resolving a pedal tone in kind of a weird way, so let's go to another video for that. 26. Long Resolutions of Pedal Tones: So I once wrote a piece that had a pedal tone going in it for the entire piece from beginning to end at the very end it resolved. And I want to show you that feeling. Um, the piece that I wrote was about 10 minutes long, and I'm not gonna do that to you, but I do want you to get a sense of how powerful that can be. So let's push this G outward, outward, outward, all the way to the end of what I got here. Okay, so the last time Mary had a little lamb enters here, we're gonna go to a seat. So we've heard this G for so long, and then all of the sudden, we're going to be resolving to see this is just kind of the dynamite example of the longer you prolong the five, the more rewarding the tonic is. So there's the tonic at the end, and it goes all over the end. Okay? So bear with me. Let's hear this one more time and that and listen to that low note resolve, um, just on its own, without any other motion in it. Here we go. So worth it right after all that time, we got that C and it was just like, Oh, my gosh, I needed that. You know, um, you can do that and it doesn't need to be so, like hitting you over the head with it like we're doing here, right? You can do it. And much more subtle ways. The same effect. Like moving the pedal tone to an upper voice when it's in this big, huge base in the bottom, it's very like, you know, uh, blatant, almost vulgar in a way. But it doesn't have to be. It could be more subtle. Um, so I want to talk about putting these pedal tones in a higher voice. Next. So let's move on to that. And then I'm gonna give you one of my favorite all time examples of this. 27. Pedal Tones in Higher Voices: Okay. Pedal tones could be just as effective in the top voice. So let me get rid of all of this. No. One thing that's different in the top voice is that it tends to not sustain as well. Um, So here's one of the tricks that I like to do. I'm gonna add another instrument, it instruments, and I'm gonna actually just add another piano, but like, the right hand of a piano. So let's get rid of this double bass and the left hand. Okay, so now I have two pianos, both the trouble clef stuff. So this is not based club. This is trouble class. I'm actually gonna put this higher than the other one. Um, So here's what I'm gonna do right here where this comes in. I'm going. Teoh, let's put it. Put it on. Beat two and four. Let's see this. Okay. I think I want an octave higher yet, so that's an E f g. Okay? And I'm just gonna put this on the off beat. Okay? Now I've got that G just pulsing on the off beat. I'm gonna put that through this whole bloody thing. Don't worry, I won't make you listen to this whole long, long thing again. I just want to get the sense of it. Okay, So now, effectively, what I have is a pedal tone here. Pedal tone is not sustaining forever because I don't have that much sustained in this particular instrument in a piano up high. It doesn't ring forever. So what I'm gonna do is just keep hitting that note over and over and over and let us get a fuel for it. It has roughly the same effect, but it's more subtle. Let's hear it. - Okay . So similar effect as the low note except, um, less vulgar. Let's say, um, I think vulgar is a good word for it. Now, I can do the same thing with moving this around. Um, I could start taking this. Let's go down to an F and then another. F down to an e is kind of what I did before, although it's moving a little faster. So again, this means it's not quite a pedal tone at this point. Let's go D d Flat d flat and then to a C, so we'll resolve their. So it's not really a pedal tone because, um, it's moving around, but, um, you know, it's still basically a pedal tone. I I like to call pedal tones. I like to let him move around, but I think by the strictest definition, it's not a penalty on anymore when you start moving around. But that's okay. So now what I've done here is I've done the G thing for a little while and then I start moving it around. So here it goes down to, um, Rockets back here goes to an F back to a G to an e two. Any two a d d flat d flat eventually resolves to a C. So through what that does for us. Interesting. Right now, obviously here. What was the harshest interval in our pedal tone? It was right here. And let's figure out why. Because that is D flat. When we put that d flat, they're just hitting up against all of these other notes we've got What is the relationship of D Flat to our key, which is C. It's that minor second that we talked about right? That's going to be one of our harshest intervals to do so. That really harsh interval does help, though, in this case push us down to that seat because dissonance leads to ah wants to be resolved , which is a continents. So that dissonance leads to a continents. The tension leads to a resolution. Awesome. Okay, up next, I want to give you an example of this in in a piece of music that I love so, so, so much. This is my all time favorite example of this kind of upper pedal tone. Use Ah, for a very long time. Um, but trust me, it's a cool track, So let's do that in the next video. 