Oct 23, 2019 | Composition, Daily Film Scoring Bits
Dominant7 and Tritone Substitution The reason why dominant7 chords create the feeling of wanting to resolve results from the inherent structure of the chord, specifically the tritone that exists between the third and the seventh of the chord. As an example, let’s look...
May 22, 2019 | Composition, Daily Film Scoring Bits
Major 7th Chords in Film Scoring Major7 chords (e.g. Cmaj7) are a bit tricky to handle and should be written with care. They are usually used as tonic chords, however function very nicely on the subdominant position as well. The actually very dissonant major7 in this...
Jan 9, 2019 | Composition, Daily Film Scoring Bits
V-I Cadences and Extensions Final V-I cadences in important form sections (e.g. like the end of your main theme) can start to sound quite pedestrian and boring especially when they occur very often in the piece. Of course, the quality of a V-I cadence is one of the...
Dec 19, 2018 | Composition, Daily Film Scoring Bits
Tonic Chord overuse Have an eye out for how quickly you return to the tonic chord. Almost in every case, returning back to to the tonic chord feels like “closing off” a phrase. So every time you reach that chord, your listener’s perception will give him/her the...
