Keys in Death Metal

[zim]

can't say i know a ton about music theory, i khav a couple of questions!



is it common for dm to stay in the same key for an entire song?



and are there any dm songs that are completely atonal or change keys often? (samples would be great)

[vO)))id]

check Hate Eternal "Servants of the Gods", that's basically C# minor and Eb minor.

There are probably bands composing death metal in certain keys, but a lot of it is also atonal. Most of Cannibal Corpse's riffs are based on diminished scales. In the last HE records Erik wrote a lot of riffs using chords consisting of augmented 4th's (or diminished 5th's, which is the same).



Chords like this:

Code: Select all

------

------

-5----

-4----

-3----

-2----

2 = root note, 3 = augmented fourth on the root note, while 4 is an octave on the root note but an augmented fourth on 3 - same goes for 4 and 5.

For such chord progressions it's hard to write melodies or solo's that fit a certain key, because there isn't really one. These kind of intervals all sound dissonant, and can be used with diminished keys/scales.



Trey used a lot of pentatonic scales (like blues scales) in his solo's, but putting notes that aren't in that key between them makes the solo's sometimes seem out of place. Same goes for the minor melodic and minor harmonic scales played in MA and HE songs.

[SCYTHE_OF_ANTICHRIST]

I mix up almost every sort of scale/mode types in stuff i come up with...I generally drift around variations on standard major/minor stuff and flavor it with bits of melodic/harmonic/diminished/oriental/persian/etc...even some whack 6 tone type scales like something called "pelog"...



But it goes beyond just staying in one "mode" for a song...I'll completely change gears from riff to riff in each section of a song, which is a sure fire way to add maximum "color" to your sounds/songs....



At least in my most humble of opinions...............

[FUKKET]

what Tom said.



If doing black metal you can obviously do a lot more (lush chords with 3rds etc).

[zim]

thanks for the input guys, it's helped give me a better ideal of this stuff



anyone else care to share their thoughts?

[lavaBorn]

NECROPHAGIA use keyboards

they are old school death metal and the inspirations from 70s horror/gore flicks

[zim]

[Abzu]

[quote name="zimberly"][/quote]

[lavaBorn]

oops i havnt read the post, just read the topic and posted

misinterpretation

wish if i were not that lazy to read others comment

[lavaBorn]

atleast I made others laugh

[Spirits of the Deep Waters]

Diminished, Chromatics and Tri-tones = Most high triumvirate of death meddle

[Abzu]

[quote name="lavaBorn"]atleast I made others laugh [/quote]

The correct attitude, sir.

[Hallucinating dead]

Just wanted to ask if MA makes scale based songs, because trey usually talks anti-scales and stuff