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Calandra, N. (2016). Metal health: Measuring depression and anxiety within the heavy metal community. Master's thesis, Long Island University, The Brooklyn Center., Ann Arbor.
Abstract: Heavy metal has a long and controversial history. One of the many things it has been blamed for is causing mental illness among its listeners. However, is the music to be blamed or are there other factors coming into play? Numerous studies have been done on various aspects of heavy metal such as its link to violence, but few have been done on mental health within the community. This paper replicated a French study examining levels of depression and anxiety within the community. Forty three participants, all active metal listeners, completed a survey examining various factors such as employment status and education levels, and completed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Like the French study, it found that participants had generally low levels of depression and anxiety, but high levels were linked to outside factors. Hopefully, this will help open the floor for more valuable research on the community.
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McDowell, M. A., II. (2016). Heavy South: Identity, Performance, and Heavy Music in the Southern Metal Scene. Master's thesis, University of South Florida, Ann Arbor.
Abstract: The Southern Metal scene depends heavily on the performance of a Southern Identity. While considerable research has been done on other musical genres and scenes from the American South (country music, blues, gospel music), less attention has been given to the extreme metal scene of Southern Metal. Using scholarship of Nadine Hubbs, Philip Auslander, Jefferey C. Alexander, and Keith Kahn Harris, among others, I analyze two films, Slow Southern Steel (2010) and NOLA: Life, Death, and Heavy Blues from the Bayou (2014), and one song, Down’s “Eyes of the South” as cultural productions of this Southern Metal scene. In this project, I define the musical elements and scene ethos of Southern Metal as they relate to a wider, more mainstream American audience and describe how these identities and cultural forms are produced, negotiated, and embodied.
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Hereld, D. C. (2016). Musical Intensity in Affect Regulation: Uncovering Hope and Resilience Through Heavy Music. Master's thesis, University of California, San Diego, .
Abstract: This thesis discusses the nature of music’s impact on identity, subjectivity, and the self. To better understand music’s role in promoting hope and resilience, I pinpoint how heavy, intense, and highly emotive music applied over distinct listening practices impacts the regulation of affect and self-destructive impulses in individuals who suffer from trauma, mental illness, or self-destructive behavior. This research also investigates the characteristic of intensity often found in heavy music that seems (despite intuition) to ease negative or painful emotions, circumvent impulses to self-harm, and propel one to positive action.
Of particular interest to this project are the ways both heavy and non-genre specific music listeners use various listening strategies in the regulation and modulation of negative affect and emotion. Specifically highlighted are the three strategies defined by Saarikallio (2008) in the Music in Mood Regulation (MMR) scale of using music to cope with negative mood states: Diversion, where music is used to distract from negative thoughts and feelings, Solace, where music is used for comfort, acceptance, and understanding when feeling sad or troubled, and Discharge, where anger or sadness are released through music.
Through review and analysis of existing literature, qualitative research, and in-depth case studies, this thesis illuminates the ways musically-afforded emotion-regulation strategies allow subjects to meet, shape, and transform their difficult experiences by establishing hope and resilience that strengthens one’s ontological security and sense of self.
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Miller, M. B. (2016). Nicodemus! The beds are burning again: The ascension of Gorgomath. Doctoral thesis, University of Missouri - Kansas City, .
Abstract: Nicodemus! The Beds are Burning Again: The Ascension of Gorgomath is a 22-minute concerto for piano and chamber orchestra that explores the use of narrative as a means of unifying disparate musical languages into a cohesive single-movement structure. The narrative, as implied by the fourteen programmatic indicators within the score, features a protagonist, Nicodemus, and an antagonist, Gorgomath. Additional contrasting elements essential to the plot are: the burning beds, outer space, the ultimate weapon, and the three rituals. The programmatic indicators, to be listed in the program, function as a framework from which the listener can fabricate their own version of the story.
The narrative begins with “The beds are burning,” a heavy-metal inspired musical theme characterized by a pervasive rhythmic structure interspersed with virtuosic piano displays. Full orchestral forces add to the intensity of a relentless motor rhythm heard first in the piano. Following “Ritual I,” a transitionary theme of soli strings and piano, Nicodemus’s theme develops, a musical antithesis to “The Burning Beds” theme. It employs a simple melodic loop over a basic four-chord harmonic structure, reminiscent of 8-bit video game themes, and is voiced as piano accompanied by tremolo in the woodwinds and strings.
