Talk:Music Theory/Metal

I want to add/correct some things about the metal article. Well, I don't think metal has been "invented" in the US. Well the real creators of metal are the 60's/70's bands Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin among others. In their music are the riffs and patterns that became so typical for Metal Music to be heard first (and especially in Black Sabbath's music). Well I don't think it is necessary/useful to split up Heavy Music into so many different styles, I'd say the only styles within metal music are:


 * Heavy Metal
 * Speed Metal
 * Hard Rock

There's no need to split them up further, because they all use the same clichees all over again. Well there's one more thing to say: It's no specific thing for goth bands to use locrian mode, I suppose many of those bands don't know what locrian is. Listen to the most known goth bands, you'll hardly ever find a locrian mode in there. Much more specific for goth is the HM5 (Harmonic-Minor, 5th mode, which is also called phrygian dominant, and which is created by raising the third of the 5th step, so that in A-minor the E-minor on the 5th step becomes a e-major chord).

That's all!

--

No way; there are many differences between the metal genres listed, and I believe they are fine the way they are. The only thing I don't really like about this article is the end where it talks about how seven string guitars tuned to drop a are not uncommon. I don't agree with this and I don't like how it states it. -MetalGeoff

Heavy Metal, Speed Metal and Hard Rock? Where would NWOBHM come in then (unless it's grouped with Progressive or Power Metal)? Or NuMetal? Or even Black Metal. None of those genres even remotly resemble Heavy Metal, Speed Metal or Hard Rock.

Although I agree, Metal has way to many sub genres.

hold up
There's no such thing as "blues metal". Aerosmith and GnR are hard-rock/rock 'n' roll bands. Where on earth do you come up with this stuff? == --actually, no...if you grew up in the 80s you knew that both Aerosmith and GnR were heavy metal, but today calls hard rock. That is the problem with this whole article; it skips 2 decades, the 70s and 80s...what I have seen called "mainstream metal", but really back then was just called "heavy metal". The biggest problem with this article is the fact that none of these descriptions fit a band like Iron Maiden; any true metalhead knows that Iron Maiden was a defining sound of heavy metal. By not taking them into account, this article is useless, as are most of today's definitions of heavy metal.

Visual kei
Visual is not a music style, nor is it metal. The music style visual belongs to is J-Rock.

^ You are correct to say visual kei is (at this moment) not a music style; however, present-day visual kei artists can encompass any music style, including metal.

What?
There ar elements in this that are outright erroneous (swedish death metal wasn't popularised by In Flames etc.) and there is, well, a lack of knowledge present. I mean, for example, there is just no point in the description of progressive metal - Opeth are in a completely different genre to Dream Theatre etc. etc.) The various subgenres are totally valid though, although hair metal is exactly the same thing as glam metal, There are one or two missed out, and they're badly fleshed out. Basically, whoever wrote this dosn't have anywhere near enough knowledge to write this, or perhaps, not the time to do it properly.

Theory of metal
are there any books that discuss the actual sounds of metal (specifically the extreme sub-genres)... that's what i want, a music theory book about death metal. 64.230.107.230 (talk) 19:34, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely baseless
I am given the impression, reading this, that the writer does not actually listen to or understand Metal in the slightest. Who wrote this? The writer seems to be focusing on "core", rather than Metal. Metal is incredibly melodic music, and rhythm is only important in "Progressive" and "Technical" Death Metal, and, in those genres, is used primarily to accent the melodies. I mean, if you look at all of the main/best genres of Metal, chronologically, you will see that they're all primarily focused on melodic progression and song structure - Heavy Metal, NWOBHM, Speed Metal, Death Metal, Black Metal, all of these focus primarily on melody, some even making copious use of harmony (NWOBHM, Speed Metal, and some Black Metal). Atonality does not mean that melodies are not melodies, just as a piece with multiple concurrent time signatures can be "in time" (this is done in Metal, occasionally - Symphony X's "The Accolade" has a short passage of this).

Speaking of song structure - song structure is incredibly important in Metal. Why is there no discussion of the riff, riff progression/self-reference, and so on? There's nothing about the overarching usage of narrative and architected structures in NWOBHM and Extreme Metal. The overall assumption appears to be that Metal is based on Rock'n'Roll's "verse-chorus" structure, which is so fundamentally incorrect as to be aggravating.

Much of the incorrect information on this page is an absolute disgrace, and should be disregarded by all until it has been rewritten in a satisfactory manner.

Change the First Paragraph
Towards the end of the first paragraph, it says that metal contains more musicianship than other rock acts. This is an opinion, and therefore does not belong in here. 209.106.46.161 (discuss) 17:47, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Who wrote this?
I personally am disgustesd by how biased this article is, the main writers obviously have no clue what they are talking about.

Minor quibble
Ignoring the big issues for now (they've been brought up be people above), minor quibble: near the end of the section on death metal, it mentions deathcore, and goes on to say that there's dispute as to metalcore's and deathcore's status as real metal. Now, while yes, there are people out there who enjoy yelling "metalcore isn't real metal stfu poser fag", I have yet to see a recognised critic (or even a literate person) seriously consider the opinion. Yes, metalcore does take a lot from hardcore punk, but ultimately, its most striking elements are death growls, blast beats, and most tellingly, tritones. The reason I bring it up, and honestly, I wouldn't normally bother opening this can of worms, is that I'd rather not see such a popular yet unfounded statement furthered on this page 143.92.1.33 (discuss) 08:56, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Major Quibble
I know I said I wouldn't mention these, but I will.

The genres idea is a bad one. Actually, it's a good one, but it's badly executed. As it currently stands, the article talks about subgenres of metal without talking about music theory, then talks about music theory only tangentially relating it to the aforementioned subgenres (and often makes sweeping generalisations only true for a small portion of metal subgenres, such as comments about often only having one or two chords, which is true for metalcore, some trad metal, some industrial metal, and that's about it). A better way of doing this would be to merge the two sections; either talk about each genre and the music theory behind it, or talk about the music theory as it relates to each subgenre. 143.92.1.33 (discuss) 09:02, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

NWOBHM Motorcycle gang?
I basically stopped reading when I saw this acticle say that NWOBHM mostly sings about motorcycles... this statement is based on what? It's laughable misinformation since that's not even true of the movement's biggest band, Iron Maiden. Where's the motorcycle craze in Angel Witch, Venom, Diamond Head, and Tank? It's more typical of Saxon and sometimes Motörhead, but not of the entire scene.

Who One earth thought this was a good Idea???
You cant put "core" genres together with metal genres and not expect people to pick a side, and not write horrible inaccurate stuff that they pull out of nowhere, like "melodeath came from metalcore" (which i gladly changed), and many others that i cannot think of right now, this article is mostly written by wanna be musician kids that think where a certain style came from is music theory, and seriously, this would never work because the amount of music theory involved in metal is nothing compared to the aspect of feeling it while you play it/ write it. since more than half of metal cannot be simply created by using scales or chords. I say please just erase this. And well if u actually intended to create a horrible inaccurate source for certain people to be misguided, then as nefarious as that is i guess i can respect what you are doing here, but otherwise is making metal musicians look really, really bad. Better Idea Put a warning that says. READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL!

BlackNightTerror (discuss • contribs) 05:07, 8 February 2015 (UTC) BlackNightTerror