I was wondering about what kind of music one can hear and immediately consider generic. I suppose in this case “one” refers to someone who listens to music beyond music presented by mainstream radio stations, in particular those who do not regularly listen to mainstream music. I’m sure many of us have one friend who genuinely likes Breaking Benjamin, Creed, or some other “alternative hard rock” band. Many of us joke that this style requires guitars tuned to a very low pitch. The perception of this music as generic is definitely influenced by enivornmental but musical composition, and instrumentation to a degree, plays a larger role; production plays a relatively minor role by making the music muddled and not helping providing a greater dynamic range. This music is generic due to a very restricted dynamic range of pitches. In particular, the music has an excess of bass frequencies, resulting in everything sounding the same.
The idea of pitch and timbre are both very important when analyzing music in this manner. Pitch is essentially how high or low a musical note is. Timbre is the tonal color of an instrument or group of instruments; the term is fairly vague and can refer to either. When I discuss dynamic range I am not referring to dynamics – essentially how music becomes louder or quieter – but rather to a range of frequencies in a piece. Frequency and pitch are of course interrelated ideas as well (higher pitch means higher frequency). Finally, the timbre of an instrument can be essentially changed through tuning: if you tune a guitar to drop D or something else with a very low-pitched sound, the guitar will naturally sound different. I will likely confuse pitch and timbre multiple times in this article, but bear in mind that I generally am referring to timbre – how the instrument sounds in conjunction with others.
While I am clarifying some terms, I should elucidate upon my main idea. Of course this idea is not restricted to “hard rock” music, but it provides the best examples of why such an approach tends to not work. (One cannot overlook that we are naturally elitist as listeners, for example.) Naturally pieces focusing on single instruments get some allowance but their composition should itself reflect some dynamic range. Consider the reverse situation with an excess of treble frequencies: the music can also sound same-y and annoying. Musical contrast tends to make music more interesting; humans seem to generally prefer variation, hence why minimalist music is seen as strange and unlikable. Having instruments in the higher register paired with instruments in the lower register is just usually a very effective way to make music. Finally, restricting the dynamic range works, but it needs to be done carefully.
I should note that in certain environments – the gym for example – most music played sounds generic, but this bias does not seem to have a particularly strong influence. We also tend to become very defensive when with our friends, either completely despising their taste in music or pretending to not dislike it when we clearly do. I do not consider this to greatly influence our instinctive view of what constitutes generic rock music; to many of us – the musically “elite” – hearing Daughtry will cause shuddering, even without a discussion of how generic their music is. Some music may seem completely overrated as a result of over-discussion, for example Odd Future, but other music instantly attains this “generic” status.
Cultural influence is quite subtle in this case, for many of us are used to Western music in the form of classical music and related styles. Though, perhaps this desire for a dynamic range is archetypal and echoes throughout cultures. We are simply used to this approach and expect it in all music we listen to. Pairing an instrument playing in the high register with one playing in the low register is especially prominent in classical music. Generally a violin concerto consists of the high-pitched violin playing with the piano which tends to be in the middle. Many orchestral pieces do not rely on this contrast. Consider Camille Saint-Saen’s “Fantaisie pour violon et harpe Op. 124” in A major. Harps and violins are both high-pitched instruments but they have very different timbres; they do not mesh together to the point of becoming muddled. What instruments are paired is also greatly important because that can change a piece from seeming generic to well-made. In rock music guitar and bass are meant to play a similar role but they have similar timbres; with particular tuning the guitar and bass can seem indistinguishable, which leads to a muddled sound.
Rock by virtue is not naturally afforded an enormous range in tones or pitches but it still retains a wide range. The pertinent timbres for rock music are mainly guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. Bass and guitar have fairly similar timbres. The guitar usually plays a higher frequency part than the bass, and drums and vocals offer mostly mid-range frequencies. Hard rock/metal I would personally consider generic focuses on lower, bass frequencies; in this “style” the guitarist’s role seems to be taking the bassist’s role. The timbres of guitar and bass become almost inseparable as the guitar is tuned to play the lowest pitches it can. As a result all the instrumentation sounds saturated with bass frequencies and very muddled, which leads to a generic sound.
Generally hard rock vocalists sing pretty deeply, which is not inherently bad, but they add lower pitches which are already quite abundant. When paired with “metal” percussion – the kind that involves hitting low-pitched toms frequently – these vocals contribute little to the dynamic range. I’ve noticed that cymbals can be used to add higher frequencies but their effectiveness is limited – they tend to be drowned out, for example – and their overuse is quite annoying (not to mention reminiscent of glam metal). Cymbals are relatively high register instruments but they are not effective as the sole higher pitched instrumentation. Guitar and bass both can play at a higher frequency but in this style they both play at lower frequencies. These instruments have fairly wide dynamic ranges but in these cases they contribute little.
Composition-wise generic hard rock/metal relies on repetitive music riffs which lead straight into the generic verse-chorus-verse structure, usually with a guitar solo somewhere in there. At least, from my experience these bands use repetition and conventionality to make music. Repetition can be very effective, in particular when small changes are made or when music repeats to give a certain impression on the listener; in this case it’s just lack of creativity: the intros all seem to involve spamming some trite guitar riff. Composition is not all that gives music a “generic” feel but it can definitely feed that impression in many cases. For example, Top 40 popular music tends to follow music theory perfectly but this music is usually conventional and unoriginal. In a sense “good” composition in the form of perfect execution of theory does not enliven the music.
As far as production goes, the music sounds murky, and the mastering does nothing to add significant dynamic range to the piece; an adequately used equalizer could probably make the music have a greater range. Use of an equalizer can reduce bass frequencies and perhaps raise the other frequencies, which ultimately reduces the muddled sound. Other measures, such as panning or slight reverb, could be taken to prevent guitar and bass from bleeding into each other so readily. Separating the guitar and bass from each other greatly helps with the piece’s sound. Adding in dynamic range via production can go a long way towards making a piece sound fresher and more organic. Restricting the dynamic range of a piece is very hard to do effectively – most often the listener will be unable to appreciate the music. Great care must be taken to keep the listener’s interest. Just realize that many people instinctively dislike this approach and that the other aspects of the music will likely need to be more prominent in the finished piece.
After what seems to be a laundry list of complaints, I think I should give examples of music groups – regardless of how good or bad you think they are – that effectively defy this litmus test for “generic” rock music. Three Days Grace, for example, incorporated the mid-range acoustic guitar into their song “Never Too Late” which served as a direct contrast to the distorted guitars and the singing. Many black metal bands, such as Falls of Rauros, also pursue this technique, which prevents their music from being lost in distortion. My personal favorite of directly employing contrast is “Crawl Back In” by Neurosis. The song features angry, deep vocals, distorted guitars playing, and fairly heavy percussion coupled with occasional cymbals; the music is dynamic enough to listen to in terms of actual dynamics. What I love about this song, however, is how the flute enters halfway into the piece. It plays the role of the instrument in the high register, offering interesting contrast to the lower pitched rock instrumentation; “Crawl Back In” becomes much more memorable as a result. Contrast, especially subtle contrast, can go a long way to making a piece much more interesting.
