the hermeneutics of heavy metal
by jacob hill
It’s hard not to be romantic about music. No matter who you are you likely have certain songs that give you chills every time you listen to them, or a specific genre of music that you can’t get enough of. For some that genre of music is Progressive Rock/Metal, also known as Prog. Prog originated in western Europe in the late 1960s less than a decade after Hans-Georg Gadamer first published his magnum opus Truth and Method. In his this book and in many others of his, Gadamer wrote a lot about aesthetics, a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of art and the creation/appreciation of beauty and hermeneutics, the theory of interpretation. Based on his writings, I’d argue that he is certainly as romantic about art as many are about music. Gadamer describes the experience of seeing/hearing art as being other-worldly in that we are able to “dwell along with the work in a way that takes us out of ordinary time into what Gadamer calls ‘fulfilled’ or ‘autonomous’ time” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). But that statement was about art in general, what would Gadamer have thought about Prog? Before we can answer that, it’s first important to talk about what Progressive Rock/Metal is.
Obviously, Progressive Rock is a subgenre of rock music. It is unclear when it started, but many believe that it began with the 1967 Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. This album broke all the rules of, and further separated the Beatles from, the conventional pop rock image of the time by incorporating balladry, symphonic and psychedelic influences and even using an orchestra. This album is widely believed to be the first Progressive Rock album because Prog is all about breaking the rules. It’s about abandoning the traditional 3 minute pop singles that come ready to be plucked and thrown to the masses. Prog uses instrumental and compositional ideas from jazz and classical music in songs that could end up being anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes long. Essentially, Prog was meant to give rock music greater artistic weight and more musical sophistication. So what would Gadamer have had to say about this?
In his books, Gadamer talked a lot about how aesthetics and hermeneutics complemented each other. It’s hard to sum up his thoughts on the two of them quickly, but the least I can say about it is that aesthetics is relative to hermeneutics. No one person can say on everyone’s behalf what is beautiful, we all interpret things differently, therefore based off our interpretations, we have to decide for ourselves what is beautiful. A quote of his that I think sums it up pretty well is “artwork, no matter what its medium, opens up, through its symbolic character, a space in which both the world, and our own being in the world, is brought to light as a single, but inexhaustibly rich totality.” Based on this assertion, I do not believe that Gadamer would be content to say on everyone’s behalf that one type of music is more beautiful than another. However, that said, I do believe that Gadamer would really appreciate the complexity of Progressive Rock/Metal. In a lot of popular music today, we hear a certain beat that lasts for a couple measures then just loops over and over again accompanied by very shallow lyrics. In Prog, often times bands won’t even restrict themselves to the same chord progression for more than a couple minutes and their lyrics often have much deeper meaning than what is immediately recognizable. Additionally, while listening to the music of bands like Dream Theater is initially pleasing to the ear, it becomes even more magnificent when you break down what they’re doing. Just by taking a closer look at a guitar solo in one of Dream Theater’s songs, you can see more than just the amazing amount of technique that John Petrucci has. You can see how every note is carefully placed, the notes he doesn’t play are just as important as the ones he does, you can see how he creatively uses odd time signatures, and you can see his effortless use of multiple scales from simple ones Major, Pentatonic and Harmonic Minor to much more complex modes like Lydian, Phrygian, etc. Gadamer thought beauty was relative, but I believe that he personally would have found Prog to be very beautiful.
Obviously, Progressive Rock is a subgenre of rock music. It is unclear when it started, but many believe that it began with the 1967 Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. This album broke all the rules of, and further separated the Beatles from, the conventional pop rock image of the time by incorporating balladry, symphonic and psychedelic influences and even using an orchestra. This album is widely believed to be the first Progressive Rock album because Prog is all about breaking the rules. It’s about abandoning the traditional 3 minute pop singles that come ready to be plucked and thrown to the masses. Prog uses instrumental and compositional ideas from jazz and classical music in songs that could end up being anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes long. Essentially, Prog was meant to give rock music greater artistic weight and more musical sophistication. So what would Gadamer have had to say about this?
In his books, Gadamer talked a lot about how aesthetics and hermeneutics complemented each other. It’s hard to sum up his thoughts on the two of them quickly, but the least I can say about it is that aesthetics is relative to hermeneutics. No one person can say on everyone’s behalf what is beautiful, we all interpret things differently, therefore based off our interpretations, we have to decide for ourselves what is beautiful. A quote of his that I think sums it up pretty well is “artwork, no matter what its medium, opens up, through its symbolic character, a space in which both the world, and our own being in the world, is brought to light as a single, but inexhaustibly rich totality.” Based on this assertion, I do not believe that Gadamer would be content to say on everyone’s behalf that one type of music is more beautiful than another. However, that said, I do believe that Gadamer would really appreciate the complexity of Progressive Rock/Metal. In a lot of popular music today, we hear a certain beat that lasts for a couple measures then just loops over and over again accompanied by very shallow lyrics. In Prog, often times bands won’t even restrict themselves to the same chord progression for more than a couple minutes and their lyrics often have much deeper meaning than what is immediately recognizable. Additionally, while listening to the music of bands like Dream Theater is initially pleasing to the ear, it becomes even more magnificent when you break down what they’re doing. Just by taking a closer look at a guitar solo in one of Dream Theater’s songs, you can see more than just the amazing amount of technique that John Petrucci has. You can see how every note is carefully placed, the notes he doesn’t play are just as important as the ones he does, you can see how he creatively uses odd time signatures, and you can see his effortless use of multiple scales from simple ones Major, Pentatonic and Harmonic Minor to much more complex modes like Lydian, Phrygian, etc. Gadamer thought beauty was relative, but I believe that he personally would have found Prog to be very beautiful.