Video Game Audio - Cool Way to Make a Perfectly Smooth and Seamless Loop

Introduction

If you work in the gaming industry—whether you're a programmer, a composer, a sound designer, a project director, or anyone else who may deal with game audio—it's almost a guarantee you've come in contact with loops. They drive so many aspects of the gaming experience that even if you aren't the person implementing the loops, chances are that some of the music or sounds you've worked on will be looped at some point in their games.

Because the gaming industry is fueled by highly interactive experiences, your loops most likely will not be handled in a linear format—that is, by copying and pasting or otherwise extending an audio event to match a fixed timeline—as would be the case for loops in film and television. Instead, the game's engine will trigger the looping of various audio files so they can repeat an endless amount of times until something new is triggered to take their place.

For this reason, a smooth transition from the end of a single audio file (or chain of audio files) back to it's beginning is imperative, but creating seamless loops remains one of the trickiest challenges of implementing game audio today. When created, exported, or formatted improperly, an audible pop, a harsh click, a slight gap with no sound, or a lack of sound continuity (such as the reverb tail in a musical loop) will be present.

Current Methods of Making Seamless Loops

While there are a couple of common methods used to attempt to tackle these issues, none are totally perfect or can be used in any situation, and all may require multiple attempts to get an acceptable outcome. I'll review some of these common ways to work with loops and then share a solution for achieving "theoretically perfect" loops that my own experience and roadblocks led me to discover—a method that works extremely well for ambiences and environments and very well for certain ambient music tracks, though with the right amount of work, it could be applied to any loop.

Both sound designers and composers (and all other audio experts) should be familiar with the term "zero crossing." In short, it is the center of a waveform—often represented by a straight line in DAWs. When the wave touches this line on its journey to cross to the opposite side, it is at it's quietest point, or 0db. By finding the point of zero crossing in a waveform and trimming the file to that point, you are able to end a loop with reduced risk for popping or clicking. However, sometimes this means you have to change the length of the file, even if slightly, which can be awkward for rhythmically driven tracks. 

Other times, zero crossing just doesn't line up like you'd hoped and you have to rely on a fade of 5-10 ticks or samples to force out the click that would otherwise be present. Usually, a fade so small is not easily noticeable, but if the track is fairly rambunctious, a similar fade may be required at the beginning of the audio file. These "forced" zero crossings can leave a slight gap in sound, and they of course don't get into the issues of reverb tails, the left over echo-like sounds that simulate a realistic environment. 

If you go into a big hall and shout "echo," you'll hear the reflections—your voice bouncing off of the walls and other surfaces—trail off slowly. If it all stopped the second the you shut your mouth, you would easily notice that something is off. This same unnatural feeling happens when a loop is suddenly cut off at the end in order to keep the timing while transitioning back to the beginning. 

It's not an issue while composing or designing certain sounds because any reverb units you have applied in the project are active and hold out their respective reverb tails when MIDI notes or audio files are played back. So, loops are seamless all the time, every time within the project. However, when you actually write or bounce down all of that information into a single track, the reverb is written along with everything else. There is no active unit gauging when each note is played and waiting to hold them out accordingly. Instead, the reverb of the final moments of the original session carries out beyond the length of the final sound and is written to your new exported file.

Now, in order to maintain that reverb tail's naturalness, you must cut the tail off your exported file and place it on a second track at the beginning of the loop. That poses a few problems in itself, and as renowned game composer Winifred Phillips agrees in her book, The Composer's Guide to Game Music, when done improperly, it can be quite dissonant and displeasing to the listener (p173-174). For this reason, she advises ending and starting loops with the same notes and making sure that reverb times are short enough (at least at the end of the track) to keep multiple notes from overlapping back to the beginning. 

Of course, just as zero crossing fades don't cover reverb issues, reverb edits don't address pops and clicks. Often, the two techniques must be combined to make acceptable loops, and the common result still leaves that tiny, tiny gap in playback. It may not be noticeable in all tracks, but highly reverberated, ambient, or "spacey" loops will tend to stick out like a sore thumb, even for such slight gaps. Luckily for the modern game industry, multiple tracks often play at the same time (ie dialogue, 3 different nature tracks, background voices, clothing and sfx, and music), so a split-second gap in any one loop may be covered by the business of the others. But this isn't always the case. Imagine you are playing a game in which the music is sparse and, because your character is standing still, the only other sound is the light ambience of a cave or abandoned library. Gaps could ruin the experience here.

Another technique that is less preferable but is still present in the game world is to have an ending in the loop, which makes it extremely obvious when the piece starts over due to the intended silence. 

Still another technique is just leaving the file alone and doubling it, either in a DAW or directly in a middleware program like FMOD or WWise. Because middleware is designed for both the composers/sound designers and programmers to be able to share a common template and can integrate sounds into a game's engine, a programmer could then take over at any point. Regardless of who does the work, someone can set a second copy of the file to begin exactly when the first should start over, looping the second file only so that the reverb tail from the first is carried over but not printed on the original track. While that solves the issue of dissonance the first time a loop is played, it still leaves room for pops and presents a bigger issue of files potentially being twice the size. That can really add up considering game engines can only hold so much at once.

