Just curious. Why is it that so many music tracks don’t end on the tonic? I’ve searched for “Epic” and “Orchestral” tracks, and If they do ever come back to the tonic, they often do with only maybe a keyboard playing the final chord. It’s extremely rare to find a track that crescendo’s to the tonic… a nice big tumultuous ending on the “proper” chord. What gives? Are “composers” using GarageBand loops? Is that the reason the songs often end in the middle of “nowhere” chord wise?
I fail to see what GarageBand loops have to do with this. Unresolved chord progressions create tension and rousing emotions that compliment the “Epic” genre well. That is why many of these tracks end in such a manner. Many composers (no need for demeaning quotation marks) use this technique and they may consider resolving to a “proper” chord as being boring.
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If the chord choice is deliberate, and not a consequence of using GarageBand loops, how come the chord is never elongated, as one would presumably do if tension were the goal?
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like exampleNoting to do with using Garage Band. You have the choice or whatever chord that you end on with any application. Orchestral tracks may not end on the tonic because they are like modern day concept albums. The tracks are meant to flow from one to the other and create a listening experience longer than 3 to 4 minutes. Therefore, if you wanted to create suspense to be resolved in the next track you would end on a 7th, flattened 5th, or whatever, and pick it up in a new key based on the ending of the last track, and then use that new key and use restful chords etc…