I was thinking of starting a black metal band in which the guitar is acoustic and I was wondering if those sort of bands were allowed onto Encyclopaedia Metallum.
\m/

(I ask this in ignorance of guitar playing and technical definitions of genres like rock/metal/etc. ...)

how would that be metal?

To me, metal requires amplification/distortion, not 'guitar playing': Ajattara's all acoustic album doesn't sound metal to me, whereas Tevana 3's album, which uses electric kanteles instead of guitars, does sound metal.

Metal is defined by songwriting. A metal sound is not a sufficient condition. In my opinion it is also not a necessary one.
Same goes for vocals. If you delete the vocals from a metal song it doesn't magically become another genre.

does that mean some 'metal covers of non-metal songs' were metal all along, or that they still aren't actually metal?

That they still aren't, unless the cover tweaks the song (tremolo picking, using actual metal riffs while more or less following the structure of the original etc.)

When it comes to MA, inhumanist is incorrect. We define a band as metal if the music has metal riffs.

We don't accept cover bands as the material is not original.

I don't see how I said anything else but whatever.

You wrote: "A metal sound is not a sufficient condition. In my opinion it is also not a necessary one."

How is a riff metal without it sounding metal?

I don't know about riffs "sounding metal", but when I said "sound" I was referring to the technical side like distortion and stuff. A flute certainly doesn't sound metal but you can play metal riffs on it all the same. The term "sound" is kinda ambiguous I guess.

....What

...What (x2)

What what? Is the sound of a flute metal? Can you play certain notes in a certain order on a flute that make a metal riff? Does it stop being a metal riff if you play it on a flute? If you play it on a flute does it sound metal? *Sigh*, I guess I should just shut up.

Edit: Yes a metal riff doesn't necessarily sound metal if it's played on a flute for example, that was what I was getting at. If it does it's because the term "sound" is not clearly defined.

...No?

What the...? If you play Angel of Death on a flute it sure as fuck won't be metal anymore. Do you think Tori Amos's piano cover of Raining Blood is metal?

Do you think this is metal? (Not in the "awesome" or "badass" sense, obviously)

(Hint: anyone who says "yes", go repeatedly punch yourself until you pass out, please.)


Probably... because I really don't understand what you're trying to say. Hopefully nothing quite as stupid as thinking that you can really play a "metal riff" on a flute.

Well that makes things clearer. And no, I won't punch myself for defining musical genres by compository criteria, thank you very much.

inhumanist is talking about sound in the sense of "texture" (distorted or not, performed by a violin, performed by a church organ, ...) as opposed to sound in the sense of "taste" (metal riff, jazz solo, trip-hop beat, flamenco hand-picked melodies, ...). He does have a point. From a strictly musical standpoint you can replay the main riff of 'Iron Man' note for note on a flute. Or a set of wine glasses. The thing is that distortion and guitars (or in some cases other string instruments) are a pretty much fundamental part of what defines metal, so "metal sound" more often than not bears both flavours of the word "sound". The same can probably be said about any genre. It's not just the songwriting but also the tools used that are defining and sometimes unique to a genre, in addition to the former and the latter influencing each other.

Just for the record, Tori Amos' Slayer cover is also heavily altered in a compositional/musical sense. It's not simply 'Raining Blood' played note by note on a piano. I'm not a musician, I'm sure the similarities are there (in terms of chord progressions maybe? it's been a while since I heard that one), but yeah.

True about Tori Amos, but it's still equally retarded to consider an hypothetical note-for-note piano cover of Reign in Blood as being a metal song (as opposed to, you know, a piano version of a metal song, much like the above youtube example is a medieval folk cover of a metal Iron Maiden song and not an actually metal song).

Playing note-for-note covers of metal songs with different instruments does not make those covers metal just because the original was, anymore than playing note-for-note metal covers of folk or pop song make these songs folk or pop. And that's just covers. Can anyone list me a single metal band that uses no guitars (or similarly stringed instruments) and only, say, flutes? Of course not. That there's even a discussion about it is absurd.

Demo some of the material that you have and post it in the musicians forum for feedback

That was the point I was trying to make, apart from explaining the two meanings of "sound".