A Newer Method for Making Seamless Loops

Earlier, I mentioned that my method is "theoretically perfect," but because of reverb tails and certain melodic writing styles, it is not yet perfected for music…and since reverb tails are so important in original musical sessions, it may never be perfected for music. However, it does the three other things that may be hard to come by in any other method, still making it a gem and viable option for many musical tracks. 

So, here is what I discovered along with its pros and musical cons:

When you are doing the regular editing of audio files in your DAW of choice, you sometimes need to cut or separate them into two or more pieces. However, if you don't move those pieces after they're split and initiate playback, you'll find that they flow together seamlessly, as if they were still a single file. I noticed this in the first song I ever edited, but it wasn't until the spring of 2014, when I was tasked with transforming some existing environment tracks for a game into loops, that I began to think bigger. 

These pesky tracks had all sorts of weird high points and low points, and nothing was ever consistent enough to just have them start and finish. The audio director knew this and said we were to follow the common method used by his team of layering them all with different starting points and ending points so that any time one faded out, the others would still be going. That way, no one would ever know that several individual tracks were constantly fading in and out. I still presented a version this way, but I remembered how important file size and the amount of files per project were to the development process. 

That's when the idea hit me! If regular audio tracks could play seamlessly even when cut in half, why couldn't loops work in the same way? The logic behind the thought said, almost counterintuitively, that rather than searching for near-zero crossing points that are closely lined up to loop with, why not loop anywhere by reversing the order of two split regions, regardless of wave positioning?

So, on my own time, I pulled up one of the files on my computer. I created a new project in my DAW, loaded it, then looped it. The change from end to beginning was abrupt. Then, I cut it in half. It still sounded like one single track, as I was expecting, with the exception of the abruptness of the loop point. I excitedly switched the order of the two halves, so that the second half played first and the first half immediately followed.

The result was the same! My file started in the middle of the environmental atmosphere, abruptly changed halfway through, and then looped back through the beginning as if it was a single file. That's all I needed to know for my experiments to begin.

I quickly undid everything and shortened the file on both ends so I could have some leftover room for crossfading. Then, I cut it more carefully, looking for a point closer to zero crossing and perhaps more importantly, listening for a low point in environmental activity (because unique sounds will cause clicks when interrupted, even if there is no huge spike in the waveform).

When I flipped the order of the two files this time, the change near the middle was still noticeable, but much less abrupt. At that point, I added a small crossfade. When an ambience is very consistent throughout, that's all that is required, and it worked on some of the tracks I played with later. But not here. The buzzing still felt different. This was a wild track with monkeys, birds, bugs, tree branches, and all sorts of things happening as it progressed. So, I made a large crossfade, which slowly and unnoticeably transformed the various buzzes, chirps, and calls into different buzzes, chirps, and calls. In fact, anything like chirps and calls are never too big of a deal because the fades make them just seem quieter. That may even be desirable to further differentiate them from similar sounds.

The key here was getting the subtle changing of the buzzing frequency to feel like it wasn't suddenly changing. After all, it had gradually risen in pitch throughout the original file, so my goal was to slowly lower it back to the first pitch I heard. A short fade couldn't do that, but a long one did the trick! By extending the length of the fade, the change in buzz pitch became much more natural, and the middle of my file was now seamless. So, when I played the track back a final time, the result was an unending loop that never popped or clicked, never had moment of silence, and used crossfades in the center of the file as opposed to fadeins and fadeouts on the ends. 

The director was of course pleased with my innovation and allowed me to implement the techniques into the project. The result allowed us more consistent environments as well as the ability to reduce and condense files further when required.

That's why I believe this is sheer gold to game sound designers. Not only can you condense tracks that don't need to act independently into a single file, you don't necessarily have to worry about reverb tails either. Yes you could add your own reverbs to looped ambiences and atmospheres in your DAW, but then they are written forever. Developers have much greater control over those loops if you create them dry and allow the engine to trigger the appropriate reverbs through middleware. Then, if a swirling orb follows you out of a cave into a forest and finally through the front door of a small cottage, the reverb can automatically change to reflect those environments, and the same reverbs can be applied to all sfx for uniformity.

Either way, reverb tails are much less off-putting at the beginning of an ambience should you need to write them to the track. This differs from music because different instruments or instrument groups may all have different types of reverb and different amounts applied in order to best suit the composition. Often, ambient tracks only require a single reverb at a time to reflect the space in which they are sounding, as was outlined in the orb example above.

How this Method Relates to Music

If you are primarily a composer, perhaps you can see some issues that may arise. A lot of them pertain to looping in general, but let's address them all anyway and then explore some solutions.

