Why do many teenagers compare classical and metal?

It is because, somewhere along the way, someone has fed to them the concept that metal is closely related to classical music. This, combined with a puzzling need for teenagers to seek 'approval' for their taste in music, leads to the wealth of these pointless comparisons.

We also get quite a few questions in this section from 'metalheads' asking what classical music is like metal. The same root cause is behind this question which is equally pointless and misguided.

EDIT@Mike: For 'influenced by', read 'cribbed from'.

I'd say all but ONE Contributor here (not that I agree with him but I nevertheless fully respect his opinion) actually KNOWS what he's talking about.

Never mind about the 'teenager' thing, that's just so demeaning...

''Who actually believes that heavy metal is only a stone throw away from western art music?''

All those you (consciously or unconsciously) cherry-picked on Y!A.

Ask ANYONE in the know about both classical music and metal and i will *assure* you nobody in their right mind will tell you that metal (in all its forms) is anywhere close to classical music as regards intrinsic musical value, broadly speaking. Though *I* can tell you that some, not to say a *lot* of metal songs DO supersede in intrinsic value 'some' works written in the 'classical' tradition. Shocking? I could give you thousands of examples but I won't - you do the work.

Please do your homework, read on the subject and LISTEN to the actual works from these bona fide artists, whose musicality AND virtuosity (obviously, some are better than others, same for classical music) just cannot be dismissed out of hand simply because ''they're not classical''.

Y!A is not 'real life' - try and go out asking 'real' musicians. I'll bet you'll get a whole different pulse from what you see here in this most open of forums...

Best,

Raymond

Dress all in black. Go to your car. Take a drive with the top down and the CD cranked to 20. Put on Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Head bang along to the deep thumping bass line. Do this consistently for at least a month. See how much street cred that gets you with your metal friends.

It is just a myth propagated by those who would like their particular sub-genre to have intellectual "chops." There is no connection between the two, either from a music theory standpoint or virtuosity of the players. Metal has neither the structure or complexity to support such a comparison. Metal gains from its relative simplicity by having more immediacy, but is derived from rock music and rock's relatively straightforward structure.

Few musicians make this assertion.

I heard from a guy i know

that a lot of times Death Metal and other Forms of Metal

are not only influenced by hard rock

but by sometimes Wagner and Vivaldi

Great answers everyone! But I think it has a lot to do with playing music with the volume really cranked up enough to shake the windows.:)

I can think of two possible explanations:

One, they probably equate instrumental music with classical music.

Two, they probably equate minor modality with classical music.

It incorporates a lot of the melodies and harmonies classical music does. It's raw and intensely human: Bach was the Metallica of his day. And a surprising amount of choral techniques go into creating it. It's more than you can say about whinny, single melody country tunes about booze, rap songs created by computers (Autotune is the worst piece of equipment ever created) and generic pop music generated by corporate committees.

And it's not just teenagers who say that..it's smart adults, too.

Well, they both require talent to make and perform, so that is a major similarity between the two, and a major difference with the manufactured rap/pop garbage which is considered widely popular today.

They do? I have not experienced that. lol.