Black Metal History & Theory

As a theorist who is learning about different genres of music, and as a microtonalist (student) who is learning about the historic view on temperaments. I decided to make a blog on Black Metal music theory and how this can help me understand a whole new genre that I havenʼt really dived into very well.

We shall talk about the historic resemblance of such a drastic and malevolent genre.

The history of Black Metal

Metal as a whole can be dated around the late 1960's however, with strong evidence it can be said to have originated from the band Black Sabbath at Englandʼs West Midlands, Birmingham. This paved way for a countless number of bands we as listeners listen to. The 1970's and the 80's were the moments where heavy metal began to transition from rock music and evolve to something much louder and "heavier" (Pearlin, 2014).

Black metal showed up during the 1980's, during the first wave (not to be confused with NWOBHM). The first wave included bands such as Venom, Bathory and Hellhammer. Being a sub-genre of metal, black metal showed to have a distinct quality which included lot of Neo-Nazism view, hate-speech, satanism with band members painting their faces and having morbid-pseudonyms (Kaur, 2019).

During the second wave of black metal, around the 1990's at Norway, things started to develop further. The genre itself began to branch out further into atmospheric black metal, depressed black metal, etc. The subject matters were the same but were over-exaggerated, with church burning's, devil-worship and to an extent murdering band members. Bands such as Mayhem, Darkthrone, Gorgoroth, Immortal were quite common bands to heard (Sholihyn, 2017).

Things have changed since then and the information above is by far not the complete history but a very brief one. There have been numerous and terrifying stories that tie-in with such a genre.

The video below can explain the gradual development of black metal we hear today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV1SoOZBYdI

(Wazy, 2018)

How to write a Black Metal song?

Well, in general, the genre includes a lot of similarities with other genreʼs of metal, such as heavy distortion, utilizing minor and dissonant chords and scale patterns, blast beats, screeching and scoured howls (vocals). Some tips about writing a black metal song is essentially having an ear and listening to other bands and later depending on your taste youʼll develop the desirable style.

Another way to approach riff-making is to play notes on a particular string while having a lower string open. So, for example, a normal guitar would be tuned EADGBe and fretting notes on the A string while strumming (tremolo picking) E, the open string would create different intervallic (harmonic) possibilities (Leong, 2014).

It can be closely related to the pedal point technique that a lot of classical composers have used. Pedal point would occur in classical music such that the key of the song is related to the tonic if itʼs in E minor (E major) or the dominant note if its A minor (A major) (Neely, 2017).

These two notes can be called dyads. Guitars often use octaves, fifths (power chords) and dark sound intervals like semitones or minor ninths and minor thirds.

Adding reverb to the guitars or the track can give it also an atmospheric or ambient touch to it.

The bass player can play the roots and is usually quite difficult to hear during the production stage of the song (beansk8rkid, 2017). The fundamental sound for black metal is the atmospheric nature of it. There aren't any real or significant melodies, just riff that gets repeated in patterns. The music theory application is not as complicated as it would be in a genre such as progressive metal, or death metal for instance (AkairoPorcoddio, 2019).

The drumming for such a style is quite fast (around and above 140BPM), blistering speeds with blast beats (AkairoPorcoddio, 2019). A few rhythmic examples are demonstrated in the video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4KNXi-SWWc

(66Samus, 2016)

A lot of the lyrical approach for black metal can center around Neo-Nazism, cult-based stories, satanism, depression, and death. Black metal has a genre that has definitely evolved in the modern era of metal but the roots still exist from its initial beginnings.

As for the production, it is quite ironic for people to mention that for black metal to sound like black metal it must be recorded and mixed terribly. As a student of audio production engineering, I agree and disagree. While the bands that originated around the 1990's did indeed have terrible sounding albums which eventually became the “sound” of the genre.

Everyone including I enjoys a good quality track while listening to any of our favorite genres.

Recommendations

Received a few songs recommended to me

• Behemoth - God=Dog

• Behemoth - Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel

• Immortal - Tyrants

• Gorgoroth - Sign of an Open Eye

• Dimmu Borgir - Gateways

A few bands to check out

• Oubliette

• Immortal

• Behemoth

• Cradle of Filth

• Burzum

REFERENCES:

66Samus. (2016, March 6th). Different Types of Blast Beats (with notation) [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4KNXi-SWWc

AkairoPorcoddio. (2019, Jan 4th). What makes black metal sound like black metal? [Online Forum]. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/comments/acbwc9/what_makes_black_metal_sound_like_black_metal/

beansk8rkid. (2017, Sep 1st). Any tips for writing Black metal guitar riffs? [Online Forum]. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/metalmusicians/comments/6xeo2u/any_tips_for_writing_black_metal_guitar_riffs/

Kaur, H. (2019, April 12th). Authorities say black metal may have influenced the Louisiana church fires suspect: CNN Entertainment. Retrieved from https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/11/entertainment/black-metal-church-burning-explainer/index.html

Leong, B. (2014, Nov 8th). Deconstructing the 2 Note Riff in Black Metal [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETGYLRaheFE

Neely, A. (2017, Sep 11th). Q+A #38 - Who made you an authority to speak on anything?! [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV_yPvJl_Lo&feature=youtu.be&t=406

Pearlin, J. (2014). A Brief History of Metal. Retrieved from https://metal.mit.edu/brief-history-metal

Sholihyn, I. (2017, Nov 26th). Shades Of Black: The History and Evolution of Black Metal: Medium. Retrieved from https://medium.com/social-club/shades-of-black-the-history-and-evolution-of-black-metal-ef916e8e35b7

Wazy. (2018, March 5th). A Briefing of Black Metal [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV1SoOZBYdI

APPENDIX:

Binder, A. (1993). Constructing Racial Rhetoric: Media Depictions of Harm in Heavy Metal and Rap Music. American Sociological Review, Vol. 58, No. 6, pp. 753-767. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/341292/Constructing_Racial_Rhetoric_Media_Depictions_of_Harm_In_Heavy_Metal_and_Rap_Music

Pedal point. (2019). In Wikipedia. Retrieved Oct 1st, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedal_point

Skadiang, J. (2017). True Black Metal: Authenticity, Nostalgia, and Transgression in the Black Metal Scene [Bachelors Dissertation]. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/34748937/True_Black_Metal_Authenticity_Nostalgia_and_Transgression_in_the_Black_Metal_Scene