Thrash Metal Vs. Cuban Son

The Music Blog Entry 113

February 17 2017

Thrash Metal Vs. The Cuban Son

In today's blog post we will once again be doing in in depth comparison of two largely different music genres. The genres for this week are Thrash Metal and the Cuban Son. Thrash Metal, often referred to simply as thrash, is a subgenre of metal that was born in the late 80s early 90s with its biggest influencers being Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer. The origin of Thrash Metal comes from a mixing of the New British metal movement that was happening at the time (Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, MotorHead) as well as a desire of bans to differentiate themselves from Glam metal which was largely popular at the time (Motley Crue, Alice Cooper, Kiss). What sets Thrash Metal apart from other forms of metal is its fast tempo, complex guitar solos, and “Snarling” vocals.  A good example of thrash metal is the song “Raining Blood” by Slayer from their 1986 album Reign in Blood. The song consist of nearly all the elements commun in thrash metal and the entire album it is from is credited with aiding in the pioneering of the genre. The Cuban son came to be in 1917 in Havana as an altered form of the popular dance music the danzon. The Cuban son was the result of mixing more with african culture and the use of more instruments of African nature such as bongos and claves. The Cuban Son also included the changing of many different instruments that were common at the time, it largely used trumpet as well as bass. A good example for Cuban Son is the 1987 son “Chan Chan” by Compay Segundo. Compay Segundo was a famous musician from Cuba that was known for making Sons and “Chan Chan” was one of his most famous. Raining Blood by Slayer a thrash metal song and “Chan Chan” by Compay Segundo a Cuban son. At first glance the two songs and genres could not be more different but a further in depth study shows that they have quite a few similarities.  We will now divin to study the structure and harmony of the two songs in order to see the similarities between the distinct genres of music.

Structure

We will start by looking at the structure of the two songs. Both songs have similar structures and you can see this when you map it out. At the simplest of explanations both songs from the two genres follow the same ABA structure for the music. The songs are not completely the same in structure, but by diving in deeper it is clearly visible that the structure goes deeper than songs only following the ABA type of structure. To see this it is first important to map out the structure of the two songs. We will start out with our Cuban Son “Chan Chan” by mapping out the structure.  While mapping out the structure I found that it went along the lines of  A(1-12)B(12-21)A’(21-25)C(25-33)A’(33-41)D(41-49)A’(49-57)C(25-33)A’(33-41)B(58-61)A(61-65)E(65-79). As you can see “Chan Chan has many different repeating parts such as A’ at 21 and A’ at 49(Pictured below).

Know we have too look at the structure of “Raining Blood”. When written out the structure comes to be A(1-13)B(13-25)A’(25-39)B(39-51)A(51-59)B(59-69)A’(69-77)C(77-82). The structure of raining blood is similar to “Chan Chan as it also has repeating sections such as A at the beginning and A at 51 (pictured below). The Beginning of the two songs also follow the exact same starting structure. They both start with a clear ABA’. The ending structure is also quiet similar. In “Chan Chan” it ends with BAE and in raining blood it ends with BA’C. In both songs the E and C structure that they end with is a structure that is previously unheard in the rest of the song, so the two end with a new part that is introduced. Except for the fact that In “raining Blood” it has an A’ before the end rather than an A, the two songs end following a very similar structure. The big difference on the structure is that “Chan Chan” is split into six parts while “Raining Blood” is split into four parts. Despite this the difference between the structure of the two songs is not that large and part of the different number of structure parts can be due to the fact that “Chan Chan” is nearly ten seconds longer than “Raining Blood” which leaves room for at least one extra section. That means that the difference in number of sections in the two different pieces does not make that much of a difference. What is important is the large number of similarities between the structure of the two songs. Both “Raining Blood” and “Chan Chan” follow the ABA form of structuring their songs and the beginning and ending structures of the two songs are nearly identical.

Harmony

      The second thing that connects the two genres and songs is the harmony. By only listening you can not hear any similarities, but if you stop and look at the two pieces you can see the similarities. Specifically in the Chord progression of the two songs. Both”Chan Chan” and “Raining Blood” are songs where the instrumentation of guitar play a big role in the piece. Being a Cuban Son “Chan Chan” makes use of a more traditional guitar while “Raining Blood” being a thrash metal piece uses electric guitar. Despite the different types of guitar and guitar style used they both use chord progressions. In “Raining Blood” the key is E minor and the Guitarist uses eleven different chords.

“Chan Chan” is played in the key of D minor and uses five different chords, D minor, F, G minor, A7, and D minor 6. One quick notable similarities is that both songs are in a minor key.  The common Chord progression in “Chan Chan” is Dm to F to Gm to A7. The roman numeral for this progression is i III iv v.

For raining blood the chord progression is E G B. The Roman numeral for this progression is i III v.

So both songs use similar chord progressions. The i III v chords are very common in both pieces. The progression of i to III especially so. The i III progression appears several times throughout both the Cuban Son “Chan Chan” and the Thrash Metal piece “Raining Blood”

As seen in the picture above from “Raining Blood” the i to III progression appears five times in only three measures of the song.

The picture above from”Chan Chan” shows how it to also repeatedly uses the i to III progression through as Dm is almost always followed by the F chord in the song. The total chord progression for the section is i III vi v, and the chord progression in “Raining Blood” is i III v. In the two chord progressions three of the four chords are the same and except for the missing vi chord in “Raining Blood” the two songs generally follow a similar chord progression. Both songs also have the same cadence at the end. They both end with a v i cadence. Although the cadence in “Chan Chan” is a v i6 they are still very similar and the difference is not that much.

As seen from the picture both “Chan Chan” (below) and “Raining Blood” (above) use the v i cadence at the end of their songs. On last use of harmony to mention in both pieces is that for both pieces melody is song by the voice with guitar playing accompaniment to create the harmony.

