Music: Spiritual Effects of Rock/Metal Music

[Monica]

A Bring4th member (lurker) who wishes to remain anonymous, emailed me and asked me to post this for him. Here it is:

Monica,

In regards to your topic on the forums that was addressing the Metal music genre.
As I was reading that topic, I thought of replying and sharing some of my personal ideas.

These words are typed up by a person who is doing music for about 15 years now. I am able to play a couple of music instruments, average to good, including piano, saxophone. But my main passion is Distorted electric guitar.

Some facts about metal music. Mostly, it's texture is quite thick. That is caused by the distortion effect used on the guitars. Basically, the signal that comes from the guitar is put through a bunch of equipment that adds to the tone all of its overtones and harmonics in a specific shape, based on the gear setup and settings levels. The sound is full of harmonic noise, in a wide frequency range, it is very rich and fat. Think of a symphonic orchestra playing fortissimo: all fifty instruments create a blast of sound wave.
When I first heard heavy metal with such guitars, it was hard to accept the music and my head almost hurt at the time of listening. Soon enough I got used to it, and years later discovered its beauty, when swapped classical guitar for electric.
Fast tempo's - majority of metal bands play in quite a fast pace. This creates not only a rich texture of sounds, but also a wide stream of information coming to the listeners ears. As we know that energy=information and the music is form of information...

There is something about the metal music. The instruments, the way they revolve around distortion guitar and adopt to it's sound with adding their own timbre is amazing. Turn off distortion and the music will loose it's balance. At some stage, I was disappointed with the way how the things were going for me. I was then trying unsuccessfully to start a metal band and played in some other acts, which later dissolved in time. Decided not to listen to metal for a while and kept spoiling myself with all other kinds of music. Some year or more later, after I came back to listen to some metal piece, I instantly had an urge to pickup my guitar and rock out with the track. There could be some addiction to the sweet and warm tone of distorted guitar. Only the people who are metal guitarists themselves, or advanced musicians could call the angry, messy, and evil noise a warm tone! Of course there could be some that also enjoy this sound, no offense.
Metal can be tiring. After listening to the records for more than 3-4 hours you want to turn it off. Don't tell me it's not true. The thing gets into your head and your brain starts to cook. But that is different when live.

Now I will talk about live performances. Currently being in a band that performs live in front of people, I could say that it is a sacred act, the performance it is. Being a performer means to convey the energy (we know that energy=love in most cases, or if it's hate, it's just little less love than usual) to the audience in the most preferred for the actor way. Be that a stand-up comedian, a presenter of a speech, an actor of any kind, a bard with a guitar or a metalhead in a black dress. Once you are on that stage, no matter who you are, there are rules. And they are very simple - transfer that info over to the crowd.

Said that, I would like to share this bit of info as well. As a person who is quite interested in understanding how does the life work and reading from time to time about it, from different sources, I got concerned that metal may not be the right thing. So once, I had a chance to ask this question to a person, who calls himself a healer, but really is just just another psychic or spiritualist, there is not definition on such people, we know it. My exact question was - is that alright that I perform music that is chaotic in its nature, and isn't it destructive to the soul. The answer followed that there is harmony in everything and in chaos as well. So chaos is pretty much another form of equation, as we heard that from Ra. Meaning that it's fine. Besides, if we do not like that statement, and we still battle for duality in its extreme form to be dominant in our incarnation, I could defend metal music with calling it the ultimately negative of all your positive. And the opposing must exist. If we must harmonize oneself to create an balance of + and - why not have the metal music as a catalyst. Maybe killing somebody at night in a lonely street with a grimace on your face is acceptable in some circumstances, rocking out loud is definitely the more humanitarian way; especially taking into account that some metal bands are very high class performers and masters of their instruments. Again, there is no shade without a light source, and the brighter the light, the darker the shadow. At least that is how our current world is made: good and bad, left and right, you name it.