28. Example: Ventolin: Okay. What we're gonna hear here is a song by an electronic artist named Aphex Twin. Um, if X twin is a ah British guy named Richard D. James, he puts up music as effects twin. Um, really interesting stuff. He is kind of one of the kind of I guess we could call him the godfathers of Elektronik music. He was doing really progressive stuff really early. Ah, an innovator. Really amazing guy. Now this a particular piece of music is a little vial, the way what he does here. What he does is he just introduces this screechy high sound right away. And then this big kind of beat stuff happens all around it, and then it's not till the very end In the last maybe 30 seconds of the song when that really high screechy sound just nudges down, I think it's a whole step. Um, And it that slight motion is so rewarding. You're like, Oh, my gosh, that thing finally moved. It just has such power because it goes on for so long. So I want you listen. This track I can't just fast forward to the part where it moves because you won't get the real sense of it. Um, so check it out. This is a Aphex Twin. The song is called Ventolin. So here we go last your ear onto that. Another thing you're going to hear is in this song, that high pitched frequency. It starts to kind of wobble a little bit like it doesn't change pitch, but it gets a little like like it's it feels like it's just barely hanging on like it's trying to keep going. But some things, like trying to stop it. Um, and that even adds to the tension of it, too. Okay. Enjoy thing. - Way , way, way. Okay. 29. Combining Techniques: okay for this last section. Let's talk about getting the most bang for our buck by combining multiple techniques. And this is kind of ah, what it's really kind of all about, Like we've looked at how to create the sense it of tension and release by using different techniques. But in most cases, uh, we're going to use more than one to do it. Eso I have heard example that uses kind of two techniques, and we could kind of sneak 1/3 in there if we really wanted to. Also, um, and these are all things we've already looked at, but kind of putting it all together. So this is Mozart. Good old fashioned Mozart, I should say old because he was never a particularly old. But, um I guess historically it's old tow us. But I meant like he didn't become an old man. Really, He died fairly young, but, um sonata and see a nice, pretty piece. I want to look at short, little extra Pierre Ah, from the beginning down to here. So we're starting in C Major, this is a C major chord here, so we're going from sea to sea now. He's going Teoh meander to the five and through these three bars kind of give us that sense of floating suspended animation before we resolve down to here is gonna go by pretty quick . This is a quick example. Um but I think you'll get the sense that throughout these three bars we are somewhere different and we're waiting to go back to here. Okay, so let's just hear it. And then, um, I'll talk about it for a sec, Theo. Okay, that's it. So Ah, let's listen to what we actually heard there. So here we heard a bunch of C major. We could analyze this and say, OK, that was a long cord. There's a five chord. There's, you know, everything else, But let's not get bogged down in that right away. Um, let's jump to what happens right here. So here we start to see ah, rhythmic kind of, ah, meandering rhythmic thing here, right? We're just going up and down and up and down, up and down. So that's not unlike what we saw with this kind of pattern obfuscation thing. So the rhythm is starting to run around and go all over the place. So that's thing one thing two. Let's look at what the cords are doing here. So we're in. See? Here we have an F and in a So we're going to a four chord. Then here we reiterate the four chord, and now we go to another chord. We go to a C E and G s. We go back to a one chord, actually another one chord. But we're still running around because we start this on a G. It gives us a sense that we're in ah, five area like a dominant area. Um, so this really kind of feels like a five chord here. Now we're going to go to a C A D and an F. If we needed to put that into a triad, how could we do it? Probably be D f A. C. It's kind of missing a ah, that would make it a D seven chord, which is Ah, minor seven corps. That would be a minor to cord. That's weird, but it's suspending. We could also see how it moves down at the end of the bar. Here we have a d, a B and another B so that I know this sounds weird But I could actually call that a g cord , possibly even a G seven chord. Here's a G and here's our seventh right there in that last beat. So while the G isn't in this moment, I'm happy to call that a G seven chord that f really