I’m a mediocre piano player. I can play the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, the second movement of the Pathetique Sonata, and on a good day the opening exposition of the third movement of the Tempest Sonata. I can play for a small church, but while no-one may notice mistakes they won’t walk away raving about the piano.
Yet I keep struggling through Beethoven’s sonatas that I have no hope of ever playing with anything resembling competency (I don’t even know how anyone CAN play the simultaneous trill and 32nd notes in the third movement of Waldstein). His arrangement and structure is both familiar (typically keeping a sonata structure) and surprising (subverting the structure), and I find ever more nuances the more I "play".
Sonatas typically follow an exposition, development, and recapitulation structure. The exposition has two main themes. The development extends and varies the themes (often in the opposing tonality). The recapitulation will return to the main themes from the exposition but usually in a different key signature. Mozart’s Sonata No. 16 (often played, like Fur Elise, due to its simplicity rather than its musical merits) provides a good example of this structure. Mozart opens with a basic motif in C, then develops the exposition ending in G. The development is a straightforward minor variant of the second theme. During the recapitulation, the first theme modulates to F, developing and resolving back to C.
An example of how Beethoven subverts expectations is in the first movement of the Appassionata. The opening F-minor theme softens into a calming second theme in A-flat major. But rather than recapitulate using the expected D-flat major, Beethoven uses perhaps the least likely key: F major! Delightful surprises like this abound throughout Beethoven’s work, and are hard to decipher merely through listening: one has to read and play the music to unravel the complexity.
I am also a big fan of metal. A high caliber metal band has the range, skill, and instrumentation to require rapt attention and multiple listens to understand. My interest has drifted slightly as I age, moving from nordic bands (Opeth, Windir, Moonsorrow) to Southern American bands (Periphery, Between the Buried and Me, Animals as Leaders). As I can’t play guitar or drums, and my screaming is not something anyone would intentionally listen to, the closest I can come to "playing" in a metal band is attending a metal concert and seeing live and up close how the musicians handle their craft.
Niche metal bands play in small venues. These venues are the only good way to listen to live amplified music. The speakers are sufficient to fill the space without distorting. The deleterious effect of the relatively slow speed of sound is not as noticeable in a small space. And the audience is typically much better: they are there because they are true fans and not to show off on instagram. Small venues also get loud. Hearing protection is a must to avoid permanent damage.
I don’t go to many concerts. Bands I like don’t usually perform close to where I live, and even when they do I have trouble convincing anyone to attend (and attending a concert alone just feels sad). But recently the stars aligned and for the first time in over a decade I saw one of my favorites live.
Over the past decade, some things had changed. The audience, of course, had aged. Rather than young 20-somethings that still had hopes for the future, the fans were now overweight, ossified, and lower-middle class. A good chunk of this is selection effect: the successful 20-somethings now have children and responsibilities that put the kibosh on moshing into the late hours of the night. Those that remain skewed "diner-goth".
Southern metal tends to be apolitical, and the band remained so. However, the venue itself overtly signaled leftist political affiliation, in contrast to the pre-Trump venue of the previous concert. Despite a relatively subdued June overall, this venue had draped their entrance in a "progress" flag. The sound mixer’s booth displayed both a Palestinian and transgender flag. There were a disproportionate number of lesbian couples in the crowd.
There were also some things that hadn’t changed. I was still the only one in the place without a tattoo. The band was still in peak form. The pit was still active. I still got cut and bruised during especially crazy parts of the set.
Unlike the audience, the band members were aging gracefully, looking almost respectable compared to their long-haired days. There was still nothing graceful about their music. If anything, the set was heavier than the previous time I had seen them live. The drummer played the double bass with ferocity and precision, the guitarists flawlessly balanced heavy riffs and soaring solos, the bassist cleverly counterpointed the guitars, and the lead singer juxtaposed growls with the occasional sublime melody. I was mere feet away from one of the guitarists, a literal front row view as he performed (I caught the guitar pick he threw into the audience at the end).
Much like Beethoven, this band has surprises for those who know a little music theory. One of their clean vocal sections ascends through an unsettling augmented triad, then descends back through the augmented triad and continues to descend in a diminished triad, then again ascends in an augmented triad a half-note lower than the original. When the tune repeats, it sounds as if it starts at a higher note, subverting the kitschy method often found in pop music of raising the final chorus a note to get a cheap dopamine hit.
The band isn’t against a little kitsch themselves. They have quasi-random “easter-eggs” that they fling into their songs. In isolation these should never sound good but somehow fits in the context of the song. One of their longer riffs is a metal-sounding version of Pachelbel’s canon. Typically, a "break" is an eye-rolling method of inducing audience energy, and one of their songs leans into it with a winking self-awareness. Live, it was still effective: even though the audience knew it was coming, the insanely heavy return from the break drove the mosh pit into a frenzy.
I have not mastered the piano, and I’m an amateur at theory. But even that is enough to enhance my appreciation and enjoyment of the complex and technical music that I listen to. Almost everyone likes music but few understand music. Take some time to learn the basics, and a whole new world will open for you. And go to a concert, whether classical or metal. Appreciate the creativity and skill of the players and the composition.
