Editing Heavy metal music (section)

===Musical language===

====Rhythm and tempo====
[[File:Heavy rythmic pattern2.png|upright=2|thumb|An example of a rhythmic pattern used in heavy metal. The upper stave is a [[palm mute|palm-muted]] [[rhythm guitar]] part. The lower stave is the drum part.{{Listen|title=Rhythmic Pattern Audio|filename=Heavy rythmic pattern audio.ogg|plain=yes|style=float:right}}]]
The rhythm in metal songs is emphatic, with deliberate stresses. Weinstein observes that the wide array of sonic effects available to metal drummers enables the "rhythmic pattern to take on a complexity within its elemental drive and insistency".<ref name=W24/> In many heavy metal songs, the main groove is characterized by short, two- or three-note rhythmic figures – generally made up of [[eighth note|eighth]] or [[sixteenth note|16th notes]]. These rhythmic figures are usually performed with a [[staccato]] attack created by using a [[palm mute|palm-muted]] technique on the rhythm guitar.<ref>"Master of Rhythm: The Importance of Tone and Right-hand Technique", ''Guitar Legends'', April 1997, p. 99</ref>

Brief, abrupt and detached [[rhythmic cell]]s are joined into rhythmic phrases with a distinctive, often jerky texture. These phrases are used to create rhythmic accompaniment and melodic figures called [[riff]]s, which help to establish thematic [[Hook (music)|hooks]]. Heavy metal songs also use longer rhythmic figures such as [[whole note]]- or dotted quarter note-length chords in slow-tempo [[power ballad]]s. The tempos in early heavy metal music tended to be "slow, even ponderous".<ref name=W24/> By the late 1970s, however, metal bands were employing a wide variety of tempos, and as recently as the 2000s, metal tempos range from slow ballad tempos (quarter note = 60 [[beats per minute]]) to extremely fast [[blast beat]] tempos (quarter note = 350 beats per minute).<ref name=Berry/>

====Harmony====
One of the signatures of the genre is the guitar power chord.<ref>Walser (1993), p. 2</ref> In technical terms, the power chord is relatively simple: it involves just one main [[interval (music)|interval]], generally the [[perfect fifth]], though an [[octave]] may be added as a doubling of the [[Root (chord)|root]]. When power chords are played on the lower strings at high volumes and with distortion, [[Resultant (organ)|additional low-frequency sounds]] are created, which add to the "weight of the sound" and create an effect of "overwhelming power".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Walser |first1=Robert|date=2014|title=Running With the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music|page=43 |publisher=Wesleyan University Press}}</ref> Although the perfect fifth interval is the most common basis for the power chord,<ref>See, e.g., [http://www.melbay.com/guitarglossary.asp Glossary of Guitar Terms]. Mel Bay Publications. Retrieved on 15 November 2007</ref> power chords are also based on different intervals such as the [[minor third]], [[major third]], [[perfect fourth]], [[diminished fifth]] or [[minor sixth]].<ref>"Shaping Up and Riffing Out: Using Major and Minor Power Chords to Add Colour to Your Parts", ''Guitar Legends'', April 1997, p. 97</ref> Most power chords are also played with a consistent finger arrangement that can be slid easily up and down the [[fingerboard|fretboard]].<ref>Schonbrun (2006), p. 22</ref>

====Typical harmonic structures====
Heavy metal is usually based on riffs created with three main harmonic traits: modal scale progressions, [[tritone]] and chromatic progressions, and the use of [[pedal point]]s. Traditional heavy metal tends to employ modal scales, in particular the [[Aeolian mode|Aeolian]] and [[Phrygian mode]]s.<ref>Walser (1993), p. 46</ref> Harmonically speaking, this means the genre typically incorporates modal chord progressions such as the Aeolian progressions I-♭VI-♭VII, I-♭VII-(♭VI), or I-♭VI-IV-♭VII and Phrygian progressions implying the relation between I and ♭II (I-♭II-I, I-♭II-III, or I-♭II-VII for example). Tense-sounding [[chromatic]] or [[tritone]] relationships are used in a number of metal chord progressions.<ref>Marshall, Wolf. "Power Lord—Climbing Chords, Evil Tritones, Giant Callouses", ''Guitar Legends'', April 1997, p. 29</ref><ref name=MH>Dunn, Sam (2005). {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20180807081407/http://metalhistory.com/ "Metal: A Headbanger's Journey".]}} Warner Home Video (2006). Retrieved on 19 March 2007</ref> In addition to using modal harmonic relationships, heavy metal also uses "[[Pentatonic scale|pentatonic]] and blues-derived features".<ref name="Lilja 2009">{{cite journal |last=Lilja |first=Esa |date=2009 |title=Theory and Analysis of Classic Heavy Metal Harmony |journal=[[Advanced Musicology]] |publisher=IAML Finland |volume=1 }}</ref>

