How do you recreate the emotion of a song

This question is going to be a bit abstract of course because we all receive emotions differently. But the question in hand is how do I recreate the emotion in a chord progression.

I have been studying songs lately tryna find what chords are used in songs that move me and my friends finding what the role of each chord is ect..

The bit that gets me tho is how do you recreate the emotion found in these chords without it sounding the exact same.

For example: you and me the remix by flume uses in basic terms root,lead, dominant, lead throughout the track. But what info do I really take from this? If I say to myself well using 1,75,7 gives the emotion that I get from that song. How do I translate that into a new chord progression which doesn’t sound exactly the same.

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Comments

Yelpito • 17 points • 2023-09-03

I’ve been dealing with this lately, my advice is to disconnect the rational part as much as you can when making songs and let yourself be guided by the feeling, lately I’ve also mixed in this way and I get better results

Snassyboi • 1 points • 2023-09-03

So should i maybe stop caring about the music theory? Cuz its so hard making the song give the same vibe as how you want it to.

CouldBeDreaming • 6 points • 2023-09-03

You’re not really going to forget about the music theory, but maybe don’t focus on it exclusively. You can experiment, loosen up a bit, and remember that you can always go back to familiar tools, and perspectives.

EggieBeans • 2 points • 2023-09-03

This ^

It’s important to be technical about music but you’ll also never be a good producer if you don’t experience and try things.

Imo emotion is mostly feeling, it comes from being moved by that certain patch with certain chords or letting ur ears guide to find where the guitar should sit instead of doing what usually works for you.

Emotion in my opinion as well is something that has to flow.

My best vocal takes are always the ones with lots of energy and no thought or care as to how it turns out, just singing a rough sketch of what I want. That’s why it’s mostly the first take that is the best, because it flows out.

Another general rule imo is if there’s nothing special within each sound in ur song then why are you adding it? Bit extreme ik but I’ll go back to the drawing board to get that recording because that’s the backbone of ur track.

My last piece of advice is bit out there but,

Listen to more songs with emotion.

R&B has some beautiful emotional pianos. Listen to the way the musician will basically always be feeling the music, how smoothly they get the perfect pressure on each key they press. The human feel is also something that heavily decides whether there’s emotion, OP if you’re pressing quantise then that’s ur problem. Emotion comes from the notes being played slightly out of time.

Kwentin191 • 0 points • 2023-09-03

Ideally yeah idk if humming the melody it would help that’s what I usually do🤷‍♀️

I-melted • 1 points • 2023-09-04

Definitely. Be like Luke Skywalker. Turn off your flight computer and trust in your feelings.

Feelings are the whole point. If something breaks the current rules, then you have achieved originality.

[deleted] • 5 points • 2023-09-03

You must be able to impart emotion to a song first.

iceboxed • 1 points • 2023-09-03

Yes I agree. Maybe you should try starting with a chord progression that has no attachment to a song you already know and see if you can add emotion to that, and if you get good at it, see if you can then come up with more than one way to express it emotionally. But having to decontextualize something you’re very used to and come up with something entirely new might be hard to do at first.

MissMaxolotl • 4 points • 2023-09-03

What you need to understand is that chord progressions are not just emotions, but also the ebb and flow of tension. You can express similar emotions while still changing the places you put tense moments and their catharsis. You might find two of the chords that have a great emotional moment when the first becomes the second, and try putting them together but with a different harmonic rhythm, or putting different chords before/after them, or changing what your melody does over the top.

hazasauras • 1 points • 2023-09-03

Try humming to yourself.
You could try putting down your instruments, maybe even go to another room and just hum. Don’t think too much, just vibe and hum. When you get it, record a voice memo of it on your phone or something, then reverse engineer it into whatever you imagine it to be. Chords, riffs, melodies etc..
I get my best ideas doing it in the shower, so have your phone just outside ready to go in case you forget the tune.

LateBloomerAW • 1 points • 2023-09-03

Is it the chord change itself in the song that is creating the emotion or something in the vocal (melody, lyrics, delivery) or even something in the arrangement? There’s nothing wrong with getting chord ideas from other songs, but I think trying to copy an exact moment or emotion is a bit of a fool’s errand.

I think trying to break down exactly what causes you to feel the emotion in that moment and then creating your own moments with whatever chords/melody/arrangement is much more useful.