The first and biggest concern: why would you cut your music in half and start in the middle? Great point. Don't. I wouldn't either. There are at least two ways around this, though one seems way too difficult and is untested. The other is to change the order of your composition before you export it. Pick a good spot to have as your "alternate" beginning, and then move everything that is before it so that it starts after the last bar of your intended ending. Bounce the file. Keep in mind that, just like all of your other methods, this will never work if you are trying to loop a composition that doesn't start and end the in a similar way or if you are trying to make a shortened loop out of a longer piece. A loop has to be prepared to flow back into its beginning from the end, so two wildly different sections will end up just like my bug problem explained above.

By moving your track's beginning to the end before bouncing, you essentially get two reverb tails—the one you wanted at the beginning of your track (if you have been working with one of the common methods mentioned above) and the one that you still need for the middle of your piece (which is now temporarily at the end). Because you are working with loops, your DAW should have fixed tempo rates and a grid that perfectly aligns the sections to the tempo. It's cutting time! Cut where your piece should start and move the two sections of your newly bounced file back into the correct places. Now, you'll notice that the tail from the first half overlaps the second half, so you can move one of the two pieces to a second track and fade away the any pops in order to blend them perfectly.

That brings us to our a couple of myth-related issues: what if the track is highly rhythmic and ends with a downbeat on the one? Well, unfortunately my friend, you will have two hits on the one count overlapping each other. This shouldn't be an issue though and here's why. If it's looping, you shouldn't really be bouncing an ending downbeat to begin with. It's fine for the soundtrack so that fans know the song is over, but it would get cut from a loop. Remember how I said don't make a shortened loop out of a longer piece. That's the other reason why. Then you will have extra information you can't get rid of, making crossfades useless. The only solutions, if you have a downbeat ending anyway, are to cut (or more accurately trim and fade juuuust right) the one without the reverb tail, though I suppose you could get creative by cutting the other hit and leaving the tail or automating both to lower volumes if the hits aren't identical (phasing issues would otherwise occur), or you can find a new way to end the piece.

The other rhythm and percussion-related issue has to do with embellishments such as cymbal swells, chimes, bells, etc. that make this method and loops in general harder or impossible to work with. These ring out themselves in addition to whatever reverb tails are produced and therefore must be able to sound at the beginning of the track. Again, if you loop playback while composing, you won't notice that your final cymbal swell is off because the reverb in the DAW will actively carry the tail over to the beginning of repeated loops and it won't play it the first time. As soon as you bounce it though, you'll have a reverb tail that also includes the pinnacle of a cymbal swell. Moving that tail to the beginning of your piece following any method will be awkward since you don't want half a cymbal swell the first time the track plays. If you really need such embellishments at the end of a piece, you may consider seeing if your development team can trigger that sound separately within the engine, though rare is the occurrence that this will be agreed to. On a side note, this is also why loops don't usually feature upbeats, especially melodic upbeats. They have to be structured so differently, and melodic, upbeat reverb is a nightmare to deal with outside of clever middleware usage.

Now that we are back around to reverb tails, let's discuss the other and only important issue they may have: clicks or pops the first time only. In other editing methods, the first loop is great but the subsequent loops are subjected either to no tail, brief silence, or pops and clicks. In this method, those subsequent times are great, but the triggering of the initial music file may be the only point that causes a pop or click because of the written reverb tail. This issue would still be present in other methods, but you have the ability to add a fade just to the reverb tail because it is on a separate track. You may or may not want to keep that tail separate from the technically seamless part of the loop for this reason (though you are then combining methods and giving yourself a lot more work since that probably involves bouncing wet and dry versions of everything).

If you are able to just draw out the reverb tail's initial click with an advanced DAW pencil tool, great. Or, since music, especially when played live, has all sorts of subtle noises in it, you may be able to leave a quick, quiet click as the beginning of a track is the only place that listeners usually are unprepared to pay attention to the details. I've certainly heard them before…only subsequent loops still had the problem. 

Don't fear though; there are two other places for hope. A ridiculously small fade on the front end only may be just enough to keep the file from sounding like there is a slight pause. However, I'm often not a fan of this method because it doesn't work for all of the tracks out there. 

The other method you have less control over, but it is the most ideal situation. Often, game engines will fade in tracks in order to better segue from various locations or gameplay ideas, such as combat and free exploration. If that's the case, the initial pop will be eliminated because the track will start at 0db or will be crossfaded to "resume" from a later point in the loop thanks to the game engine. The really nice thing about this is that even dissonant reverbs can be more acceptable at the beginning of the piece because they will be gone before the full volume of the track is in place. Don't rely on engine fades to save a poorly executed piece though. Only use them when it works with the vision of the game.

So, what about ambient music tracks? 

Those issues listed above you may see with tracks that are highly structured, rhythmic, and melodic or that have huge amounts of reverb copied over to the beginning. Luckily, structured, rhythmic tracks tend to be the easiest to loop with common methods. However, ambient tracks can be trickier when trying to loop them under these methods. But, as they can be created closer to sound design elements and inhabit the "background" by nature, there is great potential for them to be arranged according to this new method with little difficulty or effect on the track. In addition, their ebbs, flows, swells, and quiet moments make them able to potentially start anywhere, and some even offer space for reverb to decay on its own significantly before the next movement starts.

