Guitar Instruction Book

Metal guitar is a very popular genre with people who feel that negativity and hopelessness are not getting a fair go in modern music. If you are reading an article called “Metal Guitar Lesson” you probably have an idea about what Metal is but if you don’t, the best way to describe it is by listing some Metal groups.

The genre originated with the loud, in-your-face music of the late sixties and early seventies pioneered by guitar players like Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. This style quickly moved onto another definition of the word “music” where melody fades into the background to give way to the quantity and quality of sound the guitar player is able to produce. Iron Maiden and Judas Priest are early Metal guitar groups. Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, Motorhead and Slayer, Sodom, Kreator, Destruction, Children of Bodom, Tankard, Testament and Pantera are also well established but represent the more ruthless Metal guitar music known as Thrash Metal.

Every metal guitar player needs to be a fantastic string bender. The whammy bar on your guitar will change the pitch of your strings but if you have a cheap guitar you might have a problem with strings breaking. It’s best if you do it the non-whammy bar way which is pick a note and move the string sideways to bend the note up.

To get that chugging effect so desired by heavy metal guitarists, you will need to learn to mute the strings. If you have been listening to Metal guitar, you will have heard the sound, so now follow the description to find a comfortable way of MAKING the sound: simplay hold your pick in the usual playing position and place the pinky side of your hand on the strings to muffle the sound. Now take a few minutes to slowly find a way so you can pick notes on the sixth string while your hand is still muting the sound. As you become more familiar with picking in this position, you will be able to extend your range of palm muting techniques.

Once you have palm muting working for you, you could start to master machine-gun picking. This is lightning-fast up and down strokes with the pick. It takes some practice but you will be glad you did when you start combining this standard metal guitar technique with palm muting.

Vocals are not the strong point of Thrash Metal so let’s get to the equipment you need to become a Thrash Metal guitar player. Distortion is an important part of Metal so a distortion pedal is essential. You will need the usual guitar stuff like plectrums and a tuner and a metronome.

The musical background you need for learning Metal guitar is much the same as for blues players. The major, minor, pentatonic, minor harmonic scales will be handy plus the phrygian, lochrian and byzantine modes. You might want to learn to read music or at least, tab.

Another characteristic of Metal guitar is the use of drop tunings. If you play Metal your guitar should be tuned low. It gives you a totally different kind of control over your strings, your sound is more aggressive and you can do more with hammer-ons and tapping. You could just begin by tuning your guitar half a step down. Not a drastic change but it makes your guitar sound more growly without losing all the high range. Or you could take your strings down a whole step so that your guitar is tuned D G C F A D.

If you take your tuning one and a half steps or two steps down your guitar is now sounding menacing. If you want to tune your guitar any lower than two steps down, a longer than normal neck will stop the strings from moving around too much.

By: Ricky Sharples

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Technorati Tags: guitar lesson, heavy metal guitar lessons, metal guitar lesson

Everybody has at some time dreamt of learning to play the guitar. For one thing, it has found its way into so many different styles of music that whatever your musical preferences, you can find some guitar music to suit them. There are guitar teachers everywhere so, once you have decided that you want to be a guitar player, you can start learning to play as soon as possible.

There are certain aspects of guitar playing, like chord shapes and how to make them, that are common to all kinds of guitar playing. This means that any guitar teacher, no matter what style he teaches, can show you the basic principles of playing the guitar. Now that the internet has become a source of knowledge in all subject, you will have no trouble finding basic guitar lessons that you can make use of for free.

The differences between the different styles of guitar music are in the chords and scales that are used and also the right hand playing techniques. If you are playing an electric guitar, you can use a plectrum, your fingernails or a thumb pick and finger picks. The thumb- and finger picks are mostly used for Travis picking which is essentially a country music style of playing. You can also employ Travis picking techniques on steel or nylon string acoustic guitars. Steel string guitars tend to be a little hard on the nails so many fingerstyle players use picks. If you are playing a nylon string guitar you can choose whether to use finger picks or just the nails or flesh of your fingertips.

There are different chords, scales and playing techniques used for rock, jazz, country, pop and classical guitar so once you have learnt some basic open chords in the first position on the fretboard, you can start learning techniques specific to the style of music you want to play.

To start off your guitar playing you could type “free guitar lessons” into a search engine and you will find plenty of beginners courses to choose from. Video guitar lessons are by far the easiest to learn from because a person showing you where to put your fingers with you hearing the music as he plays it is a much deeper learning experience than reading words on a page.