pushes us down to that E. And then we're back to a C. So in other words, all of this is kind of suspending a Let's call it and non tonic, right? Like where are away from tonic something other than tonic. And we're just kind of moving around and running through these sequences, waiting to resolve to see. So it's a harmonic sequence. So we've got the cords that are creating the tension and the rhythm that's creating the tension, all heading down to this release right down here. Now, there could be 1/3 thing that we could squeak in there where if we were really playing this , we might sneak in a little retired right here. We might slow down just a hair to really kind of emphasize that downbeat Um, maybe, or maybe not. In this particular case, we might wait for that to happen all the way down to hear, but I didn't want to go all the way down here because from here to here is actually a modulation, which we talk about somewhere in a different class in one of the theory classes. Modulation means he's kind of shifting keys temporarily. So we'll talk about that or look at the theory class to get more info on that. Um, it works actually the same. If we go all the way down to here will cure a stronger resolution. But because he starts sneaking in these f sharps, it starts to push us towards G. And we resolved g here. Let's just play that so you can hear it. So what we're doing here is we're creating a sense of tension. Release where there's tension here in these three bars, release here to see Major and then from here were creating a say, a sense of tension. And then, with this f sharp, we're gonna push that to resolve to G as our release. It's kind of like a ah sleight of hand trick, like a little magic trick, sort of where the release is actually going to be in a different key. Mozart was really good at this. Let's hear it way. So it felt like a release down here, but it was in Iran. Keep it was This is G. This is ah R release in G. So how he did that was more rhythm, more harmony, Nothing. In this particular case, with meter changes or form changes, it will be hard to say something was happening with form in this short of an example. But you could add that in the point I'm trying to make here is that we want to combine multiple things to really give us that sense of tension and release. So consider that when you're writing 30. Example: Kinesthesia, Movement 7: Okay, let's look an example. This is another example of mine. It's kind of a complicated one. Um, but I wanted to give you a more complicated example. And this is one that I happen to know pretty well, because I wrote it. This is a piece I wrote. Ah, while goes for string quartet with, ah, whole bunch of electronic stuff happening in it. Um, in. So this is ah, kind of eight or nine movement thing called Keenest Asia in two parts. This is the eighth or sorry seventh movement. And so it's kind of like the big climax of the whole thing. And there is something I do in here that creates a sense of tension and release that I wanted to point out. Um, I kind of hate showing my own stuff so much like I did in this class. Um feels like I have this, like, huge ego. But it's just really easy to explain my own stuff because I can tell you exactly what I did to create that kind of a feeling. Um, so my ego isn't actually that big? Um it's just convenient examples. So with that said, let's look at some of my music. Uh, so in this piece, there's a lot of chaos. It's a very chaotic movement. It's the big kind of finale. It's an hour long piece, and this movement is the kind of big finale of the whole thing. There's one more movement, but it's like basically, ah, kind of a breath. It's a super quiet, super chilled out. This is the big ending. Um, it's also quite long, So I'm gonna play it Ah, and kind of talk over it, Which again? Hey, doing But bear with me. So here we go. Okay. So keep your ear in that violin rent, because I'm gonna use it to do a little trick in big in kind of a while. So I'm gonna let this play for a while so that you really get the pole sense of what I'm trying to do. I'll time back in again when we get to the relevant part. But without the whole build up, I don't think you'll really get it. So I'm gonna shut up for a minute. - Here's kind of a pedal point thing that I did write in the violin is creating a big sense of tension here. kind of waiting for it to go back to that chaos. It's really arrhythmic build up, you know? But what's gonna happen is we're not gonna get that chaos back. I'm gonna extend the tension for pretty much the next five minutes. Now it's gonna get even more chaotic. Different. So now for the next little bit, everything basically gonna fall apart in this building On this attention, there are these musical. They're gonna come in rhythmically and harmonically form wise. Just make everything so this is not the end that's coming up. Now, this is the release, actually, and the releases all gonna be done just with a snare drum. That's