Heavy Metal Guitar Lessons

Learn the techniques that make heavy metal fast, brutal and even... melodic.

If you're into thrash metal, death metal, or any other form of heavy metal and want to learn the essential guitar techniques used in all the metal sub-genres, this is the place.

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Highly recommended heavy metal guitar course
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Heavy Metal Guitar Basics >>

Power chords are...not chords! They are diads (two notes played together) used religiously in rock and heavy metal. They work well under high gain/distortion, so turn your amp's settings up and learn how to improve your riff accuracy and speed with these power chord exercises.

Palm mute guitar is a technique used in all forms of heavy metal, giving a more percussive edge to distorted/high gain guitar. Use this lesson series for the basics, moving onto some more advanced tips and techniques in the 2nd and 3rd parts.

This lesson covers tremolo picking - an alternate picking technique used most commonly in thrash metal. Machine gun picking methods. Great excercise... for your hand anyway.

A bit of focus on lead guitar and the scales commonly used in heavy metal to support its harsh, aggressive style. We look at the modes and more exotic scales used in metal, and there are backing tracks for you to try them out over... don't say I never give you anything.

Part 1 introduces the "death scale" and some alternate picking, palm muting techniques to use with the slow, lumbering side of death metal.

Part 2 looks at complimenting blast beats using tremolo picking and riffing at speed. Plus, we finish by building a progressive death metal riff from the elements we've learned.

Know what the secret is to that satisfying rhythmic chaos in thrash metal? Pick groupings - This lesson gives you some more technical picking exercises to make your thrash playing more dynamic, working with the percussion. Plus, we look at general tremolo picking and some other essential thrash metal styles. Enjoy!

This lesson focuses on working with the percussion, with drum tracks to try your own stuff over. We also get introduced to the groove element of heavy metal, which is covered in depth in the Burning Metal Course.