Nicodemus’s journey into space begins with a rapid deceleration in tempo. The following slow ternary form includes a funerary dirge bookended by the piece’s most lyrical piano writing, expressed by the rise and fall of melodic octaves. The pounding neo-Shostakovian strings of “Ritual II” transition directly into the development section, “Nicodemus seeks the ultimate weapon.” Nicodemus’s theme undergoes significant transformation, assuming the guise of stride piano and North Indian tabla music. These styles are unique to this section, as is their orchestration of high, sustained winds alternating with orchestral hits between low strings and percussion.
The piece’s recapitulation, “Meanwhile…,” begins with a return of the burning beds. Here, “Gorgomath’s Theme,” identifiable by the instability of its 7/16 motor rhythm is briefly foreshadowed. It appears in its entirety in the coda, “Boss Battle.”
The resulting work uses original narrative to blend polystylistic elements into a cohesive single movement structure with a dramatic musical arc.
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Carter, M. (2016). Perchten and krampusse: living mask traditions in austria and bavaria. Ph.D. thesis, University of Sheffield (United Kingdom), .
Abstract: Two centuries-old mask traditions native to Austria and Bavaria enjoy ongoing popularity due to a creative mingling of old and new elements (heavy metal music and fireworks alongside hand-carved wooden masks and birch rod switches). The Krampus is the menacing companion of St. Nikolaus, who visits children on December 5 and 6, although nowadays groups of Krampusse may appear alone. The Perchten, who are associated with the magical female folk-figure Perchta, appear on January 5 and the week before. While the Perchten and Krampusse represent distinct traditions, their history has intersected at various points, and their contemporary manifestations share many elements, including a movement towards a “modern” aesthetic and the employment of such resources as tourist publicity and the internet to promote their appearances, educate the public, and network with each other. While the house visit was formerly the primary setting for these masked figures (or mummers), today it is the public parade.
These parades, while rooted in and resembling conventional display-custom performances marked by a static division between performer and spectator, actually consist of a kind of fluid, interactive ritual theater in which the partially improvised, partially scripted performances of masked figures and the responses of spectators shape one another. Contemporary manifestations of Perchten and Krampus traditions will be explored in light of the ongoing cultural dialogue between performers and non-performers who seek to define and interpret the tradition, and the interplay of academic and popular discourses surrounding invented tradition, Folklorismus (folklorism) and Rücklauf (feedback), and the nature of authenticity. Questions of cultural heritage “ownership” surface in the debates over form and meaning, while in the hands of the Perchten and Krampusse themselves, tradition emerges as an active process and collaborative artwork rather than a fixed commodity with boundaries which can be defined and navigated by outside observers.
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Tzu-Han Cheng, & Chen-Gia Tsai. (2016). emale Listeners’ Autonomic Responses to Dramatic Shifts Between Loud and Soft Music/Sound Passages: A Study of Heavy Metal Songs. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, art. 182.
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Baker, C., & Brown, B. (2016). Suicide, Self-Harm and Survival Strategies in Contemporary Heavy Metal Music: A Cultural and Literary Analysis. Journal of Medical Humanities, 37, 1–17.
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Gracyk, T. (2016). Heavy Metal: Genre? Style? Subculture? Philosophy Compass, 11, 775–785.
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Lucas, O. R. (2016). Loudness, Rhythm and Environment: Analytical Issues in Extreme Metal Music. Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, Cambridge.
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Castillo Bernal, S. (2016). El mundo del Heavy Metal en la Ciudad de México: Radiografías imaginarias y rituales. In F. de la Peña Martínez (Ed.), Atlas Etnográfico de los Mundos Contemporáneos (Vol. 1, pp. 83–117). Ciudad de México: Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, ENAH: Ediciones Navarra.
Abstract: La finalidad de este trabajo es delinear las características fundamentales de la escena metalera de la Ciudad de México, así como los cimientos simbólicos, imaginarios y rituales que sustentan a los partidarios de esta comunidad de sentido. Para lograr este cometido dividí el ensayo en tres segmentos. En el primero se definirán las características angulares e ideológicas del Heavy Metal así como las de la escena metalera mexicana; en el segundo apartado repasaré algunos de los constructos teóricos de Turner tocantes a la teoría del ritual. En el último bloque pondré a prueba las categorías analíticas para darle luz a las prácticas metaleras gestadas en los conciertos. Este último apartado me permitirá avanzar algunas hipótesis referidas al imaginario estructural de la escena cultural metalera.
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