So, you want to learn metal guitar. You've undoubtedly sifted through the un-godly amount of Internet articles on the subject, maybe read a few guitar magazines, maybe read some of the (now illegal) tab sites, tearing your hair out and saying "But how do I fucking play it?" – I know, I've been there.
Well, this is the article you've been looking for. I'm not going to spend much time introducing it, so I'll just say this: practice what you see here, learn the techniques, and you will, with time, learn metal guitar. I'm going to start at 'thrash metal' (read: speed metal) such as Slayer and Metallica and go forward through death and black metal, but there will be some excursions back to the older stuff (mostly 'Maiden and 'Priest). There will be some history lessons and a few blurbs on metal ethics, but the focus will be technique, followed, by an editorial on writing metal riffs. Now…
LESSON ONE – Music Theory
You must know theory. All right? No buts. This is a metal primer, so I'm not going to spend much time on the basics, but rather how they are applied to metal. The things you need to know are:
If you don't know any of this, there's a good FAQ on it here. If you don't know how to read tabs, you can find out here.
Now, for the meat of this lesson: how does all of that obtuse shit apply to metal?
First of all, remember that any metal being played – besides the very first one or two waves of 'heavy metal' – relies heavily on dissonance. This is one reason that metal is so difficult to listen to for a lot of people, because in music, too much dissonance sounds 'bad'. A lot of this dissonance comes from what we call the chromatic scale. Don't panic: it's not some new scale you don't know yet, it's just what you get when you ascend the neck of the guitar one fret at a time. Another way of saying it is that it contains ALL of the notes.
You'll notice that a lot of metal is based on the chromatic scale. One of the best examples of this is the riff from Metallica's "Master of Puppets", which you've surely heard.
PM............................................................. e |-----------------|----------------|----------------|----------------| B |-----------------|----------------|----------------|----------------| G |.----------------|----------------|----------------|------------4---| D |.----------------|----------------|----------------|------------4---| A |-----2-----3-----|4-----3-----2-2-|----2-----3-----|4-----3-----2---| E |-0-1---0-1---0-1-|--0-1---0-1-----|0-1---0-1---0-1-|--0-1---1-0-----|
See where the chromatic progression is? It's on the A string, and it moves from the second fret, to the third fret, to the fourth, then back down to the second. I can remember panicking as a beginning guitarist when I first read this tab: "But what scale does it fit into?" Well, there are two ways to answer that question.
The first way is to say that it doesn't fit into a scale, save the chromatic one. This is what makes the riff sound so harsh and angry: the notes, since they fit into no recognized Western major or minor scale, clash and jangle against each other.
The second way to say this is that it fits into EVERY scale, because any progression can use a little chromatic lick to spice up its sound. Generally, the first answer is more pertinent with regards to metal.
Chords
The next thing you need to learn about metal is its relation to chords. Whereas your average boring-ass rock band uses chords as a backdrop for the vocals (which are the focus) and maybe some leads, in metal, the chords make up riffs which carry the song entirely.You know, I hope, what a 'power chord' is; a perfect fifth. Metal uses power chords extensively, because they're the only chords that sound good with the amount of gain and distortion used in this music. However, in metal parlance, a 'power chord' is not always a perfect fifth. Rather, it is any chord made up entirely of perfect intervals (unison, fourth, fifth, octave), which will tolerate any amount of distortion and still retain its tough, angry, assertive sound.
The catch is this: since power chords have no tonality of their own, they can't imply a scale. What I'm saying is, there's no 'minor' or 'major' power chord, so you have to come up with a progression inside of a scale if you're going to make it sound like anything. For instance, this sounds like nothing:
e |-----------------| B |-----------------| G |.----------------| D |--2--------------| A |--2--------------| E |--0--------------|
But this sounds minor:
e |-----------------| B |-----------------| G |.----------------| D |--2-4-5-4-2------| A |--2-4-5-4-2------| E |--0-2-3-2-0------|
And this sounds major:
e |-----------------| B |-----------------| G |.----------------| D |--2-4-6-7-6------| A |--2-4-6-7-6------| E |--0-2-4-5-4------|
The chords are the same, but the context is different. See?
Now that that's over with, I'm going to quickly run through the different forms of power chords.
e |-------------| B |----------8--| G |------5---7--| D |--7---7---5--| A |--7---5------| E |--5----------|
This is your basic power chord, moved up three strings.. You can take off that top note for a sharper, more defined (but lighter) sound, like this:
e |-------------| B |-------------| G |----------7--| D |------7---5--| A |--7---5------| E |--5----------|
e |-------------| B |----------8--| G |------7---5--| D |--7---5---5--| A |--5---5------| E |--5----------|
This is an inverted power chord. This sounds a little darker and heavier, but muddier. It becomes much more useful when used to contrast the normal power chords.
e |-------10----| B |----10-8-----| G |-9--7--7-----| D |-7--7--5-----| A |-7--5--------| E |-5-----------|
This is a power chord with another fifth stacked on top. It's a great, big, ringing chord which adds a bit of texture to a slower power chord sequence. It can hurt your little finger a lot if your hands aren't big, especially that last iteration with the root on the D string.
e |-------------| B |-------10----| G |----9--7-----| D |-9--7--5-----| A |-7--5--------| E |-5-----------|
This one sounds like a compressed version of the one above. When strummed rapidly, it has, surprisingly, a subdued sound compared to the basic power chord being used in the same way.
e |-------8-----| B |----8--8-----| G |-7--7--5-----| D |-7--5--5-----| A |-5--5--------| E |-5-----------|
This one is also big and ringing, but it's easier on your fingers and has a different flavor from the other really big one. It looks sort of difficult, but the trick is to fret the two lower strings with your index finger and the upper two with your ring finger. Get it?