Winkol • 1 points • 2023-09-03

Remember that there’s not really such a thing as objective emotions of a song. The same song that you feel expresses sadness might be interpreted as anger by someone else. This applies to songs in general and to chord progressions especially. In isolation a chord progression doesn’t convey anything else but the harmonic content. There’s a bunch of other things that play in;

• Melody and lyrics
• Tempo
• timbre (Ie. What sounds you are using to play those chords)

And even then those are only the things that you can impact yourself. Your listener will also apply their subjective interpretation of these things according to a million different circumstances.

• what mood are they in?
• what’s the weather like?
• what room are they in?
• have they heard your style of music before?
• do they have any memories attached to any of the specific sounds you are using? Etc etc

The best thing you can do is revert back to yourself. What is the story that YOU want to tell? What emotion are you feeling when you play your song? That is all that matters because you’re not in control of the end interpretation at all.

Using functional analysis to try and make sense of the emotional impact of a chord progression is at best difficult since that’s not really what such an analysis is trying to do.

Emeralaxy • 1 points • 2023-09-03

It’s honestly all about having the emotion yourself, you’ll notice automatically your music will sound like how you’re feeling. Make music when you feel it

[deleted] • 1 points • 2023-09-03

I just make it. Don’t know, I don’t think about music theory much in these moments, I just think about harmony and making it sound cool and not boring. Most of the time the synths inspire me for melodies. If sound is good, it will somehow make me create a melody for this sound. So I always crave for new synths and patches, I always tweak until I am fine. Sometimes when I listen to my tracks I just think “how did I make it?“. Cause I always forget and start every project from scratch

rainrainrainr • 1 points • 2023-09-03

Harmonics/chords mimic the tone of the human voice and melodies mimic speech patterns which is how we express emotions. Spend time developing your ear for chords/melodies and your emotional openness to music. Practically, spend time looking up chords/melodies for songs you emotionally feel and try to play at least a basic version on midi keyboard so you develop a feel for what the chords are for the music and how they are interacting. You will start to notice trends that you can learn to apply without just outright copying.

METASIN-BAND • 1 points • 2023-09-03

study songs and gain insight as to how the emotion is created.

then,

in a separate session, put all your instruments away and meditate on a feeling and move your body to it until you have ANY lead. pickup your instrument or DAW only after you hear something in your head and let it guide you without trying to get in its way.

your internal storehouse of knowledge will unconsciously affect how you move according to the feeling.

if you’re having trouble generating the feeling, maybe you need a real life experience that makes the feeling more felt. artists of all kinds put themselves in weird situations to empower their creativity.

hi3r0fant • 1 points • 2023-09-03

A chord progression by itself creates , no emotion. Is the whole arrangement of the song that helps build up emotion and this mainly has to do with arrangement, perception , sound design and talent. Sound design is mostly more identifiable in movies but knowing how it s done can help around with music. Imagine that you are a director of movie that only blind people are going to watch. You will have to use music and sounds to let them “see” what s going on. So the arrangement of your music is what is going to do that , not that chord progressions. When it comes to emotions from sounds what plays a major role are the frequencies rather than the notes/chords.

Some times , just closing our eyes while playing an instrument is enough . Many people forget that

I-melted • 1 points • 2023-09-04

Excellent question.

This is something that has been successful for me.

Forget the song for a bit.

Go on the internet and find photos that make you feel the same emotions. Print them out. Stick them around you.

If you find a video that does the same, then stick that on a loop. With the sound off.

And now write your song while looking at the video and pictures.

It sounds ridiculous. But this method has helped me travel the world.

Bobbybloomfield.com

NoVeterinarian6522 • 1 points • 2023-09-04

My songwriting style has always been pretty “fuck around and find out” for lack of a better term.

If that song makes you feel some way, then pick up the guitar or keyboard or whatever when you feel that way, and play around until something resonates with you.

It sounds cheesy but it’s so true-write from the heart. Think of something that makes you emotional in some way and then play around with your instrument of choice until something matches that. It’s not going to happen in four seconds, so be patient. It’s good to detach from the DAW, or paper, or phone notes during this. Just play and play and then well, yeah maybe get it down on your phone’s voice recorder when you have something but then detach again until you’re really ready to track it. Don’t overthink it and have fun!

The_Archlich • 1 points • 2023-09-04

You don’t.

Also the emotion doesn’t come from the chord progression.