Is it justifiable to compare the two? I've always just assumed people saw the Classical influence in Metal but than a friend of mine said he never understood it the comparison. He mentioned that band with keyboards like Nightwish definately have some Classical but Metal as a whole is still mostly rock. I mentioned Dream Theater too and he said they have more Jazz influence and almost no Classical. Now I'm confused. Maybe our interpretations of each is completely different. Can someone that knows genres give me a breakdown?
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Metal and Classical
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I've always considered the assertion to be a misguided response to the (equally misguided) claim that "metal's not really music."
There are some similarities in composition, i.e: songs that are almost arranged in movements, but I don't think metal is the only genre of modern music you can say that about...
There are some similarities in composition, i.e: songs that are almost arranged in movements, but I don't think metal is the only genre of modern music you can say that about...
I think people draw connections between Metal and Classical for two reasons:
1. Metal that you would say has "a classical influence" is about the music. Ya, there's singing, etc...but really, it's about the musical composition. Moreso than, say, the latest pop-hit that, when listened to, emphasis is all on the vocals.
2. The large unshadowed presence of running up and down scales in metal. Listen to a guitar solo...it's all just running around scales...much like classical tends to do. This is what I see as the classical influence on Metal.
1. Metal that you would say has "a classical influence" is about the music. Ya, there's singing, etc...but really, it's about the musical composition. Moreso than, say, the latest pop-hit that, when listened to, emphasis is all on the vocals.
2. The large unshadowed presence of running up and down scales in metal. Listen to a guitar solo...it's all just running around scales...much like classical tends to do. This is what I see as the classical influence on Metal.
Yeah, it's certainly in the composition. I like the idea that metal songs have movements. Granted, we should really be careful about what bands we're talking about here. For instance, I love Bodom to death, but I'd hardly say that they have any classical influence. Whereas a band like Opeth? Definitely.
Oh, and jazz has clearly had a huge influence on the better part of metal drummers. I'm not an expert on the issue, but I seem to notice that most of the great drummers in metal (or even rock) have had some sort of jazz background/training.
Oh, and jazz has clearly had a huge influence on the better part of metal drummers. I'm not an expert on the issue, but I seem to notice that most of the great drummers in metal (or even rock) have had some sort of jazz background/training.
Maybe if you go as far up as Stravinsky. There you start to see the "cut-and-paste" method to composition, where you have a block of something and then a block of something else with no connective material. If you're going to try to compare Mozart to Led Zeppelin, though, you're not going to find very much common ground.
Like others, I think that classical music has definitely had its share of influence on metal, but don't believe the two are intrinsically linked. To be honest, I kind of like it that way. One of the great things about metal is that you can take it very far before it becomes something other than metal. To me, all you really need for something to be metal is a certain amount of rock-based bombast and some modicum of technical ability.
I'm sure many a metal fan would disagree with me on this, of course.
I'm sure many a metal fan would disagree with me on this, of course.
Blackmore was using diatonic scales when he was in Deep Purple, that's the earliest link I can find between metal and classical music.
However, the whole neo classical shred genre (Yngwie, Becker, MacAlpine) is practically based upon the Baroque (Bach, Vivaldi, Handel) period. This may or may not be due to Yngwie's almost perverse abuse of harmonic minor runs
However, the whole neo classical shred genre (Yngwie, Becker, MacAlpine) is practically based upon the Baroque (Bach, Vivaldi, Handel) period. This may or may not be due to Yngwie's almost perverse abuse of harmonic minor runs
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fallout said:
Children of Bodom have no classical influence? Are you nuts? Listen to their melodies. They practically started out as a neo-classical band. They've grown less so over time, but listen any of their first 3 cd's (especially their first two) and theres an ENORMOUS classical influence in the melodic composition.
Anyway...back to the original topic. I pretty much agree with soakrates on all counts. They share some similarities, some bands more than others, but they're tough to directly compare in the way that you could compare Metal and Rock. But some bands definitely do try to draw some influence from classical composers.
And I'd agree with dream theater being a bit more Jazz influenced than Classical. Their new cd is a bit of a different story(particularly the title track), but as a whole I wouldn't say Dream Theater is band that takes a lot of inspiration from classical composers. Not when put next to bands such as Symphony X, atleast, who practically rip sections from old classical peices on nearly every album.
Good point. I had HCDR on while I was typing that, so it just came as the first example I could think of. Regardless, there are metal bands that have NO classical influences. I'm just too lazy to go digging through my CDs to try and make the point again.morbidaza said:
Also, I'll just throw in Apocalyptica, because they deserve to be mentioned at any level.
how can you directly compare anything to "classical"? That's like saying some genre sounds like "rock music". Are you talking about baroque? Chamber music? Medieval? Romance? There are so many variations of classical music that it's hard to say something is "like" classical.
As classical music progresses in to the 21st century you see some composers take up some metal like things. Tower for instance uses some rythyms that wouldn't be out of place on a rock stage, same thing with Brouwer. However, I've yet to see anything in metal that really strikes me as the same as the level of polyphony and structure as classical. It's just a different beast all together.
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