Isolation

[Ledger]

Considering I'm working on a dark tune, I want to throw in a piano. Now, to keep the dark, isolated feeling, I was wondering what keys/chords on a piano just "scream" scary, dark, twisted, etc. Any ideas?

[fragments]

phrygian scale? if it's the one I'm thinking of...I also like the Japanese Pentonic Scales...they can sound dark/haunting to me.

Also, push it back in the mix, but make it kind of big with reverb and shave off the high end until it's too dull an pull it back until it sounds nice and dark.

[Ledger]

Thanks fragments! You never fail to help! Now, I just need to get my long sought after toms!

[Marzz]

hirajoshi scale to kumoi-chohsi scale with reverb.
play with some velocity

[Benji]

I've always liked C minor harmonic for dark sounding stuff

[rockonin]

Try using an Augmented Scale/Chord, a lot of the Resident Evil/Horror/Dark type soundtracks use it.

[drake89]

Minor intervals in your melody
Diminished chords
Augmented chords
Inverted chords
7 & 9 chords (adding a 7th or 9th to a triad)

[GenericNameHere]

Why not try and go for a psychotic feel, by playing discordant notes? Why not try and synthsise a piano that plays random notes, by putting a random thingy on the keyboard mapping envelope ... I know Harmor can do something like that.

Hanz Zimmer did something like that for his Dark Knight score, at least for the Joker's theme. He used blades on stringed instruments and recorded that to get a psychotic feel, and guess what - It worked.

[Ledger]

I like the idea, just no way to record such things, since I am referring to already sampled pianos in Reason. But good thought.

Edit: Talking about the blade to strings.