Why do we consider some music to be creepy/scary?

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Horror shows and games often rely to some extent on the effect of off-putting music and sounds. Is it because we’ve heard these things before that our brain associates them with scary things? Does it have something to do with how our bodies react to the dissonant notes/minor keys?

I just watched someone play a horror game and felt unsettled for a little bit because of the music, so I was just curious!

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Anonymous 0 Comments

From a music theory standpoint, unsettling frequencies come from dissonance, or, notes that clash with eachother in a specific context. Take a peaceful lullaby and detune a couple of notes and it becomes dissonant. That’s because the note frequencies we expect to hear are *slightly* out of tune and clash with our expectations. Pair that with the visual and atmospheric anticipation, and it can become *very* unsettling and scary.

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