I wrote a 12-tone Metal riff.

[simonXsludge]

Hey folks.

I wrote this 12-tone riff at some point last year, but the song I wrote it for never made it. I figured I could re-record it with the Ibanez DCM100 and share it, because there aren't so many 12-tone Metal riffs out there.

Towards the end, the second guitar is playing the same riff a minor second higher.

[SC]https://soundcloud.com/sludgestudios/ibanez-dcm100-12-tone-riff[/SC]

Have any of you messed around with 12-tone riffs in your music? I think it's fun and a challenge to come up with something that doesn't just sound random.

 

[pestilentdecay]

I've actually tried extrapolating that concept to my microtonal guitar, trying 25-tone riffs. It's pretty difficult and time consuming to write riffs this way, here's a 25-tone matrix I constructed:

I did make a short video of some herky-jerky mathcore riffs with this stuff here (it does sound random, but I haven't attempted to write more coherent stuff with the 25-tone method yet): https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=680379588736158

 

[Necris]

I use them all the time in my music both metal and non-metal. I've done some exclusively 12 tone stuff although in the context of heavy metal music I tend to flow in and out between heavy chromaticism and strict 12 tone serialism. I really don't understand why this technique so neglected by the metal community even in more extreme genres.
My general guesses are:
1. It's just not poppy/catchy enough for the average metal fan. (Tl;Dr: It makes for "Difficult" listening)
2. Serial techniques require too much effort and provide too many constraints for metal musicians to want to bother trying. (Tl;Dr: Lazy Musicians)

 

[AugmentedFourth]

I really don't understand why this technique so neglected by the metal community even in more extreme genres.
My general guesses are:
1. It's just not poppy/catchy enough for the average metal fan. (Tl;Dr: It makes for "Difficult" listening)
2. Serial techniques require too much effort and provide too many constraints for metal musicians to want to bother trying. (Tl;Dr: Lazy Musicians)

I think that while those are possible reasons that might psychologically deter people from using dodecaphony in metal music, these are probably even more prevalent:

3. People don't like 12-tone music that much. It's not bad, but it doesn't sound as cool as tonal music, which can be just as difficult of a listen as 12-tone music. So the proportion of people using 12 tone techniques in metal is the same as the proportion of metal musicians who prefer those kinds of compositions. (Tl;dr: Aesthetics are subjective)

4. 12-tone music shifts the complexity from harmonic complexity to thematic complexity. The whole point of 12-tone is to eschew harmony in favor of purely theme-driven music, which is not what the metal genre runs off of. Thus some of what makes it 'metal' is lost. (Tl;dr: metal music isn't thematically driven)

 

[spawnofthesith]

Sick!

I was just thinking about this yesterday. I want to find more metal bands (or honestly any type of music) that utilize this. Blotted Science and Last Chance to Reason are the only ones I know. Any others?

I've been wanting to try this myself, maybe the next song I write

 

[Necris]

Defeated Sanity throw in serialism on occasion. Off the top of my head Psalms of the Moribund (the track, on the album of the same name) has a tone row in it, but it's not really central to the song, it's more like a bridge (or to be more accurate the guitar equivalent of a drum fill) played near the end. I know they will use tone rows in other songs, but they're usually truncated rows rather than full 12 note rows.

Since we're on "modern" techniques, has anyone experimented with Messiaens Modes of Limited Transposition in a metal context? I began a death metal track based around his third mode, if I recall correctly, but never completed it.

 

[AugmentedFourth]

Since we're on "modern" techniques, has anyone experimented with Messiaens Modes of Limited Transposition in a metal context? I began a death metal track based around his third mode, if I recall correctly, but never completed it.

Actually, this reminded me of something I wrote. A while back I tried my hand at a death metal song using Messiaen's 2nd mode (octatonic scale). The first half is octatonic, and the second half is based off of a tone row in the style of Jarzombek. Attached is a .zip containing a .midi and .gp5 of the tune.

 

[UnattendedGolfcart]

How do you guys go about deciding what order to sequence your notes in for this? I've known about 12 tone for a few years but never really understood how to start. I'd love to get more into it since I want to write weirder metal.

I've seen some things online that just give you 12 notes in a random order, but I don't know about other ways to make it not sound overly jagged.

 

[simonXsludge]

I honestly just tried to make a cool riff with it. I don't really believe a "random" order would cut it for me and with that being said, the 12-tone technique is not going to be something I will utilize a whole lot, since it really takes quite a bit of time to figure out a way to make a good riff out of it.

It is fun to explore, though. So just figure it out by what sounds good to you.

 

[Aion]

Personally I find 12 tone music to be set up in a way that is more logical than musical. That's not to say there's not artistry in it, but strict 12 tone music always sounds more like an aural logic puzzle than anything else. There are a few 12 tone pieces I like, but it always seems like I like them in spite of being 12 tone, rather than because of it. It's a challenge for the composer, but I find it to have very little payoff for the listener. I think more flexible systems, like Ron Jarzombek's are really cool because by eschewing the strictness of the row there's is more musical freedom.

The modes of limited transposition are really fun to play with. I'm a big fan of things like symmetrical scales (especially the octatonic) for producing musical ideas that you can move around in ways that sound both similar and strange when compared to tonal music.