I was recently messing around with an ambient track consisting of various string instrument chords to help further illustrate this point. I opened a new session at the correct tempo and imported the piece. I was then able to move chord progressions around and fade them into each other without any pop or click at the beginning of even the first playback thanks to strings having a slightly delayed attack (the amount of time it takes for a sound to amp up to its desired volume after the note is initiated). 

Because "ambient" can be a vague stylistic term by nature, your ambient track may feature creepy sounds or spacey synths or woodwinds and horns or even warped percussion, so you may have to experiment on your own a bit to find the right spot to split the file. However, you may also find that there is no need for the piece to start from the originally intended beginning, thus saving you the task of having to bounce and flip the tracks again.

Some Final Notes

• Users of Logic Pro X should be aware that it's loop feature by default adds a few milliseconds to playback. I haven't changed mine, even though I primarily use that DAW for MIDI and scoring, but I'm pretty sure I recall seeing the option to turn this off in the preferences. Pro Tools and most other DAWs shouldn't encounter this issue. Part of the reason this option comes with the newest Logic Pro is because people often choose to humanize MIDI tracks, and some of the quantization options causes notes to sound slightly earlier or later than exactly on tick 1 of beat 1 of measure 1. With the extra few milliseconds, playback can anticipate those notes that are just outside of the actual looped region and still trigger them so you can hear your loops as you're supposed to while composing.

• This also means that you must watch out for humanized notes. The beginning of a track cannot have notes that start before the first measure or they won't be included in a bounce, notes shouldn't humanized to a position outside of the beginning or end of their regions or they can be cut off, and wherever you intend to make your cut in the bounced file should keep both of these in mind as if that really is the beginning of your track. In fact, it is good to keep notes at the beginning of a Logic score or region at least a few ticks after the first beat.

• Mp3s add time to the end of loops that some game engines can't account for. This will cause a slight pause in even the perfect loop. Unless your track is a one-shot, it's usually better to convert your wave and aiff files to ogg vorbis unless the developers ask otherwise, will do the converting themselves, or plan to implement full-sized uncompressed files.

• Always work with a grid and tempo information, and deal with bounced files in a separate project. If the final files aren't perfectly aligned to a grid, loops will become staggered.

Thanks for reading! If you'd like to hire Nate Combs to work on your game project, visit his website at www.natecombsmedia.com or contact him directly at natecombsmedia@gmail.com.

Dave 'Chuck' Bennett - Soon

David Chuck Bennett is an English singer / songwriter I've interviewed before. His indie and folk style music once inspired a short film-music video hybrid, and he is back at it again! This time, he visually went for a more pensive look, and his new single "Soon" is stripped down to just piano and light sampled accompaniment behind the vocals. However, that same indie folk spirit that inspires films is still very much present. The beautiful solo piano work and emotionally connective lyrics again draw listeners into a story, and the indie film community could benefit from either the song or the instrumental.

Finally, this piece marks Chuck's debut appearance in one of his music videos, so go on, enjoy "Soon."

New Changes to the Blog!

As of 2015, big growth has come to my company, and as a part of that growth, I have completely redone my main website. Now, this blog is able to be incorporated right into it! Isn't that exciting? Plus, the blog has proved really useful as a stage for musical artists to promote their work and connect with others, and we've even had a few famous people stop by.

The name of the blog will change just a bit and may change further as my company, which also works with voiceover artists, begins to absorb it. In addition, we want to be able to provide another platform through which others can connect with and inquire of those with musical and voice talent. After all, they say that efficient marketing is everything, right? It's fun to share your music with people who get you but are so busy trying to do the same thing in a different way. However, wouldn't it add to the fun to share your abilities with people who might become your fans or even hire you for a gig? The answer is yes.

So, I will continue to share my thoughts, research, and experience on topics I believe we can all benefit from, and you might start hearing people who work in other creative fields. Film, TV, and video game producers, that means you! Voice artists, say hello! Sound designers, kablam! Anyone and everyone who is involved with the production process and interacts with musicians regularly, tell us your thoughts and share your current projects.

The North American Conference on Video Game Music with Winifred Phillips

You all remember Winifred Phillips, award-winning author of the book "A Composer's Guide to Game Music" and the musical mind behind hit games such as Little Big Planet 3, Assassin's Creed Liberation, God of War, and much more. Well, in just a few days—that is January 17 & 18—she will be honored as the keynote speaker for this year's North American Conference on Video Game Music (press release below). This is a big deal, so be sure to congratulate her and offer her your thanks for doing so much good for the world of video games and for the world of music!

I got to do a short interview with Winifred, and here is what she had to say:

1) What is your wildest dream in video game music? Live concerts, best selling titles, teaching and awareness, something else?

