What's Wrong With Symphonic Metal? Or, a better idea how to improve Symphonic Metal

Symphonic Metal is a relatively new genre. Though elements of Symphonic Metal started in the 80s, it was really the 90s where the genre was created. The biggest Symphonic Metal bands right now are Nightwish, Within Temptation, Kamelot, Epica, and Sirenia, but Therion proceeded all of them.

Symphonic Metal is Metal, but with either keyboards, computer samples, or a real live orchestra backing some of the songs and the orchestra is an integral part of the music.

So, what's wrong with Symphonic Metal?

I've heard a few bands in the Symphonic Metal genre complaining that the genre is limited, and they're now looking for outside influences. To that, I ask "what?!" You gotta be kidding me.

Then, I hear their latest albums and realize what is wrong with them - the orchestrations are fucking boring!

If you want to be taken seriously as a genre, work on your orchestrations. If you hire a professional orchestra to record you and have a friend of one of the musicians ask them honestly what they thought about the music and they respond something along the lines of "well, at least it's not 'Mary Had a Little Lamb,'" then you've done something very, very wrong.

Not all Symphonic Metal bands are guilty of this. Some of them write pretty good orchestrations. But the ones I have read about who have complained about Symphonic Metal being a limited genre have all had shitty orchestrations. Don't mean to be rude. Just being honest.

Look, there is no excuse whatsoever for bad orchestrations. It took me one quick Google search and I found the PDF file for Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. I can do another search and find Beethoven's Ninth if I wanted to. Or anything Brahms, Bach, or Mozart ever wrote. This stuff is 100% in PUBLIC DOMAIN because the guys who wrote it have been dead for 70+ years.

(below is a snippet of Tchaikovsky's "Valse des Fleurs"):

Download it. Read it. Study it. Learn it. Apply what you learned to your orchestrations. Just don't complain that Symphonic Metal is a limited genre. The genre isn't limited. It's your imagination that's limited.

The Orchestra pad on your synth does not make you Symphonic Metal

And one more gripe - you'll hear Metal bands with a keyboardist with a pretty good "orchestra pad" on his synthesizer, so he uses it and suddenly, they're a Symphonic Metal band? Um, no. As a genre, Symphonic Metal really needs to have higher qualifications than that or it becomes a real bad joke.

Yes, I'm being an asshole. This is intentional. I'm going to be very straightforward here - the BEST THINGS that ANY civilization produces are its artwork. For Western Civilization, that would mean in no particular order - Medieval Cathedrals, Italian Renaissance Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, post-Golden Age Spanish painting, English literature, and Romantic Era Classical Music. Sure, I left out plenty but you get my point. You can study this stuff so easily today that there's no excuse not to learn from it. Heck, if you hate reading things from your computer, go to Dover Publications and buy the sheet music from them. I've bought probably a dozen of my favorite pieces from them because I like Dover Publications so much.

Then Rimsky-Korsakov wrote a pretty good book on orchestration and so did Walter Piston. There are other good ones too, like Berlioz's Treatise on Instrumentation. I'm not going to list them all, but a lot of these are in public domain so there's no excuse not to study them.

In Summary

There is nothing wrong with Symphonic Metal as a genre. It's not limiting. There's still plenty to write. Take it in a new direction. Study the classics. The only limits are your own imagination.

And no, I'm not going to name names because I happen to like some of the people who said this. I'm more than anything surprised that they'd make such stupid comments.

-Roman

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