The tritone, an interval spanning three whole tones – such as C to F# – was considered extremely [[dissonant]] and unstable by medieval and Renaissance music theorists. It was nicknamed the ''diabolus in musica –'' "the devil in music".<ref>The first explicit prohibition of that interval seems to occur with the "development of [[Guido of Arezzo]]'s [[hexachord]]al system which made B flat a [[diatonic]] note, namely as the 4th degree of the hexachordal on F. From then until the end of Renaissance the tritone, nicknamed the 'diabolus in musica', was regarded as an unstable interval and rejected as a consonance" (Sadie, Stanley [1980]. "Tritone", in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', 1st ed. MacMillan, pp. 154–155. {{ISBN|0-333-23111-2}}. See also Arnold, Denis [1983]. "Tritone", in ''The New Oxford Companion to Music, Volume 1: A–J''. [[Oxford University Press]]. {{ISBN|0-19-311316-3}}</ref>

Heavy metal songs often make extensive use of [[pedal point]] as a harmonic basis. A pedal point is a sustained tone, typically in the bass range, during which at least one foreign (i.e., dissonant) harmony is sounded in the other parts.<ref>Kennedy (1985), "Pedal Point", p. 540</ref> According to Robert Walser, heavy metal harmonic relationships are "often quite complex" and the harmonic analysis done by metal players and teachers is "often very sophisticated".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Walser |first1=Robert|date=2014|title=Running With the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music|page=47 |publisher=Wesleyan University Press}}</ref> In the study of heavy metal chord structures, it has been concluded that "heavy metal music has proved to be far more complicated" than other music researchers had realized.<ref name="Lilja 2009"/>

====Relationship with classical music====
[[File:Ritchie Blackmore 1977.jpg|thumb|left|alt=A guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore, is shown playing a Fender electric guitar onstage. He has long hair.|[[Ritchie Blackmore]], founder of [[Deep Purple]] and [[Rainbow (rock band)|Rainbow]], known for the neoclassical approach in his guitar performances.]]
Robert Walser stated that, alongside blues and R&B, the "assemblage of disparate musical styles known&nbsp;... as '[[classical music]]'" has been a major influence on heavy metal since the genre's earliest days, and that metal's "most influential musicians have been guitar players who have also studied classical music. Their appropriation and adaptation of classical models sparked the development of a new kind of guitar virtuosity [and] changes in the harmonic and melodic language of heavy metal."<ref>Walser (1993), p. 58</ref>

In an article written for ''[[Grove Music Online]]'', Walser stated that the "1980s brought on&nbsp;... the widespread adaptation of chord progressions and virtuosic practices from 18th-century European models, especially [[J. S. Bach|Bach]] and [[Antonio Vivaldi]], by influential guitarists such as [[Ritchie Blackmore]], [[Marty Friedman]], [[Jason Becker]], [[Uli Jon Roth]], [[Eddie Van Halen]], [[Randy Rhoads]] and [[Yngwie Malmsteen]]."<ref>{{cite web|author=Walser, Robert|title=Heavy metal|publisher=Grove Music Online|access-date=6 March 2010|url=http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/public/book/omo_gmo}} {{subscription required|date=June 2018}}</ref> Kurt Bachmann of [[Believer (band)|Believer]] has stated that "if done correctly, metal and classical fit quite well together. Classical and metal are probably the two genres that have the most in common when it comes to feel, texture, creativity."<ref>Wagner, Wilson, p. 156</ref>

Although a number of metal musicians cite classical composers as inspiration, classical and metal are rooted in different cultural traditions and practices – classical in the [[art music]] tradition, metal in the [[popular music]] tradition. As [[musicologists]] Nicolas Cook and Nicola Dibben note: "Analyses of popular music also sometimes reveal the influence of 'art traditions.' An example is Walser's linkage of heavy metal music with the ideologies and even some of the performance practices of nineteenth-century [[Romanticism]]. However, it would be clearly wrong to claim that traditions such as blues, rock, heavy metal, rap or dance music derive primarily from "art music.'"<ref>See Cook and Dibben (2001), p. 56</ref>