Don’t tell the audience what they haven’t seen yet

“The biggest ‘don’t’ in film scoring, I would say: do not lead the audience to an emotion or event that hasn’t happened yet on screen. There’s only one exception to this rule: a person walks into a dark cellar in a horror movie and we all say to each other ‘don’t do it!’ The person keeps walking and eerie strings enter the scene. They become so tense and so high in pitch over 40 seconds; something is gonna go bad real soon. And then there is… swoosh, squeak... Our hearts skip a beat and the camera zooms out – ah, it’s just the neighbours’ cat! And the scene continues with little or no music.”