The first two sentences here

Are another way of saying "distortion and heavy riffs =/= metal". Which you could reword as "A seemingly metal sound does not always imply metal." So far, so good. The third sentence is debatable and certainly depending on what kind of definition of "metal" you go by. I think it's very much necessary, not only for the purposes of the site, as I explained in my previous post about the interplay between and entanglement of "sound" and... "sound". It's also the reason we require metal riffs played on string instruments for accepting bands. Or, to a certain extent, forbid programmed guitars. Everything else is a comical perversion and an abuse of semantics to push technicalities.

I don't think metal riffs played on a flute are metal in the one sense that really makes sense, but I guess from a strictly technical standpoint you can say "this is a metal riff" or "this is a piece of music with compositional properties mostly associated with metal". It gets pretty absurd, you're right, but I wanted to stress that you can still refer to these things as being somewhat metal-sounding (in the sense of songwriting) without being a complete deaf lunatic.

Hm, I hope that came across the way I intended it to.

Thanks Azmodes, that pretty much sums up the thoughts leading me to my viewpoint. But if people think that's absurd maybe it's time to reconsider. I mean a way of categorizing music is kinda useless if nobody agrees with you. Though I'm not gonna change my stance on how it should ideally be done...

That's the part I don't get. It's so bleeding obvious that it is indeed necessary that I don't see why you should even write "I think" (much like writing "I think the sky is blue"), and I fail to see how anyone could think it's not necessary. It's just so stupid it hurts.

What in the hell is acoustic black metal? And why does it matter if the band would be included on Metal Archives or not? If you want to start the band, start the damn band.

Yeah I got it by now. Apparently we're dealing with some sort of epistemical truth here that can't be rationally questioned. Somehow escaped me til now.

The only band I can consider to be anything to do with metal and still being acoustic are Tenacious D (but they are a comedy band, so thats already not being taken seriously). I think when we mention the word metal we need heavy guitars for 99% of the time. Yes we can say that Sun0))) are metal in a way and there is an exception for them being on the MA but I guess you need to be really damn good and influential to be considered metal even if you not necessarily metal. Thats how I see things.

I'm getting depressed reading this thread. When I go to a metal concert, I feel as if I'm with hundreds of brothers and sisters. At concerts of other genres, the people there do not seem so connected. To me, this is what defines metal more than anything. Can't we all get along and be the big happy family we should be?

sorry, no. I've already painted my smile on upside-down.

It's just something I really don't understand about this site, people are so quick to shit on others.

What? no. Sunn O))) are considered drone metal by the site standards and they're not an exception in any way.

Kale100, please don't get off topic with your ranting about the "Big metal family, we're all brothers of metal and sons of Odin" rant.

Singling out this site because a few people are mean? This site's pretty tame, really.

Ozzy - I specified this site to indicate something more specific than humanity in general. I agree that it is still rather tame, but not as much as I'd expect from a collection of metalheads (who aren't in a moshpit of course).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ_GlavQ2dY

This is an example of a note-by-note piano/keyboard cover of a metal song. It's not metal.

Yeah, it's more dark classical, or whatever people are calling that kind of music these days.

glad this topic came up -- had no idea this lady had done a cover of Haggard last time I checked out her work!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVMhNCNQLgk

I think it could, maybe. Depending on how well it's done and how many actual black metal elements it has. By this I mean tremolo picking, double bass sounding drums (fast bodhran perhaps), evil sounding whispered vocals, etc. Although it might not get added anyways.

Just start your band and don't worry if it's going to be admitted or not, just play music you like.

How is an acoustic band a black metal band at the same time?

or release one half-assed Metal EP purely for the technicality, then do all the acoustic stuff you want and it still gets listed since it's part of the band's discography

[disclaimer: I don't recommend trolling this great website in such a fashion]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL6s0jQGTfQ

(I'm inclined to call it Black Folk (just as there are Pagan Metal bands who also release Pagan Neofolk songs), but...well, whatever.)

I was gonna say, "thank you captain obvious", but apparently some people do need to be told that, so... yeah.

Also, good call, forgot about Xytras but it's a perfect example. And now I feel like listening to it.

That's just dumb...

Where does Van Canto fall in all of this?