# Metal Harmony exposed



## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

I was talking to a musically erudite friend. The conversation rambled and at one point I described sitting in with a local metal band and being flummoxed by the harmonic progressions of the songs (which I didn't know) because they don't seem to follow what I consider the normal flow. He wondered it he'd be able to follow them…

So I said I'd try to dredge up a few archetypal metal songs to see if he could figure out the logic.

I don't know the repertoire at all. Any suggestions for, say, five harmonically-archetypal metal songs? The sort of things that a current band would probably play?


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## Dorian2 (Jun 9, 2015)

Archetypical Metal doesn't exist. Here's a good place to start. Maiden likes the Aeolian sound.






For something fairly new with a Canuck singer.






There's tonnes of worm holes to dig through.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

What are you trying to accomplish... then perhaps I can help more.

My blood is metal


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Brunz said:


> What are you trying to accomplish... then perhaps I can help more.
> 
> My blood is metal


Our personal entertainment. No end product in mind.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Metal now has so many subgenres it’s dizzying. Do you mean doom? 90s death metal? Technical death metal? The gothenburg sound? Progressive metal? Metalcore?

High on fire - doom
Death - 90’s death metal
Godflesh apocolypse (i think) - technical death metal
In flames - the jester race - Gothenburg/90’s melodic death metal
Between the buried and me - progressive metal
Emmure - metalcore


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Alright then 

Its a broad category for certain but off the top of my head, for looking at melody progressions I would dump these in your lap.

Hammerfall - Hammer of Dawn

Its not their best song, but it is off their newest album and has a very "standard" metal progression.

Sabaton - Fields of Verdun 

Again, mostly selected for the progression, even of you compare the two you can hear some similarities

Epica - The Skeleton Key

This one breaks the mould on the standard, but it has a very melodic structure.

Bodom After Midnight - Where Dead Angels Lie

Much darker musically, but you can hear the familiarity come through. Plus, current 

Amon Amarth - Fafners Gold

You can cheat on this one, the melody is in the first 8 bars and played clean 

Budda is right, there are a billion genres to draw from, ita kinda why I was looking for anything specific... bit in lieu of that ill just offer up what I can. Best of luck.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Budda said:


> Metal now has so many subgenres it’s dizzying. Do you mean doom? 90s death metal? Technical death metal? The gothenburg sound? Progressive metal? Metalcore?
> 
> High on fire - doom
> Death - 90’s death metal
> ...


Oh my. What purpose do all these labels serve? The fact that they're all labeled "metal" suggests that they have something in common. Do the subgenres reflect differences in the musical approach, lyrics, worldview, hairstyles????


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

They let young kids know what other young kids they don't like because they like the wrong kind of metal. 

.... I like metal. See that period there, it means I like it all. Some more than others, but there is gold in all generas. 

Seriously though, the difference are not subtle. It's like saying a Ford Fiesta is the same as an F-150 because Ford made them both, the difference is stark.


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## Lincoln (Jun 2, 2008)

Dorian2 said:


> Archetypical Metal doesn't exist. Here's a good place to start. Maiden likes the Aeolian sound.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm no metal head, but I enjoyed both of those examples Pete. The Iron Maiden tune reminded me of a No Frills version of Dream Theater.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Doug Gifford said:


> Oh my. What purpose do all these labels serve? The fact that they're all labeled "metal" suggests that they have something in common. Do the subgenres reflect differences in the musical approach, lyrics, worldview, hairstyles????


For the most part, correct on all counts. People love labelling things haha. To me its to tell a listener “if x band sounds like this, you may like y band as they have a familar sound to x”. 

I myself like some thrash, some metalcore, some doom, southern hardcore, hardcore (southern feels very bluesy but with breakdowns), gothenburg. I dont listen to that all the time anymore but i still greatly enjoy it.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Lincoln said:


> I'm no metal head, but I enjoyed both of those examples Pete. The Iron Maiden tune reminded me of No Frills version of Dream Theater.


