In this post, I share with you 21 amazing tips to help you make horror music that makes people want to 💩 themselves - metaphorically, of course, otherwise that would be very messy.
What Makes Music Scary?
Scary music is a broad topic, but the good thing is that what makes it scary is pretty universal.
These 10 things are pretty much guaranteed to make any music feel scary or tense:
- Dissonance
- Sudden noises
- Low sounds
- Screams & screeches
- Dark pulses
- Heartbeats and Clocks
- Chromatic movements
- Children’s Pianos (or similar)
- Human Vocal Noises (including breathing)
- Unusual chord progressions
To understand why we find these sounds scary, we first need to understand how our brains perceive threats and danger.
The Science of Fear: How Our Brains Process Scary Sounds
There's a part of our brain called the amygdala that plays a crucial role in detecting acoustic threats.
It acts as an early warning system, instantly responding to unpredictable or familiar dangerous sounds—especially complex noises and certain frequencies.
What makes the amygdala particularly interesting is its ability to learn. A specific region within it stores fear-based memories and can associate different sounds with frightening experiences.
Over time, through countless films and cultural exposure, we've collectively learned to associate certain musical elements with horror.
When you combine this learned response with our brain's hardwired connection between unpredictable sounds and survival instincts, it's clear why horror music doesn't just sound scary—it actually makes us feel scared on a physiological level.
Horror composers have deliberately exploited these natural responses, which have given rise to several classic horror music techniques:
- Sudden hits and noise – Triggering our startle reflex
- Complex clusters of notes – Creating dissonance that the amygdala perceives as threatening
- Pitch risers – Building tension through unpredictable acoustic patterns
21 Ways To Make Your Music More Scary
I love a quick tip as much as the next composer. To make this post more actionable, I wanted to share all 21 tips I use to make music scary!
All of these 21 techniques fit into 8 core categories:
1. Dissonance and Discord
- Dissonant chords - min/maj7, augmented, suspended chords
- Moving clusters - Think Ligeti's micropolyphony
- Out of key notes - Breaking tonal expectations by playing a note that you would not expect.
- X-cell chords - Chromatic tetrachords. These are 4-note chords that are connected by semitones.
2. Silence and Absence
- Sudden dynamic shifts - From silence to loud creates maximum impact; this is called a "Jump Scare" in horror.
- Strategic pauses - Let tension build in the gaps. The silence here sets the expectation that something is coming and really builds tension.
3. Uncanny and Unnatural Sounds
- Children's instruments - Toy pianos, music boxes (familiar but wrong)
- Waterphone and bowed metals - Ethereal, otherworldly tones
- Theremin - The classic "ghost" sound
- Sounds like spiders - Using the string instrument articulation Col legno (bouncing the wood of the bow on strings)
4. Repetition and Ostinato
- Ticking clocks/pulses/heartbeats - Relentless, maddening repetition. Ticking clocks have associations of time passing, death, and waiting. All perfect for horror.
- Undulating pitches - Hypnotic patterns that never resolve. These are used to make the audience feel disorientated.
5. Extreme Registers and Timbres
- Low melodies - Low drones and bass frequencies. These act as a warning to the audience that something bad is either happening or about to happen.
- Screeching noises - High violin scratches, screams like the famous 'Psycho' violins.
- Harpsichord/Clavichord/Pipe organ - Think Addams Family darkness. These associations have come about because of the organ's link to churches and funerals.
6. Rhythm and Tempo Manipulation
- Odd time signatures - Creating disorientation because the rhythm doesn't feel "right". It doesn't seem to resolve.
- Accelerating tempos - Building panic as if it were the musical equivalent of being chased.
7. Cultural and Learned Associations
- Unrelated minor chords - Unexpected harmonic shifts set the audience on edge.
- Unrelated major keys - Major chords in wrong contexts feel sinister
- Haunting melodies - Simple, memorable, and unsettling.
8. The Secret Weapon: Your Voice
- If in doubt, use your voice! - Breathing, whispers, screams, and vocal textures are incredibly effective, and you always have them available
Bonus: Risers
- Pitch risers - The go-to technique for building unbearable tension
Horror Music Made Easy 😱
Start your next horror track with ease with this FREE Cinematic Horror Sample Pack
You can watch me create this sample pack in this video.
Horror Music FAQs
What Is The Creepiest Instrument?
The violin was once considered “the devil’s instrument”, but these days we have quite a lot of far creepier instruments.
Yes, the violin can create some of the most commonly used sounds in horror scores (random col legno, tremolo, risers and screeches), but there are some other instruments that can sound just as, if not more, creepy.
- The Waterphone
- The Theremin
- Pianos
- The Human Voice
What Is The Scariest Key In Music?
As with a lot of scary music, it is all about context. The first context for the scariest key in music is that it should be a minor key.
The second would be that of instrument range, and the lower the better; C is the lowest note on a double bass and cello, so if you were writing horror music using string instruments, you would write the music in the keys of C minor, C# minor, and D minor to utilise the lowest ranges of those instruments.
What Is The Creepiest Chord
There is one chord considered to be the creepiest and darkest chord: the diminished fifth. But, I would go so far as to say that there are a few contenders:
- X-cell chords - chromatic tetra chords
- Augmented chords
- Minor/Major 7 chords
- Suspended chords
- Minor6/9 chords
