Is it musically possible to make a track sound "angry"

S

someguy0880

New member
I don't think I've ever heard an instrumental in hop hop that can stand alone and genuinely sound angry as a pure emotion, you can get dramatic sounding tracks or uneasy/tense tracks but what in your opinion makes a track sound angry?
 
You are asking a question in the realm of aesthetics, ethnomusicology, cognitive musicology, and psycho-acoustics. If there is an answer, it's not a simple one.

In this culture, I'd trying a minor key and adding varying amounts of distortion.

GJ
 
add to that (and first and foremost) playing real instruments (not keyboards but a real drum kit and real bass and a real piano and a real guitar, etc) with the amount of anger that you want imparted - in a lot of cases this means sitting on top of the beat (or even ahead of it) and playing with mostly downstrokes with a plectrum on the bass and guitar, heavy sticks (5Bs or even 2As or 2Bs) with wooden tips on drums that have been tuned high (almost but not quite popping the skins)

limiting the guitar and piano voicings to spaced 5ths and octaves rather than full triads is another trick that adds restlessness and a touch of anger as well
 
rhythmgj said:
You are asking a question in the realm of aesthetics, ethnomusicology, cognitive musicology, and psycho-acoustics. If there is an answer, it's not a simple one.

In this culture, I'd trying a minor key and adding varying amounts of distortion.

GJ
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Ive tried all that and multiple variations, I havnt honestly came across a track anywhere that does it for me either. I've heard tracks that sound angry with artists on them but just as instrumentals I can't recall or find one that sounds purely "angry".
 
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bandcoach said:
add to that (and first and foremost) playing real instruments (not keyboards but a real drum kit and real bass and a real piano and a real guitar, etc) with the amount of anger that you want imparted - in a lot of cases this means sitting on top of the beat (or even ahead of it) and playing with mostly downstrokes with a plectrum on the bass and guitar, heavy sticks (5Bs or even 2As or 2Bs) with wooden tips on drums that have been tuned high (almost but not quite popping the skins)

limiting the guitar and piano voicings to spaced 5ths and octaves rather than full triads is another trick that adds restlessness and a touch of anger as well
Click to expand...

I never considered the placement on the beat when it came to this, that's pretty interesting.

Still that would add suspense rather than anger though?

I've thought about this way too much lately. starting to question what anger even is.
 
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suspense tends to be engendered by playing behind the beat in my experience

and it is about the jangling between two or more interpretations of where to play on or ahead of the beat that makes the anger work - i.e. tension that is not released as each individual tries to force their interpretation on the group whilst the group resists as much as possible - there is a fine line between doing this and actually not playing in time though
 
I like this question.. I think that because anger isn't an emotion that is often expressed melodically in real life, that it's much more difficult to express in music. i.e., when people are angry there isn't nearly as much melodic range to their voice vs. when they are sad or happy. My advice is think of some angry phrases and pay attention to the dynamics and rhythm in your voice.
 
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When I think of an angry beat lol. I think of some struggling beatmaker recording with his keyboard playing all kinds of shit off key in a pissed off way. Like when you played the piano as a kid and couldn't get it in 5 minutes, so you would just slam the keyboard with random stuff haha. Probably not the response you were looking for, but it's what came to mind :cheers:
 
you could try playing only 1 Chord
are there any chords that sound very aggressive on their own?
adding hard plucks with oscillators detuned a 5th
playing in whole notes and roll them off with triplets
and hard knocking 808s or really dark bass
that would maybe get you closer to the type of aggressiveness that sounds like it's gonna beat u up real bad like a wild animal ?
 
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