I dont like DT, but hearing the trooper at a guitar lesson put me down the path to playing fast.


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## Grab n Go (May 1, 2013)

I'm not qualified to be a true metalhead, but I really like Animals as Leaders. To me, they push musical boundaries in interesting ways.


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## Mutant_Guitar (Oct 24, 2021)

Too many subgenres, but the main distinction is slow and super heavy, medium tempo and chuggy, and fast + whitenoisey. The further away from the classic (sabbath) the closer to "riff-salad" it may verge.


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## laristotle (Aug 29, 2019)

Don't know how up to date this is.
Scroll to zoom in/out, click/hold to drag up/down.








Map of Metal


An interactive map of Metal history and the influential bands that helped shaped the genres we know today



mapofmetal.com


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## gtrguy (Jul 6, 2006)

Not sure there is an archetypal example but you're going to find a lot of b5th, b2nd and a fair amount of chromatic movement in most metal.


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## Kerry Brown (Mar 31, 2014)

gtrguy said:


> Not sure there is an archetypal example but you're going to find a lot of b5th, b2nd and a fair amount of chromatic movement in most metal.


A b2nd and b5th would be Phrygian mode?


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## Mutant_Guitar (Oct 24, 2021)

Kerry Brown said:


> A b2nd and b5th would be Phrygian mode?


locrian


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## laristotle (Aug 29, 2019)

Sounds like you're talking about super villains.


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## Dorian2 (Jun 9, 2015)

Lincoln said:


> I'm no metal head, but I enjoyed both of those examples Pete. The Iron Maiden tune reminded me of a No Frills version of Dream Theater.


There's a lot of great stuff out there. Speaking of Metal Harmony. Or counter melody/point. Bass plays a pretty humungous role too.


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## Mutant_Guitar (Oct 24, 2021)

Dorian2 said:


> There's a lot of great stuff out there. Speaking of Metal Harmony. Or counter melody/point. Bass plays a pretty humungous role too.


This one is a real classic; a real crossingroad of styles.


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## Mutant_Guitar (Oct 24, 2021)

It's amazing Japan had an act this heavy in 1971. It's a little uncanny, but I'd say Slayer took something by osmosis from this.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

laristotle said:


> Don't know how up to date this is.
> Scroll to zoom in/out, click/hold to drag up/down.
> 
> 
> ...


Very interesting. Who cares about up-to-date? I listen to cylinder recordings.

Sadly that excellent site won't run on my 2008 macbook. But it will run on my wife's iMac which is okay but it's not hooked up to the big speakers.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Dorian2 said:


> Archetypical Metal doesn't exist. Here's a good place to start. Maiden likes the Aeolian sound.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you! You have justified the $800 I spend two years ago on a pair of 15" 1000 watt Electrovoice powered speakers. You just wait 'till there nobody else home!!!


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

I get a kick of of "Metal" as a genera. It is so many different things, when I think Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Judas Priest... were metal and then I turn around and listen to some Children of Bodom and think... metal  I just get a kick out of it.



Doug Gifford said:


> Thank you! You have justified the $800 I spend two years ago on a pair of 15" 1000 watt Electrovoice powered speakers. You just wait 'till there nobody else home!!!


Wait a cotton pickin' second, you haven't listened to Maiden before? Oh buddy, welcome to the dark side


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Budda said:


> For the most part, correct on all counts. People love labelling things haha. To me its to tell a listener “if x band sounds like this, you may like y band as they have a familar sound to x”.
> 
> I myself like some thrash, some metalcore, some doom, southern hardcore, hardcore (southern feels very bluesy but with breakdowns), gothenburg. I dont listen to that all the time anymore but i still greatly enjoy it.


What's a breakdown?