So if you focus your search for free guitar lessons on a video archiving site like YouTube, you will be overwhelmed with video guitar lessons for beginners. Once you are past the beginner stage you can start searching again using terns associated with your genre. For instance you could type something like “jazz guitar scales” or “Flamenco guitar chords” or “power chords” into the search box on YouTube.

You can combine free video guitar lessons with other free guitar teaching materials like blank guitar fretboard diagrams, chord charts, guitar tuners and metronomes, all available for free to those willing to search for them.

Author: Ricky Sharples

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Technorati Tags: free guitar lessons, guitar lesson, guitar lesson videos

I have always talked about how universal music is, and when it comes to metal, it can be as universal as you want it to be. A lot of people shrug and don’t think that it is, but they are quite wrong.

A good place to start would be to study a little bit of the approach to rock guitar. Metal, like rock, uses a lot of power chords and a lot of the same scales and modes, but because metal is more adaptable to different genres of music, it can include any number of modes or chord structures.

This article has to be vague because there are so many different forms that heavy metal comes in. You have speed metal, thrash metal, black metal, alt metal, death metal, neo-classical metal, Black metal, Power metal, Goth metal, Jazz metal, and even Polka metal. In all reality that list is very tiny, as new forms of the musical movement are constantly being recognized.

Still, all of these forms of metal have a similar core foundation, and its just ahead that we’re going to talk about this foundation.

1. Rhythm Guitar

In a lot of metal songs, a common theme is to ride one string and insert chords where desired. By riding a string, I mean to pick that string multiple times while inserting chords (typically power chords) at different times throughout a riff. A lot of rhythm guitarists try to do this with down strokes, but I highly advise you to correct this and start using alternate picking. This will allow you to produce some intense and fast rhythms. It is also quite common to palm mute the string that a guitarist is riding. When I say palm mute, I mean to literally rest the palm of your picking hand on the string, muffling the string to get a good crunch. The palm is generally laid close to the bridge of the guitar.

2. Stops and rhythm accents

With the above approach to playing rhythm guitar in heavy metal, a lot of complicated rhythm structures are often created. It is common for a metal guitarist to insert a lot of stops in their rhythm structure. The rhythms are typically always changing, creating elaborate and interesting riffs. I always think of the rhythm guitar in a metal song as being very percussive. If you take the time to familiarize yourself with what a drummer is doing in a metal band, then this will make better sense to you.

3. Metronome

That’s right – use a metronome. If you are just starting out, you’d be wise to practice metal rhythms with a metronome. The rhythm has to be tight, because metal is actually a very sophisticated for of music. Often times the drummer is playing very fast, and is usually using the double bass pedal on a drum set. These guys can really lay it on the bass drum, so you need to be able to keep up with it.

When I was a kid I got involved in a metal band that was way out of my league. As a lead guitarist, I naturally spend more time working on fast solos, and not rhythms. I tried to play these complicated rhythms, while trying to keep up with our drummer, who was a bit of a legend in the area. It stressed my picking hand out so much that it took me about three months of TLC to repair it and bring it back to its old self.

I would suggest sitting down with a metronome and working on riding the low E string, or A string, in sixteenths. This will get your picking hand loosened up and give it some added strength. Practice doing this will palm muting and without palm muting, but start at a very, very slow tempo.

4. Scales and Modes

I personally have always thought that when it comes to modes in heavy metal, everything is fair game. The Major scale, Major Pentatonic, Minor Pentatonic, Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor, Phrygian, and the Exotic Scales are excellent for guitar leads in metal. Lead guitarists who play metal tend to be quite the achievers, so you should probably take the time to learn every scale and mode available.

5. Technique

Heavy metal guitar also boasts its fair share of techniques. Not only that, but it actually dominates these techniques. Here’s a small list.

a) alternate picking

b) string skipping

c) tapping

d) legato

e) sweep picking

f) economy picking

There are also many more, not so common hybrid techniques, like sweep legato, or string skip tapping.

6. Classical Music

Classical music is a huge influence for the world of metal. It is very important to listen to classical music, and study its nature. For instance, Counterpoint is a Baroque approach to playing two melodies that has resurfaced in the metal community in recent years. It would also appear that a lot of predominant metal

guitarists are quite fond of J.S. Bach, and this certainly does not exclude the ever famous Yngwie Malmsteen.

Conclusion

Metal is one of the most ambitious styles of music out their. There is a lot to learn, but start small and know that you will eventually have finished climbing the mountain. This is also inspiring, because if you reach the top of that mountain and decide to study a new genre of music, you’ll be very much prepared. Alex Skolnick who was the former lead guitarist for Testament did just this, and mostly plays Jazz guitar now. You can be assured that he makes an amazing Jazz guitarist. Keep rockin’!

Author: Tennyson Williams

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