- Where is the line between hard rock and heavy metal?
- In melody and tone. Hard rock keeps its blues roots and a singable chorus, and its distortion, however heavy, stays warm. Metal runs faster and colder with tighter tone, riffs drawing on chromatic and modal material and far more extreme vocals. Hard rock is still rock; metal has become another language.
- What is a power chord and why does it matter so much?
- It plays only the root and fifth, omitting the third that would fix it as major or minor. That keeps it from turning muddy under high gain, and its neutral color lets riffs move freely between modes — the technical reason hard rock's wall can be both thick and clear.
- How do I get heavy without mud?
- Prompt "double-tracked guitars panned hard, bass locked to the kick, big dry drums, midrange left for the vocal." Asking for frequency division does the work; simply repeating "heavier" usually returns a smeared low end instead.
