The History and Features of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal

In this article, we dive deep into hard rock and the closely related style that is heavy metal. What even is hard rock? How do you play great hard rock? And what do classical music and jazz have to do with it?

Feeling Victorious

“Good hard rock makes the audience feel triumphant, like they can handle anything life throws at them,” says bassist and music expert Barend Courbois. “For a minute there, you’re in a fantasy world, unburdened by worries and the everyday grind. That’s the feeling that every hard rock musician has to be able to give their audience.” Barend also believes that musicians need to be aware of this all the time. “On the one hand, you need to take your job as a musician seriously and make great music, but on the other hand, you shouldn’t push it. Good hard rock includes humour and self-mockery, and serves to entertain people and make them feel good. Someone like David Lee Roth, the singer of Van Halen, understood this. Hard rock isn’t supposed to make its listeners feel depressed — au contraire.”

This article focuses on hard rock and heavy metal. There’s a minimal difference between both styles, making it difficult to clearly distinguish between them. You could argue that the ingredients that flavour hard rock and heavy metal are dosed differently. To keep things simple, we’re going to constantly refer to hard rock only from this point on, but bear in mind that most of what is discussed also applies to heavy metal.

Power and Theatre

How do you describe hard rock? Put simply, it’s high-powered music with elements of theatre mixed in to create a high-impact style. “The raw power shouldn’t come from volume knobs turned up all the way,” Barend says. “It should be generated by the hands, arms, brains or basically the bodies of the musicians that make it. Good hard rock doesn’t depend purely on amplified sound. Take a band like AC/DC. They make forceful music and it’s all coming out of the bodies of fairly short guys.” Put more gracefully, you might say that hard rock is the amalgamation of blues and opera. Blues, because that’s where the roots of rock and hard rock lie, and opera, because of the theatrical and Italian drama-esque aspects. At the same time, hard rock incorporates that classic German ‘Pünktlichkeit’ because it requires tight timing and playing discipline. You can even hear English and Celtic influences in certain scales which, in turn, have an origin story that includes Arabic elements. “And then there are bands like Van Halen, which pile on that post-war big-band feel, so swinging jazz,” Barend adds.

Black Sabbath

As mentioned, rock and hard rock are rooted in blues, which can be heard in the music. Heavy metal was actually born out of hard rock. So who ‘invented’ heavy metal? Credit where credit is due, that would be Black Sabbath, who started out as a blues band with a different name that struggled to build a following. The story goes that the band regularly played next-door to a cinema where horror films were played. The cinema filled up every night while no one came to see the band, who kept hearing the same chord progression soundtracking the scary movies. That chord progression was based on the diminished fifth interval (exactly half an octave), so from E to Bb for example. In jargon, this is called a tritone: an interval that spans three whole notes and sounds ominous and mysterious. Go ahead and play an E followed by a Bb. Or an E-minor chord followed by a Bb-minor chord. French composer Camille Saint-Saëns opted for the tritone in his composition, Danse Macabre (1874), in which the highest violin string isn’t tuned to E, but a semitone lower (Eb). The tritone is also featured in West Side Story, in the song ‘Maria’ composed by Leonard Bernstein. Back to Black Sabbath. Ozzy and co eventually figured it was worth using tritones in their music — a decision that ended up giving them the hit ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ in the early seventies.

The tritone obviously isn’t a standard ingredient of hard rock. Black Sabbath are nevertheless seen as the original architects of metal and were the first band who took a different direction from the flowerpower-based pop acts at the time. Hard rock and heavy metal are now deeply connected to fantasy, where horror can be used as an ingredient but doesn’t necessarily have to play a part. Bands like Iron Maiden definitely lean on the horror element. Just take a record like ‘Fear of the Dark’. Conversely, there’s plenty of ‘happy’ hard rock out there.

Theatrical Music

Following Black Sabbath, the first wave of hard rock/heavy metal bands included The Free, Bad Company, Queen (early years), Kiss, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake, Rainbow, UFO and Uriah Heep.

The second wave included bands like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Saxon and Def Leppard (early years).

