CHANGE, LONGING, AND FRUSTRATION IN DJENT-STYLE PROGRESSIVE METAL Patrick Nolan Sallings Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2021 APPROVED: Timothy Jackson, Major Professor Vivek Virani, Committee Member Paul Leenhouts, Committee Member Benjamin Brand, Chair of the Division of Music History, Theory, and Ethnomusicology Jaymee Haefner, Director of Graduate Studies in the College of Music John Richmond, Dean of the College of Music Victor Prybutok, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Sallings, Patrick Nolan. Change, Longing, and Frustration in Djent-Style Progressive Metal. Doctor of Philosophy (Music), May 2021, 399 pp., 2 tables, 5 figures, 71 musical examples, 1 appendix, bibliography, 76 titles. The progressive metal style “djent” emerged in the mid-to-late 2000s with bands that modeled their use of extended range instruments and complex rhythmic cycles after that of Swedish metal band Meshuggah. The addition of a new vocabulary of melody and harmony by bands such as Periphery, Tesseract, and Animals as Leaders has come to define djent in a new way and provided fruitful ground for voice-leading and metrical analysis. In this dissertation, I approach analysis in two steps. The first step is the production of detailed transcriptions of four djent songs. The process of transcription has allowed for the development of Transcription Preference Rules, modeled after Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s preference rule approach in their generative theory of tonal music. The Transcription Preference Rules account for the selection of key signatures, time signatures, and other features of the scores that may affect analysis. Second, using these scores, I examine the connection between the textual topic of change and the voice-leading and metrical structures in Periphery’s “Insomnia” and Tesseract’s “Of Matter.” I show how this topic is reflected by techniques such as change melodic direction, multidimensional metrical dissonance, and auxiliary cadential events. Finally, I apply voice- leading and metrical analysis to Animals as Leaders’s “Tempting Time” and Mute the Saint’s “Sound of Scars” in order to show what these analytical techniques reveal about instrumental djent pieces. I show how shifts in meter in “Tempting Time” can be represented cyclically. I conclude by showing how the interaction of metal and North Indian Classical techniques produces a unique representation of Mute the Saint’s topic of longing and frustration in “Sound of Scars.” Copyright 2021 by Patrick Nolan Sallings ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES............................................................................................... v LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES ................................................................................................ vi DRUM TRANSCRIPTION SYMBOL KEY ................................................................................ ix CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Purpose .................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Misha Mansoor and the Dawn of Djent .................................................................. 1 1.3 Literature and Method ............................................................................................. 4 CHAPTER 2. TRANSCRIPTION: A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS .......................................... 16 2.1 An Introduction to Transcription Preference Rules .............................................. 16 2.2 Key Signature Rule ............................................................................................... 18 2.3 Density Rule.......................................................................................................... 26 2.4 Tactus Rule ........................................................................................................... 30 2.5 Time Signature Rule ............................................................................................. 34 2.6 Snare Rule and Drum Duration Rule .................................................................... 39 2.7 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 43 CHAPTER 3. FALSE SECURITY IN PERIPHERY’S “INSOMNIA” ...................................... 45 3.1 Periphery ............................................................................................................... 45 3.2 Melody and Harmony ........................................................................................... 47 3.3 Temporality ........................................................................................................... 54 3.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 59 CHAPTER 4. CHANGE IN TESSERACT’S “OF MATTER” ................................................... 61 4.1 Tesseract ............................................................................................................... 61 4.2 Pitch ...................................................................................................................... 62 4.2.1 “Proxy” ..................................................................................................... 63 4.2.2 “Retrospect” .............................................................................................. 68 4.2.3 “Resist” ..................................................................................................... 70 4.3 Temporality ........................................................................................................... 72 iii 4.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 83 CHAPTER 5. THE INTERACTION OF PITCH AND TEMPORALITY IN ANIMALS AS LEADERS’S “TEMPTING TIME” ............................................................................................. 84 5.1 Animals as Leaders ............................................................................................... 84 5.2 Literature Interlude ............................................................................................... 85 5.3 Temporality ........................................................................................................... 87 5.4 Pitch Elements .................................................................................................... 100 5.5 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 102 CHAPTER 6. HOPE AND FRUSTRATION IN MUTE THE SAINT’S “SOUND OF SCARS” ..................................................................................................................................................... 104 6.1 Mute the Saint ..................................................................................................... 104 6.2 North Indian Classical Systems .......................................................................... 107 6.3 Pitch .................................................................................................................... 109 6.4 Temporality ......................................................................................................... 121 6.5 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 127 CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSION.................................................................................................... 129 APPENDIX: FULL TRANSCRIPTIONS .................................................................................. 132 “Insomnia” by Periphery................................................................................................. 133 “Of Matter” by Tessaract ................................................................................................ 176 Proxy ................................................................................................................... 176 Retrospect ........................................................................................................... 209 Resist ................................................................................................................... 235 “Tempting Time” by Animals as Leaders ...................................................................... 247 “Sound of Scars” by Mute the Saint ............................................................................... 323 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 394 iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Page Tables Table 2.1: Tempo and Tactus in Djent Songs ............................................................................... 31 Table 2.2: Typical Backbeats with Snare Locations ..................................................................... 37 Figures Figure 3.1: Three-note melodic motive in “Insomnia” ................................................................. 49 Figure 4.1: IOIs of guitar riff and drum pattern ............................................................................ 75 Figure 4.2: Hypothetical snare attack placements in “Of Matter: Proxy” opening groove .......... 75 Figure 4.3: Groupings of thirty-second note level in “Of Matter: Resist” ...................................