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Metal And Blues

This essay shall take a look at the history of the past 20 years in the life of metal, chronicling its importance socially and culturally, accessing the technological changes that have taken place as well as how the relevance of it as a tool for social disparity has changed. The essay will also take a look comparatively at the blues and how it also takes social issues by the horns and pours them out into song form.

1. How is aggression portrayed with the musical elements

On the surface aesthetic it is "obvious" that Metal music is of a more aggressive nature than blues. This is an easy misconception to make and in fact taking any kind of musical form by face value without considering the whole is quite misguided. To discover the true nature of music you must pull it apart into its different facets, these are universal to all types of music and can then be utilized in this comparison of genres. Tonality, texture, lyrics, tempo, melody and instrumentation. All these are variables usable and transferable to all genres.

Purely by looking at the name "Metal" it is easily read that this music is not of a tame nature. The whole idea of metal music is to take a look at rock music but from an extreme view point. The instrumentation of metal music is quite standard in terms of rock music. The typical set up for a metal band is, two guitars, a bass guitar, a drummer and a lead singer. This set up guarantees a huge sound and the ability to use both guitars for harmonious passages during songs, for rhythm and lead sections and usually frees the vocalist to sing without needing to concentrate on a guitar.
These guitars would usually be fitted with dual humbucking pick-ups. These pick ups are perfect for metal as they take both the low end sound and high end sounds and boosts them allowing control over rhythmic chunky sounds and lead solos alike. The main practitioners of these types of metal guitars have been ESP guitars and Jackson guitars. Characteristically metal...