composing horror - an experiment
I sat down and set myself a task last night.
To ‘compose’ a short horror track using as few instruments, sounds and musical phrases as possible and in a short amount of time.
There was no intended use for the piece, it was simply an exercise in creating. I often do this although without the limitations of time and instruments. What comes out of the process often surprises me. It’s all a learning curve.
I had intended as with several recent ‘experiments’ to upload the finished piece to Soundcloud for free use. That was to change today after the original upload yesterday.
Often when I start something like this, I have no idea where it is going to lead me. I tend if I have no initial concept to go through my library of instruments playing small phrases until something catches my eye – or ear. This time I knew that I was aiming for horror / suspense, and I also had the aim of using more unusual instruments or instruments built from non-conventional sources. This was my starting point in the instrument library.
The first instrument to catch my eye was a traditional instrument – the violin. This may seem somewhat contrary to my self-imposed brief, however, it was a soft instrument built around certain bowing techniques that were ideal for horror. It was very limited in its application which perfectly suited my aims. The second instrument to join the team was a tongue drum which had been processed with a small number of variants ranging from the original sound to heavily processed and unrecognisable.
The tongue drum when played through the midi keyboard with a hard attack had a really appealing and somewhat ominous ring to it, and this served as the starting point with rapid notes in short phrases. This was the first phrase to be played and recorded and set the tone for the piece. The violin perfectly complimented the tongue drum and was the second instrument to be recorded strengthening the edgy feel. Normally at this point I need to start to tie parts together and this in sound design will most often be with some kind of drone or evolving drone that sits beneath the entirety of the piece. This was accomplished with one instrument created from natural sounds heavily processed and a second sound used in previous projects created from processed vehicle sounds.
The piece now had a direction and some glue to hold it together and layering some sounds at an extremely low register gave the simple piece an ominous feel. There was however at this point only sounds and no ‘melody’. For a non-diegetic soundbed this would have been perfectly fine. However, I wanted the piece to be able to stand on its own and not just as a texture underlying something else. The Kaval came into play to create a simple repeated melody with a build of multiple unison appearances and ending on one Kaval. The Kavals haunting tones again perfectly complimented the tongue drum and violin.
There was however something missing even with the simple repeated melody. The stone glockenspiel came to the rescue. Just through simply cycling through the chosen instruments and playing random notes, I realised that the glockenspiel had in one variant a sound evocative of a large traditional clock chiming. And that was it. The missing piece. A simple playing of the chimes provided for a build along with the Kaval, violin and low register drone. The tongue drum providing a final discordant chord to end the experimental piece.
I will be honest in that the instruments used in the final piece were not as unusual as I had intended. I desperately wanted to use a couple of instruments that didn’t in the end work within the final creation.
I had my eye on four specific instruments created from; wine glasses, a singing bowl, some pots and lastly from a glass bowl. Discovering that they didn’t work in this instance was a valuable lesson.
I originally intended to release the piece for free with credit use, but I realised that I had unconsciously created something that I had a use for. This realisation didn’t actually dawn on me until today and forced a re-render of the piece and edit of the Soundcloud page to reflect copyright amendments. As such the piece although on Soundcloud is copyrighted with all rights reserved and will be used and built upon for a project that is already in the works. Something that I now have more impetus to realise and proving that one thing really can lead to another.
It was a fun exercise to do and one that ended up being of more use that I could have known at the outset. Part of the real enjoyment of sound designing and music creation, or indeed any type of creative persuit, is just experimenting and seeing where it leads you. It doesn’t have to be earth shatteringly good it just has to be enjoyable to be creating.
Credit has to be given to the amazing individuals with the passion and dedication to create the instruments used in this piece. All instruments used are from the Decent|Samples collection and use the Decent Sampler Plugin. Many instruments are available for free and the composition below uses both free and purchased instruments.
The piece can be listened to below, and will be forming the introduction to and basis for variations of theme for an upcoming project.
Please note - the compositions below are Copyright Charlie Creek 2026 - All rights reserved as the composer and performer.
Postscript.
It’s now a day or so later after the initial conception and recording, and the piece has evolved and expanded. There are now many other instruments there – from pots and pans to sheet metal and beyond. This was my initial plan.
Furthermore, I have completed the script for a short story (the project I hinted at) for which this piece will form the main theme and sound bed. It will be recomposed and adapted to suit the dialogue flow.
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If you are interest in talking about sound design and music requirement for a project, please contact me at blackcreekpodcasts@gmail.com
Free to use music and soundbeds can be found on my SoundCloud Artistspage.
