Seeking advice: moving to melodic/atmospheric after months of dark drones

[SHADOWMASTΞR]

Hello! The title says it all, really. I mostly dabble in dark ambient soundscapes, textural stuff and mostly experimental. I've certainly composed plenty of music that isn't like that, but lately I've been making so much of that stuff (probably 75% of the 3 hours of 2021 content) that I want a challenge. So I've started work on a solo album to do that. I've come up with a few tracks so far, but I mostly do short melodic pieces when trying to make a lighter song. Having a hard time doing a long atmospheric that doesn't end up becoming a dark drone piece. Force of habit I think!

How do you guys make atmospheric tracks that are more uplifting? Sometimes I wonder if I'm incapable of making anything that isn't super dark

Any advice, no matter how simple, is greatly appreciated.

[windspace]

I will try using a Major key instead of Minor. Simple, but it seems to help steer me in a brighter direction.

I have an idea, but I admit I've never tried it...start with a field recording of birds, or something cheerful like that. Craft your music to fit well with that then remove the bird track. Don't know if this would work or not but maybe it's worth trying.

[Realm]

I think windspace is right. Pick an uplifting key and noodle around with some chords until you find a progression that sounds good to you that has an uplifting feel to it.

I sometimes refer to the following references if I'm looking for a starting point for a particular mood or feeling ...

https://www.biteyourownelbow.com/keychar.htm

https://www.musical-u.com/learn/the-many-moods-of-musical-modes/

They are quite basic so hopefully I'm not teaching you to suck eggs here but it makes it easy to understand

[Beta Cloud]

for me; what i listen to reflects what comes out of my own music. when i did dark ambient stuff i listened to a lot of metal. now i listen to a lot of classical stuff like debussy, stravinski, ravel and it seems to come out. either way enjoy the journey!

[synkrotron]

what ever you do, don't force it... let it come naturally, and if it doesn't happen for you carry on with what you are doing, unless you are not having fun with it any more

as for major chords, I have to second that because it is almost all I ever do and, yes, it is happy and uplifting

some good resources posted by Realm

it is well worth having a dig into the different modes

cheers,

andy