what I was trying to do here. So we get really quiet. We're gonna get some violins in a second. They're going to kind of introduce a new harmony, but it's not really going to be resolved. So here's my new harmony. The resolution is actually gonna come from two places. One is the snare drum that's about to come in. It's the thing that finally gives us a rhythmic sense of pulse that we haven't had since the very, very beginning. You know, six minutes ago. So It's gonna kind of resolve it rhythmically by just giving us this backbeat and nothing more, but it has a very welcoming feeling. So here it is, your snare drum resolution. Yeah, and suddenly it feels like maybe we're gonna be OK amidst all of this chaos, like pure violent chaos. Now there's one other thing coming here that I want to point out. There's our violin melody from the very beginning that's come back, but it's shifted by an eighth note. So I did a little meter changes here to create a sense of release here, because now that violin is more lined up on the beat than it was before. Before it started on the downbeat with an and made for a weird Syncopation, So the accent was on the off. Now the accents back on the downbeat because there's a little pick up to it. In other words, it's somewhat simplified, and it fits with the harmony that we didn't have before. And now we get a nice, clean harmony. It's kind of resolving this whole thing, just kind of resolving like an hour's worth of music, that I don't want to play for you the whole our here. So this little beeping thing is actually kind of transition to the next movement, which is this really quiet, ethereal thing forever, which we don't need to go into. So the point is, there's a whole bunch of techniques used to create that sense of tension throughout. Ah, whole, like six or seven minutes of tension and then this very soft and subtle release. It's a lot like what I showed you a while ago where we said, sometimes the release is not the big louder thing, but it's the more subtle thing. Um, and that could be a warmer, more welcoming release. Ah, then hitting someone over the head with it. And in this particular movement, I kind of had tohave a more quiet, subtle release because I've been hitting the listener over the head with a sledgehammer. With all the chaos throughout the whole movement that I had nowhere to go, I couldn't make it any bigger. So I chose a release that pulled in, got quieter and felt pretty rewarding. I think to me anyway. Okay, Um, doesn't that let's talk about how this applies into film music 31. Intersections Of Film Example: all right, I want to play you one of my favorite examples of film music. Even though this isn't from a film, it's from a television show, but it's a really stunning piece of music, and it's something we've sort of already talked about. We talked before about Philip Glass and how he uses repetition, pedal points, pedals, Ah, rhythm ah and meter in creating a sense of tension and release. Now, when we're working on a film project, we're always trying to create tension and release parallel to what the filmmakers trying to make. So what we do is a filmmaker's always thinking about how they're creating tension in a scene, and what we need to do is compliment that and help it be even stronger with the music. And I love this scene because it does it in so many different ways. So I'm just gonna play it, and I want you to think about, um, what the music is contributing in terms of this feeling of tension. Think about the rhythm. Think about the pedals in particular, these kind of big low notes, these big, low, ominous notes that might happen. This is all just solo piano not orchestra. And this is actually a piece by Philip Glass. And the show that this is from is Battlestar Galactica was one of my favorite shows. Um, so let's watch it. - Eyes turning off the power. Something about pain, not you. It's my dad. We'll be back. You know, like groceries. - You know, I never really liked this place. Anyway, she was a work of summer here. Just working a winder. That's a crime. Uh huh. After the attack, Never. No time. Crap. Never missed it. Stupid views, Parking lot, broken toilet in a bathroom. Everyone I know is fighting to get back. What? They had findings. I don't know how to do anything else. This isn't my ship. Sure is. How is yours? It says when he wakes up, we'll decide what to do with. Okay? Okay. 32. Composing For Films: one last thing about this idea of writing music from the perspective of tension and release . Um, well, maybe more than one thing when we're writing music, we're always thinking about this. We're always thinking, Where am I going? Right. Um, what is the level of tension? How can I resolve it if I'm going to resolve it? And then what comes next? I'm always building it up and pulling it away. It's always ah, tug of war with tension release. And it's something that informs everything we Right now, writing for film is a really interesting