Battle

Musical

Example

Battle Secret

Score

Battle Music/

Score

Introduction

To create battle music, we need to sustain rhythmic momentum and evoke a sense of agitation. We can accomplish this with a few simple musical moves.

Pulse

First we need to establish a strong rhythmic pulse upon which we can build our composition. The timpani, supported by cellos and basses, are perfectly suited to this task:

As you can hear, we primarily use one note (G) as the basis for our pulse. On beat 4 of measures 2 and 4, we briefly switch to the note Db.

The interval formed between the G and the Db is a tritone. The tritone always creates tension and is used here for just that purpose.