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Massive effort here by the amazing John Taylor, aka @milehighshred, who meticulously crafted this behemoth multi-chapter overview of extreme metal rhythm guitar techniques.
Weāre still working on the giant pile of tablature examples for this, but all four of Johnās awesome songs are up, transcribed, and playable in SoundSlice.
Even if youāre only casually interested in extreme metal, the songs are a great demonstration of what the differences are between these three core extreme metal styles, and the writing on them is just great. You can check them out on the seminar page:
The intro chapter is free to watch without a subscription, and is also up on YT, with some song and etude excerpts in there as well:
Thanks John for all the hard work on this!
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Awesome!! Time to restart my membership!! Couple of questions:
Is this the same seminar you mentioned a year and change ago? Been waiting on this one!
Is ābrutal technical death Metalā covered or just ātechnical brutal death Metalā?
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Obsidian, because itās:
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Sweet! Glad to see itās up 
Thank you for giving me the chance to do this. Really does mean a lot that you believe in me as a player and instructor who is good enough to work with you in creating material together.
I hope people enjoy it and get to learn things!
If ANYONE has any questions regarding the material, please tag me in the comment and Iāll be happy to help the best I can 
@DC11GTR No specific style of death metal is covered. Itās more about the techniques and rhythms that help make the metal genres.
The etudes/songs are to show how things can be used to form the different styles.
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Not a PunkRockMBA/Finn Mckenty fan I guessā¦.
Anyways, looking forward to diving in!
Oh manā¦ did a joke just go over my head? My old age is showing!
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Iāve watched a little bit of his stuff but didnāt catch that one!
It was an ongoing joke on his 2nd channel, but youād have to deep dive lol. Dude seems to have disappeared soā¦.
Another question about the down picking lessons: Are there lessons and ways to increase stamina safely? Iāve been using the āmain riffā in Master Of Puppets as a benchmark and I can do 2 bars in before it goes to shit. Usually that slight pause in the steady picking is enough to allow to sort of rest and reset, but I canāt do it with downstrokes. I seem to need at least a full bar. Iāve never been much of a downpicker but itās a thing I need to improve on.
The course has several down picking riffs to help ease you into more and more difficult stuff.
Something Iām very big on is metronome work. Itās how I developed and pushed my speed faster and fast and faster. Itās something I recently started doing again, and I live stream the practice sessions so anyone can see what and how I do things.
The basic idea I use is progressive overload, the same principle involved with weight training. Basically, gradually push the difficulty little by little. If you can play a riff at 180 bpm, then try 181. Then 182, etc. etc.
Using Master of Puppets as an example, you say you can play two bars. What happens after trying three? Iām guessing it doesnāt go well based on what you said. Well, what if you tried three bars but 10 BPM slower than the song requires? See if you can do that. If not, lower the metronome until you CAN accomplish all three bars. Then, start going up nice and slow until youāre able to get all three bars up to speed.
Pushing your natural limits takes time, patience, and a lot of grit.
I certainly canāt discuss all possibilities and variations over text, but Iāll do my best to help.
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what are the pre-requisites to be able to effectively take this course in terms of speed and motions? i can do usx/dsx and mixed escape well at a fast enough speed that i know the motions are working but the bpms im hearing here seem to beā¦pushing itā¦
Thanks for the info. Iāll be doing the course starting probably next week, so Iām psyched.
I shouldāve prefaced by saying that I have hand issues that forced me into retirement around ā07 and started playing again last year. Iām still developing stamina but most of my basic/realistic speed is back. I donāt expect to beat the metronome like I did 20 years ago but I can pretty much play as fast as i need to for the stuff Iām currently writing. I top out at a comfortable 190, and an uncomfortable 210-220.
What happens after those 2 bars is that I cant maintain it long enough to keep going. Not just speed but muscle in general. That said, I think that itās a speed I have no business trying to do until I rebuild my strength and stamina. I mentioned the speeds above, and the āuncomfortable 210-220ā is in that same kind of range as the MoP and only being able to do 2 bars. I didnāt work up to that, I just know that itās a universal downpicking beast of a tune so thatās what I use as my measuring device. I feel fairly fine with downstrokes at my top comfortable speed for awhile. Itās the pushing to MoP levels that stops me.
Canāt wait to get into the lessons because it could just as easily be the technique Iām using. I mentioned in a post on the MoP topic last year that I used to be able to play a ton of Metallica and not once did I attempt it with downstrokes lol
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Stoked on this! I got into extreme metal relatively late in my guitar playing career, but wound up starting a death metal band that I currently still play in. I remember the early days of getting my tremolo technique together was extremely awkward. I still canāt get steady 16ths above 210ish, but we do a lot of un-palm muted trem stuff and use the BOSS Hm2 pedal, so anything above that I just flail about umetered and it sounds fine for live performances. My co-guitarist can clear 240 bpm steady 16ths, though. (funny enough, he actually has trouble doing steady 16ths SLOWER than 200 bpm).
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Very cool, glad to see my favorite genres explored more!
And since Master of Puppets was mentioned, hope you all know of this Kevin Heiderich fella:
Many of his videos have some explanation on his technique; Iād love to see him interviewed!
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Kevin is one of the best tech death player out there.
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Any thoughts on making the backing tracks and play-through available for download? I prefer putting these into my DAW for practice. I ended up recording these myself last time, using loopback. This obviously works fine, but is a little bit of extra hassle.
They ARE available! And they are available in Tommoās seminar as well.
For example, with the death metal etude, Johnās live guitar is in the center and his studio rhythms are hard panned L-R about 6db down, mainly for stereo width. So we just removed John from the center, and thatās the backing track:
In my experience if you canāt reach a certain bpm itās due to something with the technique. I never had death metal speed and never tried downpicking. I then realized, semi-accidentally, that I could do * uppicking * at 250 bpm or more simply by changing the technique. That information is all in our lessons now:
When you learn to enable this level of speed, endurance at Master of Puppets tempos increases dramatically. While there is undoubtedly training involved in learning to do it in a relaxed way for longer and longer stretches of time, I do not think a slow player will become fast without changing their technique to a better one.
Hereās an example of a player who was already fast, and gained massive speed increases a few days after watching our lesson:
Finally, I would be extremely careful with all of this stuff if you have any kind of history of injury. I wouldnāt do anything that causes pain or fatigue, and Iād only play for short periods of time.
@Bigsby007
I feel the biggest pre-requisite is simply having an interest in the material because it sounds fun!
Yes, the speeds are pretty fast for a lot of people. But, and I know Iāll get flack for this, I will always recommend proper metronome practice to help train your ears to hear the super fast stuff. Iām always happy to talk about it, and have a free eBook that goes over great detail how I recommend using it. Itās how I pushed my speed, and continue to do so to this day.
@DC11GTR
Just like Troy said, good idea to use caution when rebuilding your picking speed and stamina as to not worse an old injury. Starting at a pace you know you can do, and then just trying 1 BPM faster is all you really need to get started. 1 BPM increases is something I personally strive for when Iām pushing my physical limits. An increase is an increase, and going at a pace you can handle is totally fine 
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@milehighshred I just saw this came out and Iām really interested but I havenāt played for that long and mainly practiced leads. Now Iām a bit unsure after seeing the video on yt whether it makes sense for me to even start or if I should practice something easier first and come back in a year or so. So my question is: How hard is it to get at least close to where Iād want to get for a player who has very little experience playing rhythm and is more in the early stages of intermediate playing (my own assessment)?
Also how is it constructed? Is it more of a step by step course or more a source for practice material that isnāt set in a particular order?