I know, I've been here from the beginning and it's a little late but

Introduce Yourself
#1

I thought I would start here before I begin with a barrage of questions on my own technique.

So, I’m probably not like most of you here. Meaning, I discovered Metallica at the age of 13 in 89’ just before going into high school. It was life-altering and have been a dedicated metal fan since then. I started playing guitar a year or two later and was never interested in guitar solos, shredding etc, because I just wanted to play heavy and fast thrash/death metal rhythms. Many of the bands/guitarists Troy has featured in his cracking the code series were “cock rock” to me and I lumped them in with the likes of Poison, Ratt, Trixter, etc.

Obviously times have changed and I know better now and I have broadened my musical taste (somewhat). I still am not terribly interested in becoming the next Yngwie, but just want to improve my overall ability. I’ve always had problems with playing thrash/death metal tremelo picking, ESPECIALLY palm-muted. It takes me 15 minutes to warm up in order to play something like Fight Fire with Fire and even then, it’s not perfectly precise.

So I had been scouring YT for technique but find little on playing thrash/death metal because everyone on YT seems like they can already do it with ease! So I found CTC by accident, and have been working on various things which I’ll bring up in other sub-forums!

5 Likes
Teemu's interview + tremelo picking palm muted
#2

Welcome! First off, Ratt is great. Wash your mouth out with soap!

Kidding. Most of the requests we get for thrash rhythm playing relate to repeated pickstrokes, like the all-downstroke stuff Hetfield does. It’s not clear to me there is a “technique” for making rapid repeated movements, per se, since that is inherently non-alternating / inefficient. But that may just be the result of not knowing what you don’t know, as has been the case with guitar picking for decades now. So I will withhold judgement on that, and we’ll keep thinking about it.

But if you’re referring to fast alternate picking, the good news is that we understand that a lot better. The latest thread with @sguitar outlines the basic methodology for approaching that, and this doesn’t change just because muting is introduced. The anchor position may shift to permit more palm / string contact, depending on whether you’re using a downward pickslanting or upward pickslanting posture - which we discussed a little in the Eklundh thread. But generating fast sustained movements is still about worrying about fluidity first, and accuracy second.

If you film a clip and post it in Technique Critique, we’ll be able to do a much better assessment. I suspect lots of people are in a similar boat, and so these threads help everyone.

3 Likes
#3

Hey, I’m totally the same. The Master of Puppets album changed my life and I’d say I developed 90% of my picking technique from just trying to play those early Metallica songs. I only just got Fight Fire with Fire up to speed recently. I also find the difficulty of thrash to be way underrated, the rhythm parts in stuff like Slayer and Megadeth can be ridiculously hard, and don’t even get me started on the more modern stuff like Vektor.

2 Likes
#5

yeah, I know the things I did after entering puberty! so embarrassing… I once told a kid in my art class in high school who was wearing an AC/DC t-shirt “why you wearing that pussy band’s T-shirt!? they are so weak!” and nearly got into a fight with him. Back then, there was distinct line in the sand between thrash and rock and you couldn’t exist on both sides of it. I know, so stupid and childish.

Ended up being friends with him eventually and started a band. He helped me get into “lighter” bands like Maiden, Dio and Queensryche!

I’m going to quote some of your advice here Troy and post it in a different section as I think it deserves more attention.

1 Like
#7

Hey dude, welcome! Bands like Iced Earth and Blind Guardian were my Metallicas growing up in the early 2000s, I didn’t get into more classic heavy metal until my late teens and early 20s.

#8

thanks! IE has some good stuff. I’ve always used this riff to improve my galloping:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BpnTR5GCvc#t=01m43s

1 Like