We all know classical music is sort of the apex of music. It's what the kid in your high school who got all As and went to Yale listened to. It's what Presidents and Kings, intellectuals and great artists, cultured people and wizards listen to. It's so drenched in music theory it makes jazz look primitive. And it scares away most people for that reason.
Metal is like the benefits of classical music with the killer aspects of rock music, but turned up to 11 (sorry for the cliche... not really). You don't get the dumb and sappy and repetitive of rock. Instead you get killer riffs, raging drums and screaming guitars, like an apocalypse descending from clouds of industrial doom. Metal is arguably the most intense music ever made.
But how's it like classical? First, the musicians affirm it:
Many years ago, we read members of Judas Priest and even Metallica claim that heavy metal is based in classical music, and we laughed. "Classical music was for wusses," we thought. "And clearly nothing on Master of Puppets or Screaming For Vengeance could be mistaken for Mozart or Beethoven. Sure, guitar wankers like Yngwie Malmsteen and Tony MacAlpine paid homage to dudes like Paganini and Tchaikovsky, but their music wasn't really metal. Yeah, it was loud, but it was also unlistenably pretentious. Then came the Internet and a couple of musicians from Taiwan and we were forced to admit that maybe Priest and Metallica knew what they were talking about, after all.
For anyone that hasn't seen this video of a South Korean teenager playing a ripping heavy metal version of "Pachelbel's Canon in D" by Johan Pachelbel, here's the 411. The song was originally arranged by Taiwanese compose Jerry Chang, but this popular Internet version -- which has been viewed over 24 million times -- is played by Jeong-Hyun Lim, who goes by the name FunTwo.
Next, metal and classical fans basically think alike:
Heavy metal fans and classical music aficionados have always considered themselves worlds apart but new research suggests they have more in common than they might think.
A study of more than 36,000 people worldwide showed that although the two groups may not share a taste in clothes or come from the same age demographic, their personality traits are "virtually identical".
"I was struck by how similar fans of heavy metal and classical music really are," he said.
"Apart from the age differences, they were virtually identical. Both were more creative than other people, both were not terribly outgoing and they were also quite at ease."
Prof North, head of the university's department of applied psychology, said he thought both types of music had a sense of theatricality about them which may appeal to similar types of people.
But he said a number of musical stereotypes were confirmed.
"Fans of country and western tend to be more hard-working, fans of reggae were more at ease and fans of jazz were more creative.
"It's as though they're choosing the music to tell the world something about themselves."
Finally, academics realize how important the classical heritage has been to heavy metal:
As critics like Robert Walser have shown, metal is heavily indebted to classical music. Metal is chock-ful of ideas of transcendence and virtuosity that are based on a critique of contemporary culture.
Even more, the first proto-metal band, Black Sabbath, was inspired by horror movie soundtracks -- specifically to movies like Black Sabbath. These are generally based on the modern classical sound created by Richard Wagner and Anton Bruckner. Then it's no wonder that metal and classical are converging in a number of projects:
Young Americans have embraced metal as part of their rebellion sound tracks for decades. The Patzner brothers - violinist Anton, 28, and Lewis, 24, - have taken part in this legacy and pushed it a step further. With their metal band, Judgement Day, they loudly rebel against the typical path set out for classically trained instrumentalists by turning their talents to this unorthodox musical genre. "We wanted to do something dark and epic," Anton says.
In Judgement Day, Lewis' cello replaces the typical bass and Anton's violin fills in for lead guitar. The unholy trinity was completed when they added drummer Jon Bush. Anton met Bush while they were both at UC Santa Cruz: "Jon was the hardest hitting drummer I'd ever seen in Santa Cruz. We had to have him so we would have some heavy credit."
They started playing fully amplified shows, although at first, live performances incurred technical difficulties: "It was a challenge to get the strings to work, because they're hollow instruments," Anton says. "They feedback really easily, especially if you're putting distortion on them."
It's no surprise people have been taking on classical versions of metal songs, and metal versions of classical songs:
Apocalyptica - One (Metallica)
Metal version of "Fur Elise" (Beethoven)
Comments
I'm not even going to bother wasting my time with this but let me just tell you that you need to pull your head out of your ass if you think you can derive even one contrived parallel between dumb kids' music like metal and classical music, which is art. Metal is "like" classical much like remedial math is "like" AP calculus for retarded people.
"We all know classical music is sort of the apex of music. It's what the kid in your high school who got all As and went to Yale listened to. It's what Presidents and Kings, intellectuals and great artists, cultured people and wizards listen to."
lol, no it isn't, on any of those counts. This is what aspie.com f*ggots actually believe. Classical music is alright but too often a soulless, technical exercise and cosmopolitan. For music that really speaks of the national essence of a people there's no music like traditional folk music.
Bleda, like a hipster, is one of those people who ALWAYS seems to know better than you do.
>implying that anyone who disagrees with anus f*ggotry is a hipster
"I'm not even going to bother wasting my time with this"
So much for that. Two angry posts, and neither actually made any points against the similarities between metal and classical.
"Classical music is alright but too often a soulless, technical exercise and cosmopolitan. For music that really speaks of the national essence of a people there's no music like traditional folk music."
I can actually agree with this, to a point. Folk music is great. Yet when classical finds the right blend of passion and technicality, it exceeds all forms of music.
">implying that anyone who disagrees with anus f*ggotry is a hipster"
Back to 4chan with you. Stay there.
A strange coincidence what an amount of people with names relating to Romanian history there are scouting the Internet for anything Hessian-related and trying to bait people with dumb trolls. Or maybe not.
i have no idea why i'm wasting my time with this, but bleda demonstrates the absolute closed-mindedness surrounding metal. he'll never get his own head out of his arse, but accuse others of just the same thing. don't waste your time again, metalheads are just 'dumb' people.
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