nugget when it comes to this, because we have not on Lee to think about How can this music have a sense of tension Release in a push and pull. Um, but also, how does it complement the scene? And how does it achieve what the directors trying to achieve? Because if it doesn't achieve what the directors trying to achieve Ah, you're gonna get fired if you're creating tension in places that the director doesn't want tension, forget about it. You know, he's gonna find a different composer. Um, and this happens all the time. By the way, um, there are Ah lot of famous cases where composers have been famous. Composers have been fired from a film. Um, and then another composer comes in to do the film. Um, there are a couple fairly famous cases of composers that have written soundtracks to entire movies, and I got cut. Ah, and someone else came in to do it because, ah, what the composer was writing was just not lining up with what the director ah envisioned. Now some might argue that that's actually a problem that the director had, because maybe they weren't clear enough in what they wanted. But that's a whole other can of worms. The point is, if you can't get your head around these techniques for creating tension release than, ah, you're not going to be successful writing music for film or television or even advertisements, for that matter. Um, so really think about this? Ah, and think about these techniques and how they'll come together if you're interested in writing music for film. Now, when we write music for film, we always think about Will this music be good on its own? I always think about that anyway, um, so applying these techniques to just any concert music, piano, music, pop music, dance, music, anything. If it's good music, it's gonna have a sense of tension. Release always, even if the release is just a snare drum, even if the release is a big, huge orchestral finale kind of cadence. No matter what you do, you've gotta have this push and pull or else it's just gonna be boring. So keep that in mind, especially as we go into talking about film music, which I want to talk about in the next video. 33. Coming Soon: Film Music: Okay, That's it we've achieved. Ah, my composition class part too focused on intention and release. Now, what comes next as I just alluded to what comes next is writing for film and television. So I'm going to start working on that class right away. Probably yet today. Um, I'm really excited about this next one. Uhm, I'm going to show you some of my film projects on my television projects. Even some of my advertising projects. Commercial stuff. Um, I'm gonna talk about how the process works, How you get into it. Ah, and then the mechanics of it, how you actually do it and what you should be thinking about while you're writing music to a particular scene. Um, it's gonna be really fun. I'm really excited about this class, so please continue with these classes. Look for it. Um, shortly It should be here. I should be done with it. And, well, maybe a month or two. Um, but maybe you're taking this class, and it already exists. That's very possible. So Ah, stick around for that. Look around on this website for that class. I think it's gonna be one of my best classes 34. Thanks & Bye!: All right, That's the end. Everyone. Thanks a bunch for hanging out and taking this class with me. Um, like I just said, stick around for the next class in the sequence, um, will be in film music and, ah, leave a good review. Tell your friend shoot out some emails. Tweet about this class or some. My others. Um, also check out the music theory classes. I've got a bunch of classes I music technology that's around especially able to live some synthesis sound design. And if you need to brush up on theory and you're more into electronic music, check out my music theory for electronic musicians classes there. Here. There are three of them right now, and they are by far my most popular classes. People really like those, so please check those out. Um, thanks for spending time with me. Thanks for buying this class. I hope you had fun. Uh, leave questions or comments, and I will get to them. I check those things every single day. Um and I responded them always. So we will see you in the next class? Yes. Oh, but before that stick around for I have one more little segment. And the next thing where ah, offer you some discounts and things to get into some my other classes on the cheap. So please take advantage of those. Ah, I'd love to see you in more classes. Okay, bye. 35. SkillshareFinalLectureV2: Hey, everyone want to learn more about what I'm up to? You can sign up for my email list here, and if you do that, I'll let you know about when new courses are released and when I make additions or changes to courses you're already enrolled in. Also check out on this site. I post a lot of stuff there and I check into it every day. So please come hang out with me and one of those two places or both, and we'll see you there.