Everyone is making videos these days. From musicians, vloggers to influencers and even businesses, there is nobody who has not realised the power of a video. A video can be spread across the world in seconds, giving it excellent leverage to market products, brands or just relay your message.
Making these videos successful depends on a handful of fundamentals – and one of them is the music involved. Music is powerful in enriching our emotional experiences, and it doesn’t just count in videos either. Music on its own or with gambling machines also optimises the way we enjoy games like the Egyptian Fortunes slot title, for example. Wherever music goes – it can make it better.
One way it does this is through adding suspense. Suspense can keep an audience engaged and entertained. So, how do you keep an audience in suspense through music? There is more than one effective way of doing this and they are can be found below.
1. Tension then Releases
The tension and release tactic will not be unfamiliar to your ears, even if you don’t recognise it by its name. When you were last watching a horror movie you may have remembered the music get gradually louder and more intense as the woman alone in her house tries to find the intruder. Once she does, there is a climax, such as a scream. You know the scene. This technique is known as the crescendo and one of the most used by music experts. However, this is because it is proven to work and build suspense.
2. The Fake Crescendo
As the crescendo is so familiar, music producers have adopted a new way of building suspense with a surprise. The fake crescendo does exactly what the crescendo does but when the listener/viewer is expecting a blood-curdling scream, they in fact get nothing but a deadly silence. This silence builds suspense even more as they await the climax that never arrives.
3. Dynamics
A third technique is dynamics. Simply put, this means increasing and decreasing the volume to raise suspense and lower it throughout a piece of music or film. Although it does not build gradually as the crescendo does. Horror movies offer another relatable example and are used to create those jumpy moments you were not expecting.
4. Rhythmic Pulse
Get your audience on the edge of their seat by not providing them with suspense-enhancing music but rather by taking music away from them. A rhythmic pulse is when the listener hears a steady piece of music, just like a pulse. In most cases, the listener will not even notice it until you take it away and they are left with silence. The realisation that something is missing from the music build suspense for your audience.
These are four of the best ways to build suspense with music. Whether you are a vlogger, a musician or a game developer, choosing these methods is a sure-fire way of putting your audience on edge and keeping them entertained.