Palm Mutes
Along with power chords, palm mutes are the bread-and-butter of most metal music (black metal and some thrash are an exception, but we'll get to that). I hope to Anubis that someone has taught you how to do palm mutes, but if no-one has, then it's done like this: rest your palm on the strings, near the bridge. Don't push at all, just rest your palm there and pick as you normally would. Picking up and down on one string continuously is called 'chugging', and if done right should have a heavy, thudding, percussive sound to it. Bear wit to this tab:
e |-------------| B |-------------| G |-------------| D |-------------| A |-------------| E |-0-0-0-0-0-0-| PM - - - - - -
There are two things to keep in mind here:
That said, there are a few ways to expand your chugging. The first is simply to use multiple notes, rather than just bashing away on the same string. Observe:
e |--------------------------------| B |--------------------------------| G |--------------------------------| D |--------------------------------| A |--------------------------------| E |-0-0-0-0-1-1-1-1-3-3-3-3-1-1-1-1| PM - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A short progression in Phrygian (a very 'metal' sounding mode, at least in the first four notes) can liven up a chugging progression nicely. You could also do it chromatically, like this:
e |--------------------------------| B |--------------------------------| G |--------------------------------| D |--------------------------------| A |--------------------------------| E |-4-4-4-4-3-3-3-3-2-2-2-2-1-1-1-1| PM - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
There are endless ways to make chugging better by simply using different note combinations. However, note that you can also chug with muted power chords:
e |---------| B |---------| G |---------| D |---------| A |-2-2-2-2-| E |-0-0-0-0-| PM - - - -
You can use the basic power chords, or, you can use any of the other types outlined in the power chord section above (note that this will sound very awkward if you use the really big chords).
Finally, there's something else you can do with chugging which makes for a much more aggressive sound. It's referred to colloquially as 'galloping'. You can hear it in the Metallica song 'Dyer's Eve' quite a bit, and in a number of other old thrash songs.
Galloping is quite simple: it simple consists of a series of triplets (three notes in the time it takes to play two) like this:
e |-------------| B |-------------| G |-------------| D |-------------| A |-------------| E |-000-000-000-| PM --- --- ---
Each note must be executed very fast with alternate picking. If you have trouble going fast enough to get your gallops to sound like they have balls, try angling your pick so that it scrapes the strings and going in a circular motion. This technique, though not as clean, gives you a good speed boost if you're not fast enough yet.
Once you get really good, try this:
e |-------------------------------------------------| B |-------------------------------------------------| G |-------------------------------------------------| D |-------------------------------------------------| A |-------------------------------------------------| E |-000-321-432-321-000-321-432-321-000-321-432-321-| PM --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Then, try this:
e |-----------------| B |-----------------| G |-----------------| D |-----------------| A |-222-222-333-333-| E |-000-000-111-111-| PM --- --- --- ---
You can try to gallop on the bigger power chords, but the resulting stress may cause your hand to turn black and fall off.
TREMOLO PICKING
Ah, yes, tremolo picking. It's been used throughout metal's history, but it made its big debut in speed metal, where tremolo picking on the A string through a chromatic progression made for a perfectly demonic sound. Later, it found its way into death metal, mainly through Morbid Angel (listen to the song "Fall from Grace" for some examples). Where it really took off was in black metal, where the late six-string genius Euronymous used it as the meat-and-potatoes of his riffing style. Tremolo picking is not hard at all to do. It works like this:
e |-------------| B |-------------| G |-------------| D |-------------| A |-------------| E |-00000000000-|
The difference between chugging and tremolo picking is that tremolo picking is not muted. It sounds like a buzz. Also, where chugging (and the above example of trem picking) is usually done on the lowest two strings, tremolo picking is generally done on the A, D, or G strings. Also, tremolo picking takes a much more melodic and less rhythmic approach overall. Observe this riff from Mayhem's famous De Mysteriis dom Sathanas:
e |------------------------------------------------| B |------------------------------------------------| G |------------------------------------------------| D |--------------999-10101010-99999-10101010-9999--| A |---------7777-----------------------------------| E |-0000000----------------------------------------|
(The 10's are tens, not ones and zeros) You would never, ever do that which a chugging riff. Tremolo picking is used as a much more melodic device.
There's one more thing to keep in mind about tremolo picking which is that it can be either done in time (in which case you want to pick in straight 16th or even 32nd notes if you can manage it), or you can just pick as fast has humanly possible; as long as you make sure to change notes on the beat, it will still sound in time. These two approaches have different feels and different moods, so, as always, experiment.
by Werewolf