Tom Rory Parsons has been composing for audio drama since 2015, with much of that work rooted in horror. His approach treats music as part of the storytelling system, not decoration added after the fact.
Influences
Parsons points to composers including John Carpenter, Daniel Licht, Malcolm Clarke and Bear McCreary. What connects them is not a single sound, but a willingness to use simple motifs, unusual textures and carefully chosen instrumentation to create a strong identity.
Carpenter is a useful example: a piece can be simple and still become iconic when rhythm, register and texture are distinctive enough. Licht’s work on Dexter shows how a score can move between dark, playful and psychologically intimate. Clarke’s older Doctor Who scores blend synthesis and sound design in ways that feel alien rather than conventionally orchestral.
Composing a theme
A theme has to represent the story it belongs to. Before writing, Parsons asks basic questions: How dark is the show? When is it set? What should the audience feel when the theme begins?
When narration sits over a theme, the music may need to be built around the actor’s pacing. That is one reason a composer benefits from hearing performance early instead of working entirely from a description.
Underscore and transitions
Music should not exist only at the front and back of an episode. Underscore can connect scenes, shape emotional movement and support transitions throughout the story.
Parsons prefers to work from edited dialogue when possible. A script can suggest one emotional rhythm, while the actual performances may create another. Hearing the scene makes it easier to write music that supports rather than smothers the actors.
Do not bury the dialogue
One of the central jobs of underscore is knowing when to stay out of the way. Music that masks quiet dialogue fails the scene, no matter how good it sounds on its own.
Dynamic changes, rests and selective instrumentation can keep the score alive without fighting the voice.
Approaches to horror scoring
- Sound-design score: sustained tones, processed recordings and textures rather than conventional melody.
- Orchestral: strings, brass, woodwinds and percussion used as the primary palette.
- Hybrid: orchestral instruments combined with synths, guitars and processed sound.
- Electronic: synthesizers, electronic drums, bass and other non-orchestral elements.
Instrumentation and dissonance
Children’s voices, toy pianos, processed percussion and unfamiliar textures can produce strong horror colors. Minor keys, chromatic movement, diminished harmony and notes outside the expected key can create unease, but theory is only useful when it serves the scene.
Silence, volume and dynamics
Knowing when not to score is just as important as knowing what to write. A very quiet tone that grows slowly can create more tension than a wall of music. Dropping sounds in and out can keep the listener from settling into a predictable pattern.
Tempo
Tempo changes can also create fear. A pulse that gradually accelerates can turn a stable scene into a threat before anything obvious changes in the dialogue.
The goal
For Parsons, the point is immersion. The score should help the listener feel the world of the production and the emotional state of the characters without drawing attention away from the story itself.