Help me to extract the key characteristics of the following songs..

[t0mmeh]

Hi guys, I'm somewhat new to composing and I hope I'm not wasting anyones time, but I was wondering if anyone could help me with the following..

I've grown up listening to alot of heavy metal-esque music, but I've only recently begun to try and write my own music. The information I have learned from studying theory and music over the past year or so doesn't seem to translate smoothly into the metal world. Granted metal is often full of angry and brainless bands, but some bands I've come to like lately have gone beyond power chords and brain eating.

That being said, I cant figure out how to transcribe any of it accurately enough to incorporate elements of it into my composition.

I'll post some links of some bands whos styles I would like to learn from..

Between the Buried and Me-
http://www.myspace.com/betweentheburiedandmeband

Veil of Maya-
http://www.myspace.com/veilofmaya

Blotted Science-
http://www.myspace.com/blottedscience

I would attempt to look for guitar tablature, but I don't play guitar and it seems like all the tab websites are trying to infect my computer with all sorts of natural male enhancement pills that were clinically successful in remote island countries. Any observations from the songs off of those 3 sites would help me immensely ;] Thank you.

[stevel]

Originally Posted by t0mmeh

The information I have learned from studying theory and music over the past year or so doesn't seem to translate smoothly into the metal world.

There's a couple of reasons for that:

1. Rock Guitarists (and other instrumentalists) are often untrained and play what they've learned, which typically isn't a lot of theory.

2. Once a style that evolves that uses "non-traditional" practices, in order to maintain the style, those practices need to continue and typically evolve. Of course in most cases they evolve away from tradition.

3. Heavy Metal has built upon one of the general tenets of Rock music - rebellion. As such, doing things traditionally is frowned upon. In a sense, people attempt to intentionally go against the grain because they think they're doing something different.

I'll give you an example - Rock Guitarists often take music history or theory classes when at some point it is mentioned that the Tritone is "the Devil in Music". Of course, being all-black clad rebellious teens, they commence to incorporate as many tritones in their music as possible both because it "dark:, "occultist", etc. and because it was "agains the rules" in traditional music. They think they're "breaking the rules" (which have been being broken since before they were born). Additionally they think they're doing something new and different because they have no musical education and don't realize that Randy Rhoads was playing Tritone relationships long before System of a Down, and Jazz players long before that. Being "different" is important - just like all hte other black-clad rebels out there.

Anyways, I digress. What happens is you get a bunch of music with Tritones playing a prominent role. I'm reminded of Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People" as a prime example.

So the music theory you study isn't always going to be applicable to all genres. Like you, I like something "out of the ordinary" - Stravinsky. You can't use traditional theory to figure that out either. But what you can do is learn traditional theory and see how its been expanded by various people. For this, it's often useful to go back in time - for example, looking at hoe Black Sabbath influenced Iron Maiden, then how they influenced Metallica, and how they influenced Prodigy, and so on can make it easier to understand the evolution of ideas, rather than seeing this big gap between Sabbath and Prodigy (that's not that big a gap, but you know what I mean).

HTH,
Steve

[t0mmeh]

That makes sense, thank you for the help..It seems that many of the musically knowledgeable people I ask about this topic seem to scoff at heavy metal like it's devoid of any artistic value. So my post was partially an attempt to strike back with some music theory credentials, but now that I think about it, nobody really downplays it as much as I assume they do.

[stevel]

Originally Posted by t0mmeh

That makes sense, thank you for the help..It seems that many of the musically knowledgeable people I ask about this topic seem to scoff at heavy metal like it's devoid of any artistic value. So my post was partially an attempt to strike back with some music theory credentials, but now that I think about it, nobody really downplays it as much as I assume they do.

I'm 40 now and I grew up on Ozzy and Van Halen - Metallica and the "scream metal" are a little "young" for me - but I do understand that those styles are not that unrelated.

I think were starting to see people my age - the "rock and roll" generation (and those a little older than me) who have for 20 or 30 years fought the academic stigma against popular music.

Fortunately for us, Jazz has paved the way and is now making "rock" a legitimate course of study. Of course, in academic settings, we tend to focus on the music of bands like Tool and Rush and Steely Dan, etc. - those that use more "art" elements like extended harmonies, asymmetrical meters, polymetric parts, and so on. "Green Day" is a little less well thought of shall we say.

So yes, I think we're seeing less and less bias against particular genres of music and people are starting to take it on its own musical merit. However, there are still a lot of posers out there.

Steve

[t0mmeh]

Ill admit I haven't listened to much Rush or Steely Dan but I know Tool definitely has some interesting material. The lyrics in one of their songs incorporates fibonacci sequences into the number of syllables per line, I can't recall the specific song though..it's unfortunate that this kind of depth often goes unappreciated and sometimes mocked. I'm not saying Tool is necessarily more or less complex/significant than Claude Debussy or Chick Corea but i'm not sure it should matter so long as they accurately convey what they intend to say. I'm not sure if I'm staying on subject or not but I know I often have this conversation in my head in varying contexts.

[stevel]

Originally Posted by t0mmeh

i'm not sure it should matter so long as they accurately convey what they intend to say.

I think that's really the crux of the matter.

I like very simple and very complex music - as long as I don't feel the music is unnecessarily complex or ignorantly stupid.

Building a Fibonacci series into lyrics is of course interesting, but the lyrics should still say something - otherwise it's unnecessarily complex - and "Doo Doo Doo" is fine with me becuase it's obviously supposed to be simple and "nonsense" lyrics.

But:

An he struck the magic chord,
because he is the metal lord.

Are lyrics that are not typically from the author, but from what the author thinks they're supposed to write based on what they think other people in certain groups think they should write. It's sophomoric, and derivative.

The music itself is no different.

Steve

[chckn8r]

Hey t0mmeh,

I think this has been alluded to before in other posts, but essentially, folks shouldn't look to theory as a "rulebook" on how to write music.

As Steve mentioned, a lot of the "rebellious" nature of rock music has something to do with the inability to apply theoretical rules, but I also think it's the type of theory that you're trying to apply.

Classical theory isn't really the best tool to use to analyze and explain a lot of 20th and 21st century music. I'd look at contemporary, jazz, etc theory that incorporates more expanded definitions of tonal center and tonality.

As for folks scoffing at metal - next to jazz and classical genres, I'd be hard pressed to find another "popular" genre that makes use of comparatively more complex theoretical elements and higher levels of musicianship. I'm not quite into the latest speed metal or death metal, but I'm talking about folks in the "nouveau" Prog(Metal)-Rock realm - Dream Theater and ilk.

Cheers! Dave

[t0mmeh]

Take a look at Between the Buried and Me, their most recent album "Colors" is pretty interesting..the screaming can be a bit abrasive if you're not used to it, but take a look anyway.

http://www.myspace.com/betweentheburiedandmeband

They actually have some really interesting song structures.