Other well-known hard rock bands are of course Van Halen, AC/DC and Aerosmith.

With the rise of hard rock, the theatrical aspect became more and more apparent. “That theatrical element is an important part of the style,” says Barend. “The trick is to not just play gigs, but add spectacle supported by seriously good music. Simply making good music doesn’t cut it when it comes to hard rock — you have to add a bit of theatre to it, but without faking it.” That’s why hard rock went downhill at the end of the eighties, Barend explains. “At one point, it was all theatre without good music. It was bubblegum rock made by Los Angeles hair bands. It was all extravagant poses, long hair and tight trousers. Musically, none of the bands could live up to their predecessors.” The logical reaction that followed introduced a new style: grunge. Or as Barend sums it up: “Ugly dudes with out-of-tune guitars making music that actually mattered.” Nirvana, with the late Kurt Cobain, pioneered the style, which may well have been a countermovement that outlawed a part of hard rock that grunge bands didn’t appreciate: speed and virtuosity — flashy solos in particular.

From Deep Down

Back to hard rock. How do you play great hard rock? “The heaviness of hard rock has nothing to do with high volume settings,” Barend argues. “That heaviness and raw power stems from the way you play your instrument. Good hard rock can have a groove, pack funk and kill out without amplification. As I said before, it has to come from deep down inside you. Hard rock looks simple, but technically, it’s pretty demanding.” An experienced bassist himself, Barend found out first hand when he toured with an AC/DC tribute band. “I practised endlessly just so I could play the bass parts just like Cliff Williams does. He plays with a plectrum and only plays downstrokes at breakneck speed, which is the best way to get the most pointed bass guitar sound possible. Physically, this is incredibly demanding, like a high-performance sport.” Tight timing and pointed sound are important ingredients for hard rock, for everyone in the band, but especially for the rhythm section, so the drummer, bassist and rhythm guitarist. “Hard rock is often blasted through a massive PA system, so if you’re not sounding tight and pointed, it’s going to sound like sonic sludge, which defeats the purpose,” explains Barend.

Speed

Pointed sound is especially essential when the playing is fast-paced, which is a feature of hard rock. This also explains why so many hard rock drummers like to run a double kick set-up. After all, two bass drums instead of one allows you to gain more speed since the foot that normally controls the hi-hat now controls the second bass drum. Funnily enough, it was the late American jazz drummer Louie Bellson who invented this technique. So how important is speed for hard rock? “While it’s not a must-have skill, being able to play fast will come in handy,” says Barend. “Speed can be used to impress. It has to do with macho behaviour, which is very much part of this style of music. That said, you do have to measure it out. Speed cannot come at the expense of your timing or the pointedness of your sound. The ability to play at speed and get it right requires a ton of practice and real world experience.” So speed is important in hard rock, but the notes you play must be given room to resonate. This is a matter of sound engineering. When played live, hard rock needs to be mixed very carefully — something that’s made extra tricky by the high volume (more on this in a bit).

Don’t Underestimate the Rhythm Guitar

Tight timing and pointed sound also involves well-placed accents, especially by the drummer. Think cymbal choking: a technique borrowed from jazz. “This goes for hard rock as well as all other styles: the rhythm section has to be rock-solid,” says Barend. “The drummer and bassist need to be fully in sync so that rhythmically, you’re playing in the pocket or, in other words, that you’re in a groove.” One band member that shouldn’t be underestimated here is the rhythm guitarist. “Guitar solos take care of the show element, but rhythm parts are no less important. Eddie Van Halen is a great example. While known for his solos, he also excelled as a rhythm guitarist. His laid-back way of strumming chords is amazing.” Sound, timing and technique are key aspects for the rhythm guitarist. Normally, hard rock guitarists have a small army of stompboxes at their feet. These have to be toggled on and off at the right moments, Barend explains. “This takes a ton of precision. The effect that you add to your solos has to be off the second you go back to playing rhythm parts so, if you like to strut around the stage while you solo, you better make sure you get back to your pedalboard in time.”