(Voice and Guitar creating harmony in “Raining Blood” (above))

(Voice and Guitar creating harmony in “Chan Chan” (below))

Both the Cuban Son and Thrash metal have harmony and by looking at “raining Blood” and “Chan Chan” you can see that the harmony is used in similar ways.

Conclusion

In conclusion the Cuban Son and Thrash Metal came to be in two very different decades, and the two genres were influenced by very different cultures, but this does not mean they are completely different. Using the song “Chan Chan” by Compay Segundo to represent the genre of the Cuban Son, and the song “Raining Blood” by Slayer to represent the genre of Thrash Metal we are able to better see the similarities between the two genres that at first seem completely different. Through the study we were able to find similarities in structure. With how both use the ABA structure as well as the clear example of similar structure in the two pieces. We were also able to find the similarities in harmony. Through similar cadence and chord progression in both pieces, as well as similar way of creating harmony through instrumentation. In the end we found that the two genres were not as different as they first appeared.

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Word Count: 1543

Elvis

I don't think you can really put fault on any one person. Elvis could have given a little more credit to those that inspired him, but given the time it's understandable. Understandable not acceptable. He shouldnoglf given credit where it was do, but the fact that credit is at least given now is good. In relation to Eminem I don't think it's the same because from what I know he is pretty open about the inspiration behinds his music and respectful towards it.

MC 6

In the end I found that my piece matched the characteristics of Wester African Music to a great extent. The piece had a lot of polyrhythms as well as a call and response melody. There was a bit more harmony than what is common for West African music but beside that the piece I found was a great example of the culture. The only thing I could ask for to make it more like it would be the use of a talking drum and a hemiola. The most distinct part of western African music is the polyrhythms. In all the research I did it was always brought up and discussed in detail. Polyrhythms are the most distinct feature of Western African dance music and I saw it appear in every piece I listened to while trying to find the one to analysis. I found Western African dance music to be very different from what I am used to. I have seen polyrhythms in music before but never to the extent that it appears in this culture.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15qqM7ZUMmoEfFovB9AQ3BdTqroPCcC1hvJ2_1QkJF7E

MC 5

Example one:(00:08 - 00:13)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1JGYBy1UEtoYWdjaEVXdmRBMzg/view?usp=sharing

Audio: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1JGYBy1UEtodHVmMUJwRWdLd1k/view?usp=sharing




Example 2: (4:29 - 4:40)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1JGYBy1UEtoWERWb1I1VFpKUkU/view?usp=sharing

Audio: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1JGYBy1UEtoMXdqYkh2dHBMck0/view?usp=sharing

MC part 4

The instrumentation of the piece included two lead vocalist, one male and one female. It also has a chorus of vocalist. The piece also includes two membranephones, two drums identified in the track list as a goblet shaped drum and a cylindrical shaped drum. There is also some sort of ideophone (00:15) that could be an instrument or bracelets, because it is common for dance to add to the creation of music in West Africa and the ideophone sounds like bracelets hitting each other. The piece is in 2/4 time and  major key, this can be seen in the bottom drum that comms in at the begging and fro most of the piece plays a consistent note on each down beat. The entire piece is polyrhythmic which is common for West African Music. The polyrhythm can especially be heard in the two drums (00:11) where one drum is playing four eighth notes while the second drum plays two quarter notes on the down beets. The vocal part of the piece consist of a call from the female vocalist and response from the male vocalist with the chorus singing between the call and response(00:11 - 00:15). This call and response is common for Melody in West African music. The piece has the main Melody on top in the call and response of the voice and than ployrhythm in the two drums and ideophone on the bottom. There is also a lot of repetition in the piece. Up until 02:18 the entire piece is largely playing the same repeated rhythms an melody, it is at 02:18 that the rhythm of the top drum has a major change for the first time. Than by 02:31 the rhythm changes back and it begins to repeat how it was in the begging. It is not until the 3 minuet mark when there is another major change. It is at this point the vocal begin to sing a new part, but even the new part is a repetition of the same notes with the repeated "oi". It is than at 03:36 where the vocals change ounce again and the male begins to sing new lyrics and the drums fade out for a moment before coming back in and the call and response coming back at -3:50. At 03:50 the male voice comes back and sings over the call and response creating new polyphony in the melody. Still even at the moments of vocal change there is still alot of repition through the entire piece and even at small points like rhythms and lyrics for example lyrics at 4:11. At 04:36 the rythm changes ounce again as the bottom drum that has been constant changes to play an alternation between the original two quarter notes into a signal quarter note fallowed by two eight notes, and just before the bottom drum returns to normal the top drum has a short measure in which it switches from eighth notes to sixteenth before returning to repeat the original rhythm with the bottom drum.. In relation to harmony there is only a little. Between the drums and melody. This is to be expected because West African music puts little to no focus on harmony.

Sectional reflection

The beginning of the practice consisted of each individual looking through all their music and finding areas that they believed themselves or the group needed to work on in our pieces. After that we reconvened and shared what we thought needed work in Chabrier we decided 61-99, D-E, G-H, and K-L. In march we choose 15-37 and 69-77. In Finale 5-6. A lot of work was put into Chabrier, probably most of the time, I have worked out the fingering for 61-99 this in turn has slowed me to improve in that passage by a lot. I also put a lot of work into D-E and feel I have improved it a lot, I have come from having a lot of problems with passage to now only making a couple small mistakes every now and then. I also improved on K-L a lot, but I still need to put work into G to get up to tempo. March I improved on 69-77 but I still need to put work into 15 tonperfect it. Lastly in Finale I have put work into 5 and now have a better understanding of the passage that has improved my ability to play it.