“The classical influence on heavy metal marks a merger of what are generally regarded as the most and least prestigious musical discourses of our time” (Walser 460).
Where classical music is popularly perceived as an important art form of high-class genius, heavy metal is often boiled down to anger, noisy guitars and an overdose of homoeroticism. So, how can heavy metal possibly reflect the artistic and social realm of classical music? For the dominant culture, the answer is simple: it cannot. For a subculture of dedicated metal-heads, however, the evidence of this comparison is seen through the misunderstood virtuosity of its players and the overarching impact the music has in a social context.
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Although I wish I could begin with a universal statement like ‘heavy metal is more than just a distorted mess’; however this is not always the case. There is a clear distinction between the more developed players and the downright noisemakers. Nevertheless, it can be said that heavy metal is more than just a genre of music. Heavy metal is a look, a lifestyle, a method of escape, a career, a language, a synonym of the word hardcore and a subculture in itself.
Robert Walser’s essay “Eruptions: Heavy metal appropriation of classical virtuosity” outlines how classical music has inspired the sound and structure of heavy metal songs: “Their appropriation and adaptation of classical models sparked the development of a new kind of guitar virtuosity, changes in the harmonic and melodic language of heavy metal, and new modes of musical pedagogy and analysis” (460). Virtuosity plays a significant role in heavy metal music. It is an extremely competitive genre that banks on the hours of practice its musicians invest in their craft. Similar to the formal training of classical musicians, heavy metal guitarists have been known to study music theory in an extensive manner. However,
Historians and critics of popular music have so far failed to take seriously the musical accomplishments of heavy metal musicians. The prevailing stereotype portrays metal guitarists as primitive and noisy; virtuosity, if it is noticed at all, is usually dismissed as ‘pyrotechnics.’
(466)
Although the complexity of heavy metal arrangements is often underappreciated in the dominant culture, there are dedicated members of the subculture who beam with excitement when they can decode the time signatures in a Dream Theater song or follow the notation of an Yngwie Malmsteen solo.
Furthermore, heavy metal and classical music have similar social structures. From musicians acting as mentors to one another, to the expectations that the listeners will have a thorough understanding of the music, we can see a continuing pattern. Walser writes:
Heavy metal and classical music exist in the same social contexts: they are subject to similar structures of marketing and mediation, and they ‘belong to’ and serve the needs of competing social groups whose power is linked to the prestige of their culture… Since heavy metal and classical music are markers of social difference and enactments of social experience, their intersection affects the complex relations among those who depend on these musics to legitimate their values.
(465)
The social relations surrounding certain kinds of music are what separate genres from cultures. Regardless of whether the culture consists of the socially elite or the socially awkward, music acts as a catalyst for a lasting conversation (and trust me, classical and metal musicians love to talk about music).
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In conclusion, though often “assumed to be worlds apart” (469), Walser’s reference to heavy metal as “the dark ‘Other’ of classical music” (466) sparks the following question: is classical music the parent culture to a subculture of metal-heads?
Work Cited
The Subcultures Reader. 1st ed. Ken Gelder and Sarah Thornton. London:
Routledge, 1997. 459-470. Print.
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