Scary music

Not sure if this is in the right place.

I Like to play spooky piano music but normally when I play diminished chords and minors it sounds more mysterious instead of creepy. I want to play music like the ones in movies like "the grudge" and "One missed call" what scales should I use, Minors? What chords would be good.

Lucky I'm the kind of guy who learns one small thing like a few chords and scales and usually can learn something HUGE from it.

Should I play notes that don't harmonize? I'm guessing you pay LOW usually .

I hope I can get some answers because I want to compose a super scary song soon

I have no theoretical view on this. But creepy to me is often when harmony leads into disharmony - if you understand what I mean?

Calculated disharmony, that are organized in patterns!! If you manage to organize your harmony/disharmony then I think you are on your way.
But Im not sure what Scales to use though. You can try to find scores to pieces you like, and see what types of scales they use. You can of course try one of those scales as well, and look for what accidentals they use ect

Looking forward to hearing your scary piece I want to compose something like that as well someday, mabe when Im done with the one Im working on now Good Luck!!

Disharmony with a minor scale seems to do the trick

okay, I'll try that. I think I need to work on my minor stuff. One more question.

When you run up the piano from the very bottom very fast like the do in scary movies, do they have a designated note pattern or is it just random up to a point? I've done it at random and got some nice results

kentaku_sama wrote:okay, I'll try that. I think I need to work on my minor stuff. One more question.

When you run up the piano from the very bottom very fast like the do in scary movies, do they have a designated note pattern or is it just random up to a point? I've done it at random and got some nice results

I think they follow a pattern. What you do is improvise, and of course, that can sound good either if you are good at it, or got some lucky hits on the way, but If you are going to compose a piece, I recommend that you design a path Even though, in jazz and those styles, I know there are written in improve-sections, so its all up to what you prefer though

If you want to get a scary sound a mix of really low tones and extremely high tones will get you there, also hitting two notes that are just a half step next to each other will give you that scary cutting sound.

In movies like The Grudge, they rather tend to use tone itself than harmony. They use pizzicati strings with flageolet for example, which of course you can't imitate on the piano. You can't get nearly as scary as this with our instrument.
Of course, diminished chords are far from what you can attain, though.
For example you could try to play glissandi, glissandi with both black and white keys together, or use strange modes such as messiaen's 2nd mode of limited transposition (aka half tone-whole tone), or just the whole tone mode, or 4th chords (C F# B for example, or Ab Db G, or whatever, in arpeggiated form, and very different registers).

Two voices that are close to each other and make chromatic, random, barely moving lines in the middle of the instrument can give a creepy feel too.