Metal rhythm playing and alternate picking

by Jon
(Virginia)

Question: I have a question about how to handle alternate picking when playing rhythm. While it is easier to maintain strict alternate picking with lead lines, I find myself struggling when it is time to lay down rhythm.

For instance, take the riff in Master of Puppets that follows the intro chords. If I play this riff with alt. picking (I know Metallica plays this with all downstrokes, but hear me out) I tend to alt. pick the low E string, but hit all notes on the D string with a downstroke, even though this sometimes breaks the alt. picking. How would you handle similar riffs? On this website, I face a similar dilemma with the riff associated with thrash6.mp3. Strict alt. picking would result in some of the non-palm muted notes hit with an upstroke.

Thanks in advance!

Answer

Firstly, thanks for the detailed and well explained question.

There is a very good reason why Hetfield only uses down picks on that opening riff in Master of Puppets - the momentum of your downward pick strokes helps keep the attack consistent. It's slow enough to only use down picks, and I also believe it is played from the 12th fret, all on the low E and A strings, which means there is less to negotiate (i.e. no need to jump to the A and D string powerchords in between the low E palm muted strokes.)

As you mentioned, for the thrash6 clip from the thrash metal guitar lesson, using strict alternate picking would result in some of the non-palm muted notes, or diads in some cases, hit with an up stroke. Therefore, I use down strokes for all non-muted notes in riffs like this. I find this helps keep the momentum of attack far better than strict alternate picking. It's almost like giving the brain these defined, downward "marker points" that help you mentally negotiate these more dynamic riffs.

Thank you for raising this point, as it wasn't mentioned in the lesson and I'll add an explanation now!