Try this before you add another layer

When a scene needs more tension, it’s tempting to keep adding: another string layer, a bigger hit, a louder rise.

But suspense doesn’t always come from making the music bigger. Often, it comes from teaching the audience what to expect, then changing one part of that pattern.

Here’s an exercise to try with a short scene, a game moment, or even a piece of footage you find online.

Score the same 15–20 seconds three different ways.

1. Establish a sense of safety. Choose a simple musical idea: a repeating note, a steady pulse, or a calm phrase. Keep the sound and dynamics consistent. Give the listener enough time to recognize the pattern and settle into it.
2. Let something feel slightly wrong. Keep most of your idea, but change one detail. Try moving a note up or down by a semitone, bringing in a low sustained tone, or placing a high, thin sound above the rest of the texture. Don’t change everything at once. The effect is strongest when the listener can still sense the original pattern underneath the new element.
3. Make the listener wait. Build toward a moment in the scene: a door opening, a character turning around, or a reveal. Let the music rise or grow denser, but cut it just before that moment. Leave the natural sound of the scene in place. The audience is still waiting for the payoff, but now the music isn’t telling them what to feel.

When you listen back, ask yourself:

What pattern does the audience learn to expect?

Which single change makes that pattern feel less safe?

Does the silence make the moment more tense, or does it release the tension too early?

Try changing only one thing between versions. If you alter the harmony, register, dynamics, and instrumentation all at once, it’s hard to tell which choice is doing the work. Small experiments help you build a more deliberate palette—and make it easier to explain why a cue is working.

One useful next step: listen to your versions at a quiet volume. If the tension only works when the cue is loud, the dynamics may be carrying too much of the effect. See whether the changing note, register, or texture still creates anticipation on its own. Then bring the level back up and decide where a real increase in volume will have the most impact.

You can also try the exercise without a picture. Write a short musical pattern, let one detail disturb it, then leave a beat of silence before the next phrase. The same principle applies: establish an expectation, change it, and control when the listener gets an answer.

If you want to go further, I demonstrate seven ways to build tension in my latest video:

​Watch It Here​

-Tommy Arnold