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I’m a mediocre piano player. I can play the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, the second movement of the Pathetique Sonata, and on a good day the opening exposition of the third movement of the Tempest Sonata. I can play for a small church, but while no-one may notice mistakes they won’t walk away raving about the piano.
Yet I keep struggling through Beethoven’s sonatas that I have no hope of ever playing with anything resembling competency (I don’t even know how anyone CAN play the simultaneous trill and 32nd notes in the third movement of Waldstein). His arrangement and structure is both familiar (typically keeping a sonata structure) and surprising (subverting the structure), and I find ever more nuances the more I "play".
Sonatas typically follow an exposition, development, and recapitulation structure. The exposition has two main themes. The development extends and varies the themes (often in the opposing tonality). The recapitulation will return to the main themes from the exposition but usually in a different key signature. Mozart’s Sonata No. 16 (often played, like Fur Elise, due to its simplicity rather than its musical merits) provides a good example of this structure. Mozart opens with a basic motif in C, then develops the exposition ending in G. The development is a straightforward minor variant of the second theme. During the recapitulation, the first theme modulates to F, developing and resolving back to C.
An example of how Beethoven subverts expectations is in the first movement of the Appassionata. The opening F-minor theme softens into a calming second theme in A-flat major. But rather than recapitulate using the expected D-flat major, Beethoven uses perhaps the least likely key: F major! Delightful surprises like this abound throughout Beethoven’s work, and are hard to decipher merely through listening: one has to read and play the music to unravel the complexity.
I am also a big fan of metal. A high caliber metal band has the range, skill, and instrumentation to require rapt attention and multiple listens to understand. My interest has drifted slightly as I age, moving from nordic bands (Opeth, Windir, Moonsorrow) to Southern American bands (Periphery, Between the Buried and Me, Animals as Leaders). As I can’t play guitar or drums, and my screaming is not something anyone would intentionally listen to, the closest I can come to "playing" in a metal band is attending a metal concert and seeing live and up close how the musicians handle their craft.
Niche metal bands play in small venues. These venues are the only good way to listen to live amplified music. The speakers are sufficient to fill the space without distorting. The deleterious effect of the relatively slow speed of sound is not as noticeable in a small space. And the audience is typically much better: they are there because they are true fans and not to show off on instagram. Small venues also get loud. Hearing protection is a must to avoid permanent damage.
I don’t go to many concerts. Bands I like don’t usually perform close to where I live, and even when they do I have trouble convincing anyone to attend (and attending a concert alone just feels sad). But recently the stars aligned and for the first time in over a decade I saw one of my favorites live.
Over the past decade, some things had changed. The audience, of course, had aged. Rather than young 20-somethings that still had hopes for the future, the fans were now overweight, ossified, and lower-middle class. A good chunk of this is selection effect: the successful 20-somethings now have children and responsibilities that put the kibosh on moshing into the late hours of the night. Those that remain skewed "diner-goth".
Southern metal tends to be apolitical, and the band remained so. However, the venue itself overtly signaled leftist political affiliation, in contrast to the pre-Trump venue of the previous concert. Despite a relatively subdued June overall, this venue had draped their entrance in a "progress" flag. The sound mixer’s booth displayed both a Palestinian and transgender flag. There were a disproportionate number of lesbian couples in the crowd.
There were also some things that hadn’t changed. I was still the only one in the place without a tattoo. The band was still in peak form. The pit was still active. I still got cut and bruised during especially crazy parts of the set.
Unlike the audience, the band members were aging gracefully, looking almost respectable compared to their long-haired days. There was still nothing graceful about their music. If anything, the set was heavier than the previous time I had seen them live. The drummer played the double bass with ferocity and precision, the guitarists flawlessly balanced heavy riffs and soaring solos, the bassist cleverly counterpointed the guitars, and the lead singer juxtaposed growls with the occasional sublime melody. I was mere feet away from one of the guitarists, a literal front row view as he performed (I caught the guitar pick he threw into the audience at the end).
Much like Beethoven, this band has surprises for those who know a little music theory. One of their clean vocal sections ascends through an unsettling augmented triad, then descends back through the augmented triad and continues to descend in a diminished triad, then again ascends in an augmented triad a half-note lower than the original. When the tune repeats, it sounds as if it starts at a higher note, subverting the kitschy method often found in pop music of raising the final chorus a note to get a cheap dopamine hit.
The band isn’t against a little kitsch themselves. They have quasi-random “easter-eggs” that they fling into their songs. In isolation these should never sound good but somehow fits in the context of the song. One of their longer riffs is a metal-sounding version of Pachelbel’s canon. Typically, a "break" is an eye-rolling method of inducing audience energy, and one of their songs leans into it with a winking self-awareness. Live, it was still effective: even though the audience knew it was coming, the insanely heavy return from the break drove the mosh pit into a frenzy.
I have not mastered the piano, and I’m an amateur at theory. But even that is enough to enhance my appreciation and enjoyment of the complex and technical music that I listen to. Almost everyone likes music but few understand music. Take some time to learn the basics, and a whole new world will open for you. And go to a concert, whether classical or metal. Appreciate the creativity and skill of the players and the composition.
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