All of the above!  Game music is a vibrant genre with an extraordinarily diverse musical vocabulary and a huge community of devoted fans.  There are many live concert series and bestselling sound track albums, and conferences such as the North American Conference on Video Game Music are a great step towards making the subject more available within academic institutions.

2) What advice would you give to others who look up to you and aspire to achieve similar goals?

I actually write a lot about that in my book, A Composer’s Guide to Game Music (The MIT Press), which was published last March. In my book, I discuss what steps an aspiring composer should take to secure gigs in the competitive field of game music composition.  It’s important for an aspiring composer to grab the attention of decision makers at a game developer or publisher.  After developing an excellent demo reel, the aspiring composer can begin researching what new development studios are forming, or what new game projects may be reaching the production stage. Timing is everything, so game composers have to stay alert and keep reaching out to potential clients. The subject can be pretty complex, and I discuss it much more thoroughly in my book.

My thoughts on the interview:

I have many wild dreams in video game music and other artistic areas as well, but my most outlandish one involves founding a massive festival / competition…on par with the world cup or the Olympics.

I was a bit silly to ask the other question without being more specific since Ms. Phillips gives a lifetime of advice in her book, but, luckily what I had hoped would happen, happened! Out of all of the advice she has to give, she chose to share getting the attention of decision makers and researching projects in production. I've heard both of these things time and time again in my own career and cannot stress how important they are. Of course, though they are two of the most difficult areas to establish a skill in at first, they are nothing without that excellent demo reel.

Thanks again to Winifred Phillips for her interview. You can learn more about her on her site at winifredphillips.com. 

I also got to interview William Gibbons, the conference organizer, and here is what he had to say about similar topics:

1) How do you believe the study of video game music could further the development of the rest of the music world?

I think the study of game music is important in a lot of ways, and to many different groups of people. Some of the most innovative and interesting compositional techniques happening in music today comes from games. Technology and player expectations change so quickly that composers and audio designers really have to come up with solutions to new and unique problems constantly, and even those scholars and composers who don’t work on games can really learn from exploring how those problems get solved.

But most importantly, millions of people listen to game music every day, whether while playing the games or just listening to the soundtracks for enjoyment. I’m a big believer in being educated consumers of music, and learning a little about the music we enjoy listening to. That applies to us as scholars and composers, but also to our students and the people who read the articles and books we write.

2) What is your wildest dream in video game music? Live concerts, best selling titles, teaching and awareness, something else?

We’re already seeing game music take a much more prominent position in music culture. Live concerts of game music are selling out around the world, people are buying and listening to albums of original and remixed music, and sheet music for performers is even available for some games. For me as an educator, I’d like to see game music become more common in schools, both in performance and in classrooms, right alongside “classical” music, jazz, film music, and the other musics we teach.

3) What advice would you have to others who look up to you and aspire to achieve similar goals?

To any music students or professionals that want to study game music, I say go right ahead! There’s so much left to research for musicologists like me, or music theorists—we’ve really only started to scratch the surface of what’s there, and there’s a constant new supply of great new music to study (and enjoy). And for composers, studying at least the basics of game music is absolutely one of the smartest things you could do career wise.

My thoughts on the interview:

I completely agree! As one who listens to game music a lot (perhaps even more than I have time to play the actual games), and as one who is always writing video game tunes, I can easily say innovation and passion in studying and applying game scoring techniques leads to educational advancements, and, quite frankly, creative freedom.

I am just finishing up my thesis semester in graduate school for film and game composing, and I am one of the lucky few students who has had teachers and courses present us with game music in class!




And now, the press release for the NACVGM:

Conference Brings Leading Game Music Scholars and Composers to Texas

Fort Worth, TX – Video game music has come a long way from bleeps and bloops. Today’s game soundtracks often equal film scores in quality, and this music is consumed in large amounts by millions of players every day: studies suggest that 58% of US citizens—and 97% of young adults—play video games, with an average weekly play time of around 8 hours. Concerts of game music regularly play to sellout audiences across the globe, as orchestras and bands cater to audiences eager to hear live versions of their favorite tunes.

Game music has also emerged as a major topic of academic study, and on January 17-18 many leadings game-music scholars and composers from across the US and Canada will gather in Fort Worth, TX on the campus of TCU for the North American Conference on Video Game Music. This conference will feature two days of presentations and discussions on all aspects of music in games, including new composition techniques, approaches to the analysis of game music, and case studies of specific games.

The keynote address will be given by Winifred Phillips (Twitter: @winphillips), the award-winning composer for games including Assassin’s Creed: Liberation, God of War, Speed Racer, Total War Battles: KINGDOM, and six games in the popular LittleBigPlanet series, including LittleBigPlanet 3. Phillips is also the author of the bestselling book, A Composer's Guide to Game Music (The MIT Press, 2014), which recently was awarded the 2014 Global Music Award Gold Medal for an exceptional book in the field of music. (http://www.winifredphillips.com/composersguide)

More information about the conference is available at http://vgmconference.weebly.com.

