The musical language of heavy metal : a study of form, rhythm, modes, and harmonic structure

Abstract

As a classical musician who has played in the styles of twentieth century popular music, I developed an interest in studying and analyzing popular music, particularly Heavy Metal music. This study focuses on Heavy Metal's musical language of the period between the early 1970s and mid-1980s, including bands such as Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden. It covers the historical background of the style, then analyzes extensively the harmonic structures of the genre and examines the form, rhythm, and melodies using statistical data from a corpus selection of Heavy Metal repertoire.