Finding Inspiration in Other Styles

You can’t play hard rock without a singer that fits the bill, which has everything to do with the theatrical aspect of it and the fact that you have to make your audience feel good. Hard rock is entertainment. Offering up one last piece of advice for hard rock musicians who want to get it right, Barend recommends listening to other styles, like classical music, jazz and blues. “In the end, those are the styles that hard rock originated from.”

Good to Know

Jazz and Hard Rock

With hard rock bands like Van Halen, it’s easy to hear the jazz influences according to Barend Courbois. Drummer Alex van Halen and guitarist Eddie van Halen are classically trained pianists, not to mention sons of jazz saxophonist Jan van Halen. “It’s obvious that the Van Halen boys grew up with jazz,” says Barend. “Alex is a swinging jazz-rock drummer while the degree of freedom that Eddie taps into to improvise exudes pure jazz. If you ask me, Van Halen has the most swing out of all hard rock bands. It almost sounds like a big-band sometimes. Have a listen to ‘Hot for Teacher’ and tell me that’s not a fat jazz shuffle.”

Classical Music and Hard Rock

Out of all popular music, hard rock is perhaps the closest to classical music, European hard rock in particular. This has to do with the heroic and dramatic character of the style. Textbook examples are bands like Deep Purple, Rainbow, Thin Lizzy, Iron Maiden, UFO and The Scorpions.

The virtuosity that characterises classical music can also be found in certain hard rock musicians. In fact, it’s easy to hear that Swedish master-guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen has been strongly influenced by Italian violin-virtuoso Niccolò Paganini (1742-1840).

The Best Hard Rock Singers

So who are the best hard rock singers? Barend Courbois immediately thinks of two names, the first of which is Ronnie James Dio (1942 – 2010), who is known to the general public for the 1974 hit ‘Love is All’ by Roger Glover. Dio also sang with Black Sabbath, Rainbow and had his own band, DIO, for many years. Dio had a voice like a bell until the very end. He’s also said to be the inventor of the sign of the horns — a classic metal symbol that originally comes from the Mediterranean where it’s called ‘corna’ and is used to keep evil spirits at bay.

Another hard rock hero is Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden). Barend: “A very creative, highly intelligent and energetic man with an adamantine vocal technique, not to mention a brilliant showman who even piloted the Boeing 757 the band used to tour in.”

From Powerchords to Flamenco

European hard rock bands often play in minor keys, while their American counterparts typically opt for major keys, which sound a tad more cheerful. That said, hard rock is also characterised by the use of powerchords, which omit the third interval (see our article on major and minor) and so technically are neither major nor minor chords. Keep in mind however that the melody is always based on a major or minor key. Nowadays, some rock guitarists do play chords that include a third interval as well as the seventh, ninth and eleventh. Joe Satriani and Steve Vai are two big-name guitarists who do this. Adding a third does require a clean sound, otherwise it’s going to sound pretty shoddy. Want to make hard rock sound bluesy? Then there’s no way around the third and seventh interval (see this article). Meanwhile, hard rock solos are usually built on blues scales and pentatonic scales as well melodic minor and the phrygian church mode. The C pentatonic scale spans c-d-e-g-a-c. Melodic minor sprung from the original minor and harmonic minor scales. In melodic minor, the sixth and seventh intervals are bumped up. For example, the A melodic minor scale includes a-b-c-d-e-f sharp-g-sharp-a. The phrygian scale is what you get when you play from e to e and stick to the white keys on your piano or keyboard. It’s a mysterious, exotic scale that, among other styles, is commonly used in flamenco.

Volume and Quality of Sound

High volume levels and hard rock go hand in hand, but maintaining clear-and-pointed sound when you turn up the volume can be very tricky. As such, it’s best to leave the volume control of your amp untouched. Instead, tweak the volume via the PA system because modern PA systems are designed to handle loud sound. Unlike back in the day when 15” and 18” woofers were the rule rather than the exception, these days, it’s better to go with a guitar or bass amplifier that’s been loaded with 10” speakers. This’ll make your sound pointier instead of woollier, and also won’t carry your sound as far as bigger woofers do. Leave the heavy lifting to your PA system — it’s better for your stage sound and your ear drums will be grateful too.