For further information or interviews, please contact:

William Gibbons
Assistant Professor of Musicology
TCU School of Music
Email: william.gibbons@tcu.edu
Phone: 919.357.1769
Twitter: @musicillogical

Anti-Dominant Harmony - The Minor IV (4) Chord

Have you ever heard a rock, blues, or jazz tune that went to the minor 4 chord before ending the song on the 1? How about a sweet orchestral ballad that did the same, choosing to ignore the traditional authentic (V-I) cadence or other popular cadences, by lowering the “IV” to a “iv” before resolving to the tonic? Well, perhaps you've never thought about it, but if you are a super music nerd like me, you may find a study on this peculiar, yet, pleasing way to resolve a song to be very interesting.

Perhaps you have no music theory background, or perhaps yours is basic or limited. If you weren't trained in the more classical side of theory terms, getting familiar with them will help you to understand and appreciate anti-dominant harmony more. A very brief explanation for the purpose of this article is that basically, the word tonic describes the “one” note in a scale and the triads (three-note chords) built off of it. Subdominant describes the “four,” and dominant describes the “five.” They are all written with Roman numerals in the upper case. Minor chords get the lower case numerals. In other words, in the key of G, your three major chords that naturally fall into the G scale—your 1, 4, and 5—are G, C, and D, written as I, IV, and V in classical theory. “7th,” “9th,” “sus,” and other such chords are simply additions or alterations to regular major and minor triads.

You may then be wondering what the title of this post is all about, regardless of your theory knowledge. In short, it is something I discovered to be the opposite, yet the same as the dominant (V or 5) chord in any key or scale. Of course, there are books and studies that go into uncommon and odd scales, chords, and other musical ideas, most likely including the ones I will mention here, but they are not necessarily the easiest to find. Plus, using what I call the anti-dominant, the iv or minor 4 (Cm in the key of G), is common in both popular/studio music and traditional/orchestral music. As far as I have seen, studies don't really seem to connect the ends of the musical bridge I would like to create in your mind, and since this concept is so unconsciously common, it should be explored more regularly. So, here's my story:

During the early part of my graduate school studies in composing, I was given an assignment to come up with a way to use an 11th or 13th chord—correctly and tastefully—in an original piece. I began to develop an outer space-themed score for an imaginary video game, though I had the galactic Super Mario series in mind. Because of the mystery of space and the unknown of the “far beyond,” I decided to write in a mode (type of scale) that I was unfamiliar with. In fact, this mode, though discussed in those studies of uncommon musical tendencies, is not any one of the common Greek-named modes. For those who are interested, I will discuss the scale more in-depth at the end of the study.

I would recommend looking up modes too if you really want to follow along with this whole article, but it isn't necessary to understand the anti-dominant jargon. Again, briefly, modes refer to the different possible scale types, and the Ionian mode—all white keys on a piano from C to C—is our very familiar major scale and is also pretty much the only scale beginners or musicians with little theory knowledge use. If you've ever heard a pop song, chances are, you've heard the Ionian mode.

Anyway, enough confusing lecture and back to the story about Super Mario themes. As I said, the scale was very uncommon. In fact, unlike most songs, in which the dominant (V or 5) chord is everything due to its ability to naturally and pleasantly lead back to the tonic (I or 1), this mode had no true dominant. It had a “v,” or minor 5 chord, but that doesn't sound at all like a dominant and isn't super effective in leading you back to the very major-sounding tonic. So, I played my melody over a few times and began to experiment with other chords built off of notes only in the scale I was using. Everything kept pointing for me to go to the minor subdominant (iv or minor 4) if I wanted to have that feeling of resolution when I returned to the tonic. I didn't argue it at all because it sounded great, but I grew very curious. How could it be that I had the exact same satisfaction of resolution without a dominant?

Remember how I said the objective was to write a score that used 11th and 13th chords? Well, I noticed that when you add so many extra notes to a chord, you actually get two or more different chords stacked on top of each other. Again in our G example, a D11 chord would start with a single D note as its personal “1” and build the chord off of the 1-3-5-7-9- and 11th notes, which, since D is the 5th note and chord in G, would actually be (from lowest to highest) the 5-7-2-4-6- and 1 notes of the G scale. Those notes are D-F#-A (D triad)-C-E- and G (C triad). Now depending on what type of 7th, 9th, 11th, etc. chord you want, those extra notes can sometimes be flattened or sharpened to give off the desired effect. For example, you may have heard of a “major” 7th chord, which is different from the most popular “dominant” 7th, or simply 7th, chord.

I began to wonder if the minor version of the subdominant felt right because it was an extension of something else too. So, the first thing I did was count backwards. As we all know, in music, you count from low to high, left to right. Therefore, because there are seven notes in a regular scale system, if you go up a fourth (remembering musical movement always counts where you start as the first step) from a G major chord to a C major chord, you would have to go down a fifth to get from the same G major to a lower C major, even though the tones play the same harmonic roles. What this meant for my piece was that instead of referring to the chord as the subdominant (IV or 4), I gave it the role of the negative dominant (iv or -5) because counting right to left turns takes five steps to reach the fourth note in the scale. I'm sure somewhere along the way I thought that this was unconventional, like anti-music or anti-harmony, and that's probably how the actual term anti-dominant was born in my mind.

