Simple and complex metal progressions

by Danyl Novhorodov
(Ukraine)

Question: Hi Mike. Once again I want to thank you. You're doing a great work.

Most of the time I'm playing metal in the style of Metallica, Judas Priest, Accept and Megadeth. But I'm also inspired with AC/DC blues influences, Dream Theater and Fates Warning progressive music and crazy guys like Blotted Science which have many chromatics riffs and leads.

You have a lot of information about chord progressions in major/minor perspective and not only. But it would be very interesting for me how to build complex metal progressions which based not only on power chords, but on mix of some 7th, 9th, diminished, suspended,etc. chords with power chords. So how can we combine this stuff to make music more interesting with jazz/progressive sound?. Not every chord sounds good on overdrive, but guys from Dream Theater for example knows how to make it works.

Also, how scale/key changes works in this case... how we can make journey away from starting key through another keys and safely return to "home"? I would be very appreciate to you if you could make some lesson on this topic.

Thank you.

Answer

Hey Danyl, I've just uploaded a lesson on powerchord alternatives and chords/diads used in metal. See the metal guitar chords lesson.

Was just listening to some Blotted Science this morning actually! They are a truly jaw dropping band, and a fair bit in advance of what I teach on this site, but it's worth noting that a lot of the time metal guitarists will use a harmoniser effect, which adds a major/minor 3rd, 7th, 9th etc. to the notes they play. So they can effectively thicken up those basic lead lines with more harmonic depth. Obviously it also helps if a band has two (or more) guitarists.

I'll definitely be adding lessons on song structure and more progressive journeys to the songwriting section as time goes on. I was also going to do a lesson specifically on metal progressions for some ideas.