Melody

[Eleison]

Nowadays, when people are taught classical theory, they are taught about harmonic progressions. It's a fairly dry and academic pursuit.  Back in the era when classical music was actually written, all composers were schooled in renaissance style counterpoint: that is, the way in which melodies fit together.  Most people's idea of a melody is an elaboration on a progression of harmonic notes, whereas in reality it is the only spontaneous part of a composition.

In my view, melody is a sequence of notes which manifests something the artist wishes to express, and this may be disguised by a harmonic progression, meaning that a melody does not have to be a 'tune'.  Every great composition has an underlying melodic structure which is its 'soul'; sometimes this is immediately evident, such as in Gregorian chant, Indian classical music, or even Mozart; in other works, it can be disguised either by polyphony proper, by harmonic notes (romantic music), or through the repetition of small sequences (riffs). 

For me, the study of counterpoint has been far more engaging than the study of harmony, because the melodic integrity of the music gives birth to its theory.  I recommend Gradus ad Parnassum (the counterpoint textbook used by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven) to anyone interested in learning to compose polyphonic music.  This sort of technique could be applied to metal, with some modification.  This is more realistic than trying to include classical harmonic principles in metal, where the distortion would get in the way.

[Conservationist]

Back in the era when classical music was actually written all composers were schooled in renaissance style counterpoint, that is, the way in which melodies fit together. 

 Most people's idea of a melody is an elaboration on a progression of harmonic notes, whereas in reality it is the only spontaneous part of a composition.  In my view melody is a sequence of notes which manifest something which the artist wishes to express, and this may be disguised by a harmonic progression, meaning that a melody does not have to be a 'tune'.  Every great composition has an underlying melodic structure which is its 'soul', sometimes this is immediately evident, such as in Gregorian chant, Indian classical music, or even Mozart, in other works it can be disguised either by polyphony proper, by harmonic notes (romantic music), or through the repetition of small sequences (riffs). 

For me, the study of counterpoint has been far more engaging than the study of harmony, because the melodic integrity of the music gives birth to its theory.  I recommend Gradus ad Parnassum (the counterpoint textbook used by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven) to anyone interested in learning to compose polyphonic music.  This sort of technique could be applied to metal, with some modification.  This is more realistic than trying to include classical harmonic principles in metal, where the distortion would get in the way.

Candidate for post the of year. The science of phrase is that of death metal; it's similar to melody, in that each phrase creates a mental image and stringing them together produces a narrative form of music.

[Goluf]

Your facts are wrong, but I think I understand where you are coming from. A guy named Heinrich Schenker codified this fairly radical idea (in a nutshell, harmony comes from counterpoint, not vice versa) about 100 years ago. Check out his books.

[wEEman33]

Basic guidelines for writing successful counterpoint (I'm sure most of this is covered in the OP's suggested book):

-- avoid perfect intervals

-- avoid large leaps and skips; favor simple, stepwise motion

-- move upper voices in contrary motion to the bass

-- when one line ends, look for ways to imitate or carry on the line in other voices

[Eleison]

Your facts are wrong, but I think I understand where you are coming from. A guy named Heinrich Schenker codified this fairly radical idea (in a nutshell, harmony comes from counterpoint, not vice versa) about 100 years ago. Check out his books.

I don't quite follow, which facts are wrong?

[Eleison]

Basic guidelines for writing successful counterpoint (I'm sure most of this is covered in the OP's suggested book):

-- avoid perfect intervals

-- avoid large leaps and skips; favor simple, stepwise motion

-- move upper voices in contrary motion to the bass

-- when one line ends, look for ways to imitate or carry on the line in other voices

Just to clarify, perfect intervals are fine as long as they aren't brought about by similar motion, moving to a perfect consonance in contrary or oblique motion is fine provided it doesn't occur too often.  I've heard numerous theories as to why this rule exists, the first is that contrapuntal composers wanted to differentiate themselves from the style of organum, which involves numerous parallel perfect consonances, the other is that the western mind becomes agitated unless there is a sense of constant motion in music.  This latter theory in itself would explain the rapid development of all of the arts for better or worse after the middle ages.

[Conservationist]

I stir the fire:

[DIV]We are talking about bands that use the standard song structure, with extended instrumental sections, rigid and repetitive riffs (mostly quite short and single-phrase - no actual development or progression per se, just a large number of small ideas strung togther and put through various time signatures to make it sound complicated as opposed to truly compositionally complex) - and that includes the quiet bits, which typically waste the opportunity to compose something interesting, and simply break down a short (and normally exceedingly simple) riff into picked chords, with solos that are normally pyrotechnical displays of various techniques, improvisation, or a combination of the two, rather than true compositions (something that stands out a mile to a composition student).[/DIV]

I think this is a good point: song form is what defines progressive rock, and song form + melodic shape and the interplay between the two is what defines classical, which even more than jazz is the influence on progressive rock.

http://www.anus.com/metal/about/metal/assimilation

http://www.anus.com/metal/hall/index.php/topic,7250.0.html

Two useful links: the first is an essay on metal's "narrative" compositional form, the second a description of melody in classical and metal.

