What is Heavy Metal Music?
Heavy Metal Music developed in
the late 1960s from rock music and in the last 40 years has emerged not only
into its own genre, but a complete culture, as well. It has broken off into dozens of sub-genres
and has gained worldwide popularity with its unique style.
Classic heavy metal music is
described as having a thick, massive sound that includes extended guitar solos,
complex beats, amplified distortion and an overall loudness. The main instruments in most groups are the electric
guitar, bass guitar, drums, vocals and sometimes, keyboards. While most groups focus on a vocalist as
their frontman, heavy metal music, more often than not, uses the lead guitarist
as the focus.
The guitarist in heavy metal
music is key. They perform extended
metal riffs and usually lead the group.
While some metal guitarists use main power chords in their songs, most
have studied classical music and have amazing abilities. Some of the techniques used are alternate
picking, string skipping, tapping, legato, sweep picking and economy picking.
Heavy metal music developed in
the late 1960’s with groups such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. From the origins of this new style of music
emerged a huge sub-genre of music. The
lyrics of metal music tend to focus on dark or depressing subjects, including
death, war, paranoia and personal trauma.
Some extreme forms of metal often focus on agressive or gory lyrics,
while others focus on more philosophical themes. A common theme in most metal is the idea of
doing what you want, despite what the world says.
Genres of heavy metal music are
as vast as the ideologies of each artist.
The most popular styles of heavy metal music include alternative metal,
drone metal, funk metal, classic metal, grindcore, industrial metal, metalcore,
neo-classical metal, nu metal, gothic, speed, post metal, rap metal, sludge
metal and doom and death metal. Each
sub-genre brings in elements of other styles of music such as blues, rap, rock,
alternative, folk, punk, hip hop and classical.
Visual appearance has always been
a strong factor in heavy metal music.
Some groups, such as Kiss and Alice Cooper, have become known for their
outlandish costumes and huge stage performances.
The classic dress of todays
metalhead consists of long hair, past the shoulders, black t-shirt with a
favored metal band logo, jeans, black boots and black leather jackets. According to journalist Nader Rahman, long
hair gave the members of the metal community “the power they needed to rebel
against nothing in general”.
Heavy metal music is extremely
masculine and, therefore, there is not the usual dancing at concerts. Most of the audience will engage in
headbanging or just make arm gestures. Other
displays may include “moshing”, stage diving or crowd surfing.
Heavy metal fans have their own
code of authenticity. The code demands
that performers be authenticFree Reprint Articles, devoted to the sub-culture
and the music and they must never sell out.
Some performers have been shut out of mainstream metal because they
lacked the authenticity the crowd was looking for.
Source: Free Articles from
ArticlesFactory.com
Post a Comment for "What is Heavy Metal Music?"
Thank's for reading my blog , please leave a comment