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## Mutant_Guitar (Oct 24, 2021)

Doug Gifford said:


> What's a breakdown?


it's primarily a rhythmic passage kind of like a blues has a shuffle, but it often occurs in place of a "bridge" section


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Mark Brown said:


> I get a kick of of "Metal" as a genera. It is so many different things, when I think Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Judas Priest... were metal and then I turn around and listen to some Children of Bodom and think... metal  I just get a kick out of it.
> 
> 
> Wait a cotton pickin' second, you haven't listened to Maiden before? Oh buddy, welcome to the dark side


If it helps, I have a vivid memory of playing "Paranoid" off my newly acquired "Paranoid" LP for my Grandmother (born 1892). She was rather quiet afterward and never said what she thought of it. But I bought that because it was top 40 and I liked it on the radio not because I was "into metal." I was all over the place.

Where does Vanilla Fudge lie in the metal patriarchy? If at all.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Mutant_Guitar said:


> it's primarily a rhythmic passage kind of like a blues has a shuffle, but it often occurs in place of a "bridge" section


For example?


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Doug Gifford said:


> For example?


Boneyards - Parkway Drive
1:40ish



Doug Gifford said:


> Where does Vanilla Fudge lie in the metal patriarchy? If at all.


Maybe "epic soul metal"
....but maybe you could drop the metal and it would be more appropriate 

Metal brought me into music, 60's and 70's rock brought me into guitar and drugs brought me to electronic music. Now, sobriety, well that just leaves me with a lot of good memories.


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## Mutant_Guitar (Oct 24, 2021)

Doug Gifford said:


> For example?






 "Shallow Breathing" is a breakdown intro to the album, but the rest of the album also follows suit. I think Converge in their early years and for about half of their discography embodied the metalcore breakdown.
Usually the song will go into half-time and chug along as it picks up speed. Basically it's a way to break the pace up, and get a heavy-breather in between the onslaught of aggression.


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## Lincoln (Jun 2, 2008)

Dorian2 said:


> There's a lot of great stuff out there. Speaking of Metal Harmony. Or counter melody/point. Bass plays a pretty humungous role too.


I enjoyed that. What would I ask for if I wanted Alexa to play a bunch of that type of music?


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## Mutant_Guitar (Oct 24, 2021)

Lincoln said:


> I enjoyed that. What would I ask for if I wanted Alexa to play a bunch of that type of music?


I'll say that there really isn't anything quite like it. That's not to put it up on a pedestal, but this album essentially brought Opeth to the masses and with good reason; it balanced all of their previous black metal leanings and levied them with the studied craft of 70's progressive rock and top notch production. Everything Opeth has released since has been a somewhat paler shade of this style and sometimes to the point of self-parody. For example, the album that followed still had plenty of crafty songwriting and worthy performances, but lost all of the metal edge and looming atmosphere of Blackwater Park. And other bands rarely if ever managed to balance the heavy elements of real "core" metal with enduring songwriting present on that LP. It was pitch perfect, and didn't teeter off into ridiculous pastiche or get buried in an avalanche of riffs. 
I would love someone to come along and correct me.
There are other great heavy albums though, but most of the watershed releases are much more "genrefied". 

Here is a band I would cite as one of the stalwarts of thrash metal; simply muscular songwriting without the sloppiness or pomposity of Metallica:


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Lincoln said:


> I enjoyed that. What would I ask for if I wanted Alexa to play a bunch of that type of music?


Progressive Metal
Technical Metal
Prog death metal
Melodic metal

.....or just play more opeth.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Mark Brown said:


> Progressive Metal
> Technical Metal
> Prog death metal
> Melodic metal
> ...


Old opeth though, not the 70s rock under the same name.


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## vanqr (10 mo ago)

Lots of really great recommendations in the thread already 

I'll add Jinjer to the list. Their vocalist is really great, and often tends to overshadow some of the really great instrumental work in their songs. In terms of melody, this song in particular is a good example, starting at about 0:45, and then varying it up at 2min. Their guitar player Roman really does a great job in switching between outlining the melody of the song, between intervals of dissonant rhythm playing.






