Music

I'm a bit of a classical music nerd. I started piano and singing when I was five, cello when I was eight, and tuba when I was twelve. I headbang when I listen to Verdi.

As a result, people are often surprised when they find out that my favourite type of music is heavy metal.

It's really not that surprising - classical music and heavy metal are incredibly similar. In fact they need not even be different things - for example 'Hall Of The Mountain King' by Edvard Grieg, performed by Apocalyptica (four cello players who started off classical, and then diversified into metal).

Listen to 'Dies Irae' by Verdi, and then listen to 'Disposable Heroes' by Metallica. They're practically identical. Stylistically, classical music and metal are practically the same thing. They involve complex instrumental solos underscored with a supporting mix of instruments. Think of a metal band as a chamber orchestra on steroids.

In an orchestra, the viola is the equivalent of a bass guitar. Most of the time they started off as violin (or guitar) players (depending on which side of the metaphor you're following) getting all the - to quote Frank Zappa for a moment - 'bitchen solos', and then as the result of internal politics they get demoted to where they just stand (or sit) there playing sustained notes from here unto oblivion.

Admittedly, every so often, someone bucks the trend - Bach's 'Ciaccona', or '(Anaesthesia) Pulling Teeth' by Metallica - but generally, they're the butt of everyone else's jokes.

The double basses are just like the synthesiser player: they're perpetually frustrated because they're not a violin/guitar player. Their part is alright, but it's never amazingly enjoyable. Or challenging. Or interesting.

Brass players could are quite similar to the lead singer - they leave a lot of spit in the area around them. I'm in a brass band, and the moment rehearsal finishes, you walk with your eyes on the ground so as to avoid the massive pools of spit left by people's instruments. I the same way, lead singers spag. It's a fact of life. Sitting in the orchestra pit of anything is particularly unpleasant if you're a tuba like myself and you're near the back of the pit - right in the middle of the 'wet zone'.

Percussionists (with the exception of mallet and timpani) are just like drummers - half the time they can't read music. The Muppets really got it right when they made Animal the drummer.

Of course, the marvellous thing about metal bands, is there's minimal ponciness in their music. Ponciness is something I thoroughly dislike in music. Debussy was good at ponce. Admittedly late Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Rossini, Handel etc. managed to compose some reasonably hardcore music, but the (in my opinion) good stuff is far outweighed by fluttery little flute cantatas and violin concertos.

There's also minimal postmodernism in metal. Don't get me wrong - I thoroughly like the concept of postmodernism in historiographical study, but I really dislike it in the arts. Listen to Elliot Gyger's 'I Am Not Yet Born' (on the Shall We Dream CD of the Sydney Childrens Choir - I'm pretty sure they're the only ones to ever record it); To Look Yet Not Find by Brett Dean; anything by Paul Stanhope or Joe Twist. Postmodernist music is unpleasant. It's unpleasant to sing (especially I Am Not Yet Born. Singing compound fourths is not fun.) and it's unpleasant to listen to. It's just not nice.

Finally, metal has the advantage of sounding astoundingly meaningful when written out. For the majority of last year, the folder in which I stored my school books had the lyrics from 'Welcome Home (Sanitarium)' by Metallica and 'On Suuri Sun Rantas Autius' by Matti Hyökki (a good performance of it is by the Tapiola Choir from Espoo, Finland. If you can't find that one, Gondwana Voices sang it in a collaboration with the Tapiola Choir on the New Light, New Hope album). People would read the Metallica and be amazed at how deep it was, did I write it myself etc. I would then rather enjoy their expressions when I told them it was Metallica. Metal, written out, sounds fantastic. I even enjoy the pleasantly ironic juxtaposition of the music with the lyrics - you wouldn't think they could attach a guitar riff to what is in essence rather good poetry, but they manage.

Which brings to mind one final pair of songs which are remarkably similar: On Suuri Sun Rantas Autius and Low Man's Lyric by Metallica. Listen to them. You'll see.