The recent passing of Jeff Hanneman from Slayer has made me contemplate on how their works have been so influential to my development as a musician.
Slayer was the first band I listed to that used chromatic scales to write their music instead of the standard ones. Their music was always more tense and aggressive compared to the other metal bands I listened to at the time and I think their use of chromatic scales is what gave their songs an extra edge.
Listening to Slayer led to a greater enjoyment of death metal that continues to this day. Numerous death metal bands use chromatic scales to write their music and my own forays into death metal in the mid-to-late ’90s were comprised of chromatic scales or deeply rooted in the Aeolian mode.
I then found bands like Meshuggah that use polymeters in their music and Blotted Science that have devised their own scales through a concept called The Circle of 12 Tones which builds off the work of Arnold Schoenberg and his idea of the twelve-tone technique.
I also mentioned in my first post that I found microtonality through the Meshuggah forums and without them I don’t know if I would have paid much attention to alternate time signatures either. Almost all of my musical interests today were influenced from that initial interest in Slayer.
Rest in peace Jeff Hanneman and thank you for all your musical contributions to my life and the world of metal.