Also, Mastodon for sure, really fun progressions in a lot of the songs off of Blood Mountain. The Hunter album has a lot of really great melodic stuff as well






Not super sure how archetypical either of the two bands are, but they definitely illustrate how varied metal can be.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

vanqr said:


> Not super sure how archetypical either of the two bands are


.... I think you know 
Two stellar songs thats for damn sure.


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## Dorian2 (Jun 9, 2015)

@Doug Gifford In your original post, you mentioned that you had a tough time following that bands harmonic progressions. As you can already tell, there is a vast amount of progressions in the multiple genre's of Metal music in general. Do you know the bands general influence? Are they playing original music or covers? For a newish Canadian band, the progressions in something like this is akin to the Melodic Power Metal kind of sound. And yes, another female vocalist is killing it yet again. Check out the song structure and guitar harmonies on this one.






Also, this is a good rundown of the Heir Apparent's of the Ancestry of the the Originators.  

The 'Big 4' Bands of 17 Metal Subgenres


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Dorian2 said:


> @Doug Gifford In your original post, you mentioned that you had a tough time following that bands harmonic progressions. As you can already tell, there is a vast amount of progressions in the multiple genre's of Metal music in general. Do you know the bands general influence? Are they playing original music or covers? …


These guys:


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## Dorian2 (Jun 9, 2015)

Doug Gifford said:


> These guys:


So I quickly checked it out, I got Key of Bm - Bm/G - Bm/A then a D - C# back to Bm -G - A. (i-VI-VII) in the 4th scale position of Bm (F#). That's a pretty standard sound in Metal. Then it goes to the to the Em (iv) after that G which works well with the relationship of those chords (VI - iv). Sorry if I missed something obvious.


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## AJ6stringsting (Mar 12, 2006)

I love Metal, but once those " Cookie Monster " vocals kick in 😆 and I see those band logos that look like pubic hair shavings .... that's where they lose me.
😱


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## Mutant_Guitar (Oct 24, 2021)

Krallice has kind of a fascinating wall of sound, but it's also pretty legible so it definitely clicks.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Doug Gifford said:


> These guys:


If you're in the neighbourhood:


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## 5150EVH0515 (10 mo ago)

metal is very vast to be honest. I used to be in a grindcore death metal band (think Suffocation/misery index, DF etc..), but then Carcass could be grindcore death... so many and most bands touch on all the subgenres a lot. For melodic death/black metal, Dissection, Emperor, Old Man's Child, Dimmu Borgir are some of the best. I would say they have more harmony than most bands. Especially Dissection. One of my faves.


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## AJ6stringsting (Mar 12, 2006)

If you listen to Helter Skelter from the Beatles " White Album " ..... Metal before Blue Cheer or Black Sabbath .


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## paraedolia (Nov 26, 2008)

I kinda like a lot of this stuff until the cookie monster starts, then I'm out.


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## paraedolia (Nov 26, 2008)

AJ6stringsting said:


> If you listen to Helter Skelter from the Beatles " White Album " ..... Metal before Blue Cheer or Black Sabbath .


Paul McCartney was trying to out-heavy The Who.



> > I was in Scotland and I read in _Melody Maker_that Pete Townshend had said: ‘We’ve just made the raunchiest, loudest, most ridiculous rock ‘n’ roll record you’ve ever heard.’ I never actually found out what track it was that The Who had made, but that got me going; just hearing him talk about it. So I said to the guys, ‘I think we should do a song like that; something really wild.’ And I wrote ‘Helter Skelter’.
> >
> > You can hear the voices cracking, and we played it so long and so often that by the end of it you can hear Ringo saying,’I’ve got blisters on my fingers’. We just tried to get it louder: ‘Can’t we make the drums sound louder?’ That was really all I wanted to do – to make a very loud, raunchy rock ‘n’ roll record with The Beatles. And I think it’s a pretty good one.
> 
> ...


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