Basic points about how to create tension in music. These are taken from the forum discussions at the HighC. Many of these are new to me yet some are really self-explicable and you can relate to those working in your DAW (e.g. tempo, pitch, texture, dynamics, repetition).
All music, regardless of genre, makes use of tension and release as an organizing principle for sound. The musical devices you study, all have a role in creating or releasing tension. Here's a partial list of musical devices and how they relate to this discussion:
pitch: upward motion creates tension, downward motion resolves it
texture: density increases tension, sparsity resolves
interval: dissonance creates tension, consonance resolves tension
tempo: acceleration creates tension, slowing resolves it
intonation: bending away from the nominal pitch increases tension, returning resolves it
harmony: there’s a very sophisticated system of creating and resolving tension in western harmony (you can buy books and take college courses on it)
syncopation: playing off the beat creates tension, on the beat resolves it
beat division: more divisions per beat creates tension, fewer resolves tension
dynamics: louder creates tension, softer releases tension (this is debatable–you could make a decent case that moving away from the center increases tension, while moving toward decreases. Either way, change in dynamics can create and resolve tension)
articulation: shorter (stacatto) creates tension, longer (legato) releases
repetition: repetition builds tension, variation resolves it
ornamentation: ornaments increase tension, simplicity resolves it