Next, I tried to discover what other chord it might be a part of, although I could kind of guess as you might have already done. Tracing back three notes, I found that previous possible notes were the same as the notes in a major dominant (V or 5) chord. Although my scale had a minor dominant, this excited me greatly, and I immediately stopped to test out the simultaneously forming theory in other situations. I was writing in a difficult key, so I switched to something simple like good 'ol C major. We'll stick with G though for the fluidity of the article. You may or may not know this, but it isn't always required to play every single note in a chord, especially when they get thick and complex like these stacked chords, so that is another reason I was so excited.

I began to play different chord progressions that would be accepted in popular/radio music, making sure the last three chords would be 4-5-1. The first time, I resolved to the final 1 from the 5 normally, but the second time, I substituted that 5 for a minor 4. Both sounded great and gave the full satisfaction of a resolution. That was it. The 4 was still the subdominant and the minor 4 was not a cool subdominant—it was still the dominant! The first three notes were just left out. And it made sense too, since this anti-version of the dominant was found to the left of the tonic five steps, just like the dominant itself was to the right five steps. Of course, I then tested the theory again, this time playing the final progression as 4, 5(11), 1. It still worked, and it sealed the creation of the anti-dominant in my mind. Rather than calling those notes the 1-3-5 of the subdominant, or 4-6-8(1) in the scale, I could also call them the 7-9-11 of the dominant, and that is why this is the only other chord that brings full aural satisfaction of a traditional, authentic ending (cadence).

Ok, so Super Mario never really showed up again for the rest of the article, but wasn't that fun? I've since used this chord (and scale for that matter) in other works, not as a strange subdominant (IV or 4) chord as a minor variation of a plagal cadence (IV-I), but on the basis that it carries the full weight of a dominant (V or 5) chord. I've also discussed it with a few professors and other academics to continue to work it out in my mind and to gain as much new information as possible about this chord. Hopefully you can see why—even if you are not that interested in musical technicalities—this chord, concept, or theory of the anti-dominant should be further studied and developed by whoever writes and preserves musical history. Perhaps this article can inspire a few academics/professionals to consider it including a study in the next edition of their theory textbook or pop artist magazine (just call it the anti-5 in a spot about why so many artists choose to go to a 5 before resolving to the 1). I've never read any higher level books or articles that have quite explained the iv/minor 4 this way, as being an extension of the V/5. I've never read any blogs posts or other such publishing for that matter either. Perhaps, I will have be the first to write about it and maybe even dedicate an entire book to an in-depth analysis.

***

Exciting news! I recently was studying some jazz techniques I was not familiar with on the piano (an instrument I pretty much loathe unless I am composing or am in a room playing by myself), and, of course, I immediately saw the opportunity to convert what I was learning just enough to apply the theory of the anti-dominant. What I found further supports this idea of the minor subdominant (4 or IV) being more of a cleverly masked dominant chord, and it also secures the idea that the cadence might authentic as opposed to plagal... especially since what I found could easily be argued as a non-plagal ending, despite the semi-professional argument that it too is plagal.

While studying the jazz techniques, my lesson was using a basic I-vi-IV-V pattern with the V only being in the bass and the right hand staying on the subdominant (IV). In modern terms, that is a 1-6-4-4/5. Using the key of C as the starting point, my chords were C-Am-F-F/G, and grew in complexity as 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and lead notes were added.

My brain saw all of those back-to-back F chords and had to begin experimenting with the different resolutions possible. My left hand could play as little as a single bass G note, while the right hand covered notes from the FMaj7 or 9 as was traditional in the exercise... Or, the right hand could instead use the anti-dominant in any of the root or extended forms. It sounded pretty nice, but that wasn't the focus. I heard other things—things I liked better. The first thing I noticed is that the G as the bass with the anti-dominant Fm or Fm7 was what was keeping it pretty nice instead of very nice. But, the idea of something else for the bass note instead of F, Ab, or C, seemed like it was on its way.

Naturally, my next choice for a bass note was D for a few reasons, most of which I won't get into right now, and it was magical. The main note to understand about the D, however, is that it is the 5th note in a G scale, making it the 3rd or highest note in the root position G triad. When that D is in the bass instead of the G, a G chord is considered to be in second inversion. Note, though, that it is still a G chord.

I could switch to this D immediately upon moving from the F in the bass, or I could do G with the regular F chord(s) for half of the measure and then jump to D and the anti-dominant F for the second half of the measure. Both worked. So, let's look at the actual chord. D-F-Ab-C. I preferred a triad in the right hand as opposed to the 7th, though the 7th didn't necessarily sound bad. For analysis purposes, less is usually better.