With that light in mind, I'd call these the most progressive metal releases:

Gorguts - Obscura
Demilich - Nespithe
Incantation - Onward to Golgotha
Burzum - Burzum/Aske

There's also a wide range of stuff derived from light prog (think: Rush) like Voivod, Supuration, and Obliveon.

Without the narrative construction, and sense of melodic complement, metal is lost. IMHO

[Ungeheuer]

Nowadays, when people are taught classical theory, they are taught about harmonic progressions. It's a fairly dry and academic pursuit.  Back in the era when classical music was actually written, all composers were schooled in renaissance style counterpoint: that is, the way in which melodies fit together.

Broad and largely inaccurate generalizations, for modal counterpoint is still widely taught - it's obligatory learning not only for budding composers today but also for a variety of other music-related disciplines like musicology. At the moment we're studying the styles of Lasso and Palestrina, suffice to say, it's a "fairly dry and academic pursuit" due to the rather cumbersome species approach favored by our teacher. I believe that while Fux' way of teaching counterpoint is great for self-study it's also happens to be very rigid, it doesn't really do justice to the supple freedom we find in the music of Palestrina, Lasso and Josquin in particular.

EDIT: And stop acting like classical music is dead.

[AnHero]

Nowadays, when people are taught classical theory, they are taught about harmonic progressions. It's a fairly dry and academic pursuit.  Back in the era when classical music was actually written, all composers were schooled in renaissance style counterpoint: that is, the way in which melodies fit together.  Most people's idea of a melody is an elaboration on a progression of harmonic notes, whereas in reality it is the only spontaneous part of a composition.

I think others are right that classical students don't just talk about harmony, but the focus on harmonic progression is definitely noticeable in popular music. Many tabs for popular songs don't even include a melody since so many pop songs are lyrics and a chord progression.

Also note that anything can be turned into a dry, academic pursuit. Harmony becomes particularly so because it is just so... analyzable. Psychoacoustics can be used to explain much of why harmonies and harmonic progressions sound the way they do, but our objective understanding of melody is lacking by comparison.

[here comes the bird flu]

Nowadays, when people are taught classical theory, they are taught about harmonic progressions. It's a fairly dry and academic pursuit.  Back in the era when classical music was actually written, all composers were schooled in renaissance style counterpoint: that is, the way in which melodies fit together.  Most people's idea of a melody is an elaboration on a progression of harmonic notes, whereas in reality it is the only spontaneous part of a composition.

In my view, melody is a sequence of notes which manifests something the artist wishes to express, and this may be disguised by a harmonic progression, meaning that a melody does not have to be a 'tune'.  Every great composition has an underlying melodic structure which is its 'soul'; sometimes this is immediately evident, such as in Gregorian chant, Indian classical music, or even Mozart; in other works, it can be disguised either by polyphony proper, by harmonic notes (romantic music), or through the repetition of small sequences (riffs). 

For me, the study of counterpoint has been far more engaging than the study of harmony, because the melodic integrity of the music gives birth to its theory.  I recommend Gradus ad Parnassum (the counterpoint textbook used by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven) to anyone interested in learning to compose polyphonic music.  This sort of technique could be applied to metal, with some modification.  This is more realistic than trying to include classical harmonic principles in metal, where the distortion would get in the way.

These days, the most painful thing a metal band can do is compose around chord progressions.

My experience with metal composition (and listening) shows that the 'counterpoint' approach is most rewarding. The most interesting metal bands concern themselves with pitch content (scales; more specifically, pentatonic and whole tone) and meter, not chord progressions.

Nespithe is a perfect example of the potential of these two ideas.

[Conservationist]

My experience with metal composition (and listening) shows that the 'counterpoint' approach is most rewarding. The most interesting metal bands concern themselves with pitch content (scales; more specifically, pentatonic and whole tone) and meter, not chord progressions.

I agree except for the choice of scales. The most interesting stuff is harmonic and melodic minors with chromatic fills. Metal is phrasal-narrative, which means that riffs throwing back and forth an idea like a conversation are what drives each song. Riffs 1 and 2 evolve into 3 and 4 which then must be compared to 1 and 2 and evolve into 4 and 5.

[here comes the bird flu]

My experience with metal composition (and listening) shows that the 'counterpoint' approach is most rewarding. The most interesting metal bands concern themselves with pitch content (scales; more specifically, pentatonic and whole tone) and meter, not chord progressions.

