Mood Music —The 3 Essential Ingredients You Need to Know
Recently, I discovered a new band I like called Men I Trust. For me, the band falls under the large umbrella of “mood music,” a term I will develop in this post. Though not my usual taste in music, mood music has become an ever-growing part of it.
While for many the term “mood music” means music that tries to create a relaxed or romantic feeling, I will use the term in its most generic sense: music intended to create any particular mood or feeling.
In reflecting on why mood music wasn’t always my cup of tea, I realize it’s because my taste in music started at age 14 with Coldplay and Snow Patrol. I consider both bands soft rock, but they share a strong tendency for climactic arcs in their songs. Structurally, this building up to a large climax is very different from mood music. Mood music tends to stay very level, without many dynamics, throughout the whole song. Hence, it took me a while to appreciate it. Compared to what I grew up on, mood music is bland and unexciting. But mood music has its own aesthetic appeals.
Rock Music vs. Mood Music
To better understand the unique appeal of mood music, I will start with what it is not. Mood music is not rock music.
So much music falls under rock, it can be hard to define the genre. Of course, you can break rock down by sub genres and trace them back to 1950s rock and roll. From there, you could explain rock and roll as a blend of rhythm and blues and country music. And you could trace those genres back even further.
For my purposes, I will focus on one feature of rock songs: progressive song dynamics. Rock songs tend to progress in a linear fashion. For example, a rock song might start out soft, build to a climactic chorus, and fade at the end. Of course, progressive dynamics are not exclusive to rock music. Classical music was dynamic long before rock music existed.
Unlike rock, mood music lacks strong dynamic structure. Mood music has very flat dynamics. In mood music, the same instruments are present throughout the entire song, and there is minimal change in volume or intensity.
Consider the following 3 essential ingredients to good mood music:
1. Steady Drum Beat
First, mood music keeps a steady beat for the whole song. The drums may cut out occasionally, but generally they are present for the entirety of the song, kicking to the same beat. You might as well use a drum machine instead of an actual drummer-that is how little the beat changes.
Often, mood music starts with the drums. The other instruments more or less layer around the drum track. This contributes to the characteristic lack in dynamics. Listen to any Men I Trust song for a sense of steady drums in mood music.
2. Minimal Instrumentation
Second, mood music tends to stick to a handful of instruments for any given song. Cigarettes after Sex is a good example. The band’s songs consist of drums, bass, electric guitar, and vocals-all drenched in heavy reverb. With the exception of some subtle synthesizer pads, the band rarely deviates from this formula.
The predictable instrumentation gives listeners comfortable consistency. It’s like karaoke music, in which popular songs are recreated with the same handful of instruments. The familiar sounds make a basic accompaniment for the vocals.
3. Unpretentious Vocals
The final hallmark of mood music is unpretentious vocals. Mac DeMarco embodies such subdued and restrained vocals best. You never hear Mac DeMarco belting any notes. His singing is laid back and chill.
Just like the flat dynamics in mood music over all, there are no peaks at which the singer’s emotions come to a climax. Instead, the singer sings the entire song within a certain emotional frame. It’s like sticking to the side step instead of doing the tango. There is movement, but not much variety. Think Will Smith’s advice in the movie Hitch: “This is where you live. Right here. This is home.”
Mood Music is Lateral, not Linear
Mood music is lateral, not linear. The variety and texture comes from the sounds and the instruments, not the song structure. Consider the band Cigarettes After Sex. Their unique sound depends heavily on excessive reverb, especially on the guitars. The verses and choruses are less distinguishable than that distant dreamy guitar sound. It’s the sonic nature of their music that sets them apart.
To return to rock music, rock songs are like roller coasters with points along the route that mark the progression of the song. For example, you can distinguish the initial drop from the loop midway through, and you can distinguish both points from the last stretch that slows to a stop. The song has plot. And if you heard a random part of the song, you could probably place where it occurs within the larger context of the song.
In mood music, however, the whole song sounds the same. You are unable to distinguish the beginning from the middle from the end. If you took a random time marker and listened, you probably couldn’t say where in the song it was. At any given point, the song sounds the same as far as instrumentation, volume, intensity, and often even lyrics.
This consistent sound ferments into a mood that more dynamic music lacks, a mood the listener can sulk in. Whether it is sexy (Cigarettes After Sex), dreamy (Men I Trust), or carefree (Mac DeMarco), mood music offers a harbor for different emotions.
Making Your Own Mood Music
Mood music is one of the easiest types of music to make on your own. The 3 main ingredients mentioned above lend themselves to minimal equipment. You can use virtual instruments for the limited instrumentation, a drum machine for the steady beat, and you can record the vocals in your closet for that unpretentious sound.
Make the kind of music you want to make. But if you are inclined to make mood music, you are in luck. Bedroom studios are especially conducive to making mood music. Because you don’t need a lot of dynamics, you can loop a lot of the instruments within your DAW. Musically, the mood you are after is within reach.
