Instruments
COMP TRACKS IN REAL-TIME WITH OUR VIDEO PREVIEW TOOL
 | Fast - Find the right music faster by comping tracks with your video online |
 | Private - Videos load instantly and are never stored on our server! |
 | Multiple Sources - Use videos from your device or videos online! |
Learn more about our video preview tool HERE
Keyboard shortcuts
COMP TRACKS IN REAL-TIME WITH OUR VIDEO PREVIEW TOOL
| | Fast - Find the right music faster by comping tracks with your video online |
| | Private - Videos load instantly and are never stored on our server! |
| | Multiple Sources - Use videos from your device or videos online! |
Learn more about our video preview tool HERE
Keyboard shortcuts
DownloadRoyalty Free Suspenseful Music
75 
Need Suspenseful Music for your Video?
Suspenseful music is something that filmmakers in all genres should understand.
It might be most prominent in thrillers, horrors, or action movies, but films of any kind can feature moments of suspense.
Some scenes are quite forgiving when it comes to musical choices.
For example, let's say you have a road trip scene with a montage of a car rolling down the highway.
You can absolutely find the perfect track (in our library), but people are less likely to say the music isn't perfect, because the content is more middle of the road (excuse the pun).
Suspenseful scenes are not as forgiving; you get one chance to grip the audience; it has to be right.
What is Suspense?
It might seem obvious, but it's worth highlighting what suspense in a movie is.
Keeping someone in suspense means keeping them waiting, right? In that sense, we can say that suspense doesn't need to be scary or ominous. It could just as easily be excitement as it could be fear or anxiety.
The fundamental quality of suspense, and suspenseful music it that it doesn't resolve comfortably. It keeps the viewer hanging on in nervous anticipation.
That old Chestnut
Some common tricks are used to create suspense in music, and while they might be a little cliché, they work, and that's all that matters.
One of the tricks you can use is a tempo change in your music.
The tempo change will quite often mirror the expected increase in the viewers' heart rate. It also helps to encourage an increased heart rate, as it lets the viewer know that something is getting closer.
If you have an audience so gripped that their heart is beating faster, then you've done your job.
Another common trick is to employ music with a lot of dissonances rather than consonance.
Dissonance in music is when there is a lack of natural harmony, but there is a lot of tension.
As we have covered in previous articles, music is all about tension and release, the difference here is that release takes longer to come. We could get really deep into music theory, but we will spare you that and give one very simple example.
Minor chords are perceived as being sad, but if you take a minor 7th chord and change one note, the effect can be huge. For example, the chord Cminor7 contains the dominant 7th note, which is Bflat. If you take that Bflat down a half step to B natural, you now have a minor chord with a major 7th. That major 7th creates dissonance/conflict and can put the listener on edge.
Know When Enough is Enough and When it Isn't!
Timing is critical with suspense when it comes to the reveal or end of the scene.
The music has to land in precisely the right places to match the on-screen actions, however subtle or significant they are. However, the journey to that point is quite different, and shouldn't be approached with conventional timing in mind.
The idea is to prolong the tension, so you shouldn't be scared to drag it out in this scenario. This idea doesn't stop with the duration of the segment; it can also mean longer notes (especially the dissonant ones) or longer periods of silence.
If it sounds easy, it's not, go too long and you've blown it, sorry! To get you started, take fear as an example, and check out how the masters use suspenseful music to create fear.
Don't get it wrong; use our video preview tool to audition music against your movie before buying.