I agree except for the choice of scales. The most interesting stuff is harmonic and melodic minors with chromatic fills. Metal is phrasal-narrative, which means that riffs throwing back and forth an idea like a conversation are what drives each song. Riffs 1 and 2 evolve into 3 and 4 which then must be compared to 1 and 2 and evolve into 4 and 5.

I do not mean pentatonic scales in the most benign, bluesy way you can imagine. Five-note scales are unique: they are simultaneously major and minor.

Nespithe is a great example of phrasal-narrative song structures; about (a rough estimate) 80-90% of the riffs on that album are pentatonic.

Approaching composition from a guitarist's standpoint, pentatonic scales make even more sense. The guitar was designed as an accompaniment instrument; meant to play chords along with (mostly pentatonic) folk music. In this way, five-note scales lend themselves to unique chord voicings foreign to the metal world, as well as introducing an entirely new pitch set for the composing guitarist to work with, leading to original riff designs and tonalities.

[Goluf]

These days, the most painful thing a metal band can do is compose around chord progressions.

My experience with metal composition (and listening) shows that the 'counterpoint' approach is most rewarding. The most interesting metal bands concern themselves with pitch content (scales; more specifically, pentatonic and whole tone) and meter, not chord progressions.

For two good reasons:

1: Guitar distortion makes large chords sound "muddy", rendering something like a Maj79 functionally useless in most contexts, and thus uncommon in metal.

2: The chromatic resources metal is fond of supersede the principal of root progression (a tendency evident even with Wagner as earlier as Tristan) so that the concept of a "chord" or "triad" has ceased to exist, in the same way it could be said not to exist in music of the pre-tonal period (composers like Perotin), vertical sonorities being mainly incidental.

Metal music is very "Western" in this regard, favoring fast linear motion over the slow meditative structures found in almost every other non-European music. The notable exceptions (songs like "Clouded" from Obscura by Gorguts, or the "Introduction" to Blessed Are the Sick by Morbid Angel) consistently come from bands whose members have an above average knowledge of musical aesthetics.

Metal is phrasal-narrative, which means that riffs throwing back and forth an idea like a conversation are what drives each song. Riffs 1 and 2 evolve into 3 and 4 which then must be compared to 1 and 2 and evolve into 4 and 5.

The word for this is "variation" or sometimes "developing variation". All music has "phrases", and it can be and is argued that all music is "narrative", so besides the fact that it is in standard use, "variation" is a superior term.

The number of metal bands that use it can be counted on two hands. The rest are merely jamming more than 7 riffs into a song and feigning some kind of denouement.

[here comes the bird flu]

These days, the most painful thing a metal band can do is compose around chord progressions.

My experience with metal composition (and listening) shows that the 'counterpoint' approach is most rewarding. The most interesting metal bands concern themselves with pitch content (scales; more specifically, pentatonic and whole tone) and meter, not chord progressions.

For two good reasons:

1: Guitar distortion makes large chords sound "muddy", rendering something like a Maj79 functionally useless in most contexts, and thus uncommon in metal.

2: The chromatic resources metal is fond of supersede the principal of root progression (a tendency evident even with Wagner as earlier as Tristan) so that the concept of a "chord" or "triad" has ceased to exist, in the same way it could be said not to exist in music of the pre-tonal period (composers like Perotin), vertical sonorities being mainly incidental.

Metal music is very "Western" in this regard, favoring fast linear motion over the slow meditative structures found in almost every other non-European music. The notable exceptions (songs like "Clouded" from Obscura by Gorguts, or the "Introduction" to Blessed Are the Sick by Morbid Angel) consistently come from bands whose members have an above average knowledge of musical aesthetics.

Metal is phrasal-narrative, which means that riffs throwing back and forth an idea like a conversation are what drives each song. Riffs 1 and 2 evolve into 3 and 4 which then must be compared to 1 and 2 and evolve into 4 and 5.

The word for this is "variation" or sometimes "developing variation". All music has "phrases", and it can be and is argued that all music is "narrative", so besides the fact that it is in standard use, "variation" is a superior term.

The number of metal bands that use it can be counted on two hands. The rest are merely jamming more than 7 riffs into a song and feigning some kind of denouement.

I don't mean  to say bands should start covering jazz tunes, but using chord structures as building blocks for 'melodic lines' or riffs. The opening of the prelude to Tristan, for example...

Taking a basic C shape and moving it moving it to a D (as an example) on the guitar creates very interesting dissonances.

[Goluf]

Taking a basic C shape and moving it moving it to a D (as an example) on the guitar creates very interesting dissonances.

Yes, but isn't that a physical impulse and not a musical one?