Tips for Artistic Contrast in Your MusicPublished Feb 12 2010 Contrast is one of the most important ingredients in all art and notably an unsung value in great music. Contrast alone can broaden and amplify an artist’s work. Conversely, without contrast, art takes on a monotone flavor and lacks luster. Without this dynamic quality, art would be bland at best and music would be stripped of its dramatic power. Contrast is both a verb and a noun. As a verb, contrast means to set in opposition in order to emphasize differences. As a noun, contrast can be defined as the juxtaposition of different forms in a work of art to intensify each element’s properties and to produce a more dynamic expressiveness. It is essential for both young and veteran musicians to look for opportunities to apply contrast to all their creative endeavors. As a musician, understanding the importance of contrast in music allows you to develop a more emphasized style. Here are the 2 best tips to develop contrast in your music! 1. Exaggerate dynamic differences that already exist in the piece. The fastest way to bore a listener to death and to deprive a song of its potential is to play it plain and straight all the way through. Many musicians tend to run a song bare and vanilla! When playing a single passage of music, be careful to not be bland, monotone, or monovolume. Rather, accentuate the contrasts in your song between the soft and the loud, the highs and the lows, and the fast and slow, creatively organizing these differences. Perhaps you see your song as a roller coaster, rising and falling fluidly at key moments, or your song may embody the calm before a storm, the storm itself, and the calm after the storm clears. 2. Recognize the difference between volume and intensity. These two elements are not necessarily the same. There can, in fact, be soft moments in music that are intense. The rise, fall, ebb and flow of intensity enables the drama and power found in great music. One way to create powerful emotion through volume and intensity in music is to build up great tension in a song, releasing it at key moments. Even if you only have a few measures in a song to work with, you can still create a huge amount of buildup and release in those measures. Example Here is an example of how exaggerating natural contrasts and managing volume and intensity could play out in a song — zoom in a bit and take a guitar solo for example. In this solo, you start simply with a single long note, adding increasing vibrato as you end the note. As you come to the middle of the section, you play a key melody, repeating it a time or two. Then, nearing the last measure of the interlude, you rip through a series of faster, louder notes. As you climatically arrive at the final note, you again hang on a single note for a moment. At each stage and any level of musical presentation, adventurously accentuate contrast, both inside single passages of melody, harmony and rhythm, and throughout the course of a full song. Even throughout the flow of an entire set of music, be dynamic from song to song, passage to passage, and even note to note. These music tips will help you as you seek to grow as an artist! |
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