About lyrics and the energy behind. As you mentioned how some bands do not work out for you and some you like, despite of their harsh vocals. Firstly, I will share my own experience in understanding the growling vocals. Human's voice is a musical instrument. In fact the most difficult one to master, and unique. Every voice is unique; think of 10 pupils in a room, ask them all to play a tune on a piano and there will be little difference. At least we can tell it only on a physical level, by our ears. Ask them to sing this same tune and you get 10 different voices. So if the voice is clear - enjoy it the way it is. If it is harsh and gworling/screaming/squeeling - think of it just like it is another instrument that is making this "special effect" for the atmosphere or so that it is another percussion. Metal is very rhythmical and vocals in metal indeed are too.
Secondly, my own experience. In one of the bands I did guitar work as well as growling. I can not sing properly, even though I took lessons from an opera singer and can hold the note in this "big, AAAA" manner. Did not bother singing clear, had a female singer for that, but also it was a black metal project and the growls suited the overall darkness and doom that we were creating. :-) It somehow felt like I wanted to growl myself instead of singing clear. It just suited the music better that clear voice, and the operatic female voice was there for a contrast.
When I screamed and played, usually after finishing the song I was all in sweat and as if some additional energy source was plugged into me while I was performing. I noticed that, regardless of what lyrics I sang - both devil like lyrics or random words, not necessarily on dark topics. It is hard to explain what exactly do you feel when you sing, especially in such an intense form of art as black metal is. Tempo up to 180, guitars screaming in agony, drummer's blasting a thick mesh of snare and kicks (blast beat), keyboards full on choir "ah-s" in 3 octaves, female singer is holding this long and dramatic note, then the riff changes and with a slide, I open my mouth and fill the room with soul-freezing raw energy of ...
Can't really tell whether it is an angelic nature or the beast. Whatever it is, this chaos is complete, it has it's charm and it's own beauty and it can not be bad!
Personally I had a song that I have written with lyrics in thought, and it was about diversity of religions that we have here in the world currently and how it is all in the end silly and we, humans, do not know anything. I wouldn't say that I felt any anger when quite blasphemous phrases were coming out of me. Because I knew that it is just a performance act in the end, and it is not really the way I feel about the subject. In real life, people make things that are much worse than some metalhead shouting out swearing from the stage.
It could be that some bands are playing with anger, I tried to do that too. But it does not work for me. Even at times when the negative emotions cover me, if I happen to be with a guitar, no matter how hard I try to make the music evil coming from the soul, even though it does turn out evil to the listener, but very soon I happen to calm down and switch to this "transmitter of light" state, the one that conveys the energy. Whether it's playing jazz and pop on sax, picking some classic on nylon or blasting chaos out of the amp and cabinet that is too heavy for me to lift alone - it is all the same performers state.
Thirdly, I would tell about experience of seeing bands live and feeling their emotions. Once on a concert, I was in audience, there were 4 bands. All four were technical death metal, so quite heavy. I should say the top extreme metal sound you can get nowadays. :-) There was one band that maybe was not the heaviest, but I personally felt not good after seeing them, even though the band before was much more extreme and sick. They had created some sort of an emotional void, that was ready to be filled by not the brightest thoughts. I think that was it - an example of how a band feels, got applied to the audience. It could be that the guys were tired (international tour) or not happy for some reason. I still believe you can not do harm with art, no matter how dark it is or how brutal it's appearance. I tried to put anger when performing live, but it doesn't work. Instead there is some anti-reaction in me that converts that emotion to some sad understanding of undefinable, eternal feeling of emptiness. It soon clicks back to the normal fast-paced light-energy transmitting state. In the end, it also depends on how the target audience responds, and what do they seek from it. As a matter of fact, the band before them, was totally crazy, and they had wallpaper with "guts+blood", lyrics -i'm afraid to read them, BUT - the crowd was absolutely energized, I was almost laughing myself, and the whole mood of the crowd seemed to be just... happy?

Some comment about bands. There was later in a topic discussion about conspiracy and how some pop idols are controlled to produce destructive music with a hidden underline message in them. (Relating to website with articles explaining pop industry exposed). It may seem that metal music is a direct attack on teenagers primarily and other headbangers, with all it's evil, gore and satanist messages. However it is not right that all metal bands have this message. There is a broad variety of sub-genres within metal music itself, with lyrical themes from very different aspects of life an death as well as in between of the two. Not all of the metal videos have destruction in them and not all covers are black or red.
Monica, when giving example of the bands you liked and did not - you mentioned some mainstream metal bands. What does mainstream mean? There are record labels for the metal, that offer contracts to the musicians same as there are producers for the pop industry. Pretty much you can think of some metal bands being POP, because their music is polished by the producers of the band that works for the label, in order to hit the target audience, and of course, get PROFIT!!!1 Sometimes bands get very little deal of the income that the record label owns in a result of sale. So some of the bands you mentioned there, are so called mainstream bands. It does not mean they are bad. It just relates to what is written above, with all sorts of consequences, like change of style, for example. Often, band that is sold out, changes its style to something less aggresive in tone, in order to suit larger audiences of listeners. That is the most obvious change when the band "sells-out". Actually, such bands have a quite high level of performance standard, and their tunes are very well thought through.
Try to find and listen to more underground bands. Even though, they are trying to clone as much as they can the ones that are up high in the fame and glory, there are still cases of a very talented band that is free and not promoted.
New bands that are formed from the followers of metal cult (yes, it is a cult to some extend, watch "Heaedbangers journey" :-) ) - they are passionate teens that get access to the music that they can get access to. And that is, in our world, the things that are sold in the shop. Mostly. Now it is a bit better with the internet. So as they learn to play, they play the riffs from their favourite bands that are chosen from the pool of mainstream bands that are known. And those are known because they are produced to be known and to be sold out... Often kids would grow long hair and wear black. Next level is piercing, tattooing, wearing more leather and more metal items: chains, spikes. Last thing is to wear corpse-paint. But not the least. Some manged to burn churches under the inspiration, and, I suspect while being under the influence. :C
Hopefully, the chaotic nature that metal has, creates a wide options for the musicians, and there are good bands out there, that noone knows about, that are very talented and have smart messages in their lyrics. Keep browsing metal-arhives.com.

Try to listen these for some inspiration, if you haven't heard them yet. In no particular order and without any judgment, just info:
Disillusion, Animals as leaders, Aghora, Cynic, Spiral Architect, Arcturus, Crematory, Novembre, Misanthrope, Borknagar, Amon Amarth, Pitbulls in the nursery - check out In my veins track, Yngwie Malmsteen, Anomaly, Primus, Meshuggah, Haggard.

If you think that this can be posted to the forum, I more than welcome you to do that. Also, if you have something else to say, we can continue sharing of the ideas. (learning :-) )

Stay true. \m/
Anonymous Metalhead.