Having this D in there changed everything. What do I call this chord? Fm/D? G11 no root no 3 b9? Dm7b5? What was it's function? It's function was to lead me back to the tonic (I or 1), and with this particular chord structure, the role of the D didn't feel as though it was part of a D minor chord or really even that is was a part of the famed 6th chord on the IV (F6). It did, however, feel like it belonged to the G still in that rare second inversion. Most importantly, the resolution felt complete. Because of that, the idea of the anti-dominant grows even stronger. After all, D is directly related to the G chord and only indirectly related to an F chord (these are some of those other ideas I didn't want to get to deeply into a couple of paragraphs ago).

Finally, as a fun experiment, I decided to lower the C a half-step to a B and add the 7th back in, this time on the high D, making the chord in the right hand a true Fdim7. It resolved just as well as the previous chord. This is interesting because now, all of the notes in the chord were a part of the G7 with no root, minus the Ab. That would extend it to a Gb9 chord. Even though the root wasn't present, the chord was clearly way closer to a G than to an F, and both G and D sounded strong as bass options. So, if you considered it in anti-dominant terms, the 11th note (C) would have to be a b11 instead of just a regular 10th (3rd an octave higher) as well as the 9th being a b9, hence the diminished chord. Either way, because it sounded great and was fun to experiment with over a D bass note, it is useful information to share.

In general, this whole section is a bit less structured and planned out as the main part of the article (especially since it was written shortly after the experiments), so it will be updated and revised to be more eloquent as it takes shape in my crazy musical mind.


Thanks for reading, and, as always, you can see some of my works and reach me through www.natecombsmedia.com. Keep reading if you want to learn more about the scale I used in the first section.

***

I have no idea what the super scholars are calling this mode, but I did discover that it can stand alone as its own family with full-fledged “major,” “minor,” and “relative” concepts.

Basically, each scale in the family is half a major scale and half a natural minor scale. The “major” concept then begins with the first four notes from the major scale and the last four notes from the natural minor, while the “minor” concept is reversed—the first four notes are from the minor scale while the last four are from the major scale. Now, the middle two notes are the same in both scales, so you could count it as taking 3 notes from one scale and 5 from the other or even 3 from one and 4 from the other if you don't like counting the tonic twice. It doesn't really matter which way you do it, but let's take a look at a new set of examples in the key of C.

In C, the major version of this mode would consist of the following notes: C-D-E-F-G-Ab-Bb-C. In the minor version, they would change to: C-D-Eb-F-G-A-B-C. We already know that the dominant in the major version of this mode is the same as a minor subdominant, effectively earning the name anti-dominant. The minor mode does have a dominant, but that version is something I haven't extensively tested yet, so that is open for you to play with and perhaps discover new, hidden “antis” of your own.

Other chords work with both scales, though the major version lends itself to and has a large number of diminished chords. They must sometimes be “overcome” by leaving certain notes out of the chord, by layering with 7ths, 9ths, and stacked chords, or by using other additional/borrowed notes in order to function properly. The v chord, when used appropriately, can even function as a sort of anti-subdominant, as it would be the “negative” (minor when counting from right to left) version of a major dominant in a regular scale.

Finally, there is a relative minor to every major key, and it is always a perfect fourth forwards (or fifth backwards) from the tonic, thus cycling through the circle of fifths in almost in reverse. It truly is a backwards key. So, taking the same notes from our major version of the C key and starting a fourth higher, we get the minor version of the F key. Then, by parallel movement, we can change the F key to its major mode, which consists of the following: F-G-A-Bb-C-Db-Eb-F. From there, you could of course move to Bb, and from there to Eb, and so on. Going a fourth backwards from C's minor mode to the relative major, you would pass through G, D, A, etc. just like you would in the circle of fifths.

If you wanted to create a new type of relative major for each minor in this mode (going forward a fourth instead of returning back a fourth), that is also possible, and the hybrid you would get is the same as playing the Lydian and Mixolydian modes simultaneously. This would be like keeping all of the parallel majors and minors separate and only creating new scales based on the relatives of every major mode and then creating a separate group of relatives for all of the minor modes. Of course, you can't really cycle through the circle of fifths this way. So, our F Mixolydian-lydian mode (which I think I actually wrote in once, calling it either the Mixomixolydian or something cheesier like the super mixolydian), would have the following notes: F-G-A-B-C-D-Eb-F because it is based solely on the minor version of our other mode in C, neither of which now have any relation to the major version of the C. C's Mixomixolydian (I like that name), by the way, would be based off of minor version of G and would consist of the following notes if you want to compare the three styles: C-D-E-F#-G-A-Bb-C. Yes, a key with both a sharp and a flat (because otherwise, you'd have to double the name of the G or A and eliminate either the F or B).

Obviously, if you keep pairing relatives and parallels like I just did, you will slowly make your way through the circle of fifths run through countless other new types of scales, some of which probably sound amazing, but that's not this study. I hope you enjoyed this second explanation if you stuck around. Perhaps, you will even find it aids you in the creation of new types of music.