OK it’s still metal, but I’ve always found Solsagan by Finntroll to be quite the workout. If your tremolo picking is somewhat inefficient, you’ll know it very early into the song.
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Question @aliendough. Is your stance on this “I don’t really like metal, what are some non-metal tunes to help me out” OR is it “I’m not familiar with metal but I know it’s got great rhythm playing. Any suggestions on some cool metal tunes I could learn”???
I assumed the former and it looks like others got that same vibe.
But reading your OP again I’m not so sure and maybe it’s the latter. Are you asking for metal tunes? I like just about any genre but I was in a band for about 7 years that was definitely metal. In my experience, the accuracy required for metal rhythm playing is unparalleled among any other genre I’ve dabbled in.
Just want to make sure we’re not missing out on an opportunity to throw some other tunes your way (though you may have enough at this point lol)
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Bigfoot Alcatraz
Malmsteen has lots of good riffs.
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I’m not familiar with metal, but I know it has good rhythm playing. As you say, it requires a lot of accuracy and makes it a good learning tool.
Cool, well if you’d like some stuff a good bit heavier than the others I’d suggested, this is one of my all time favs. Honestly, I became jaded with metal after the band thing I did years ago and I’d almost go so far as to say I now sort of hate metal lol! BUT…this song from KillSwitch is great. Pretty melodic and screaming is minimal. Awesome songwriting too.
Very fun rhythm parts! A nice mix of “chuggy” stuff (i.e. palm muted open strings) and moving octaves. Also, the chuggy stuff is brief enough that’s it’s a great opportunity to work on all down strokes, if you’d like.
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@joebegly My theory is that everyone likes at least ONE Killswitch song, lol. This one has a great riff as well, also from that album!
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At one point I had Rose of Sharyn as my ringtone 
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Killswitch Engage… it’s like I’m back in my early-mid 20s. 
I was quite into a few of those New England area bands.
This was always my favorite KE tune:
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I’m loving this selection, great song!
I bought the tabs for Cynic’s album Focus and there are some great rhythm parts too. It’s a great album too, if anyone hasn’t heard it.
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@aliendough what tuning is your guitar in?
KSE is great and all, but you def need to be in drop C. I can think of others that are in E standard, or drop D.
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The intro to holy wars by megadeth I’ve always found a struggle. Peddling on the low E a lot and striking out at other stings.
One thing I’ve learned is you have to relax a lot and delicately brush the strings to get an effortless motion going, the Amp is what does the work, not the force of your picking. Playing with the Amp loud and learning to control that or trying to play really quiet and soft but fast is a great way to get your nervous system to foucus better.
The angle of the pick is really important too, I play with a flat angle a lot, turning the pick more towards 90 degrees really lets it glide over the strings for that effortless motion.
I think sweeping is also a great exercise in flowing over the strings, tho I’m terrible at sweeping, but it is essentially the same angles as strumming or being effortless as you’re after.
The stamina really comes from relaxation rather than for example a runner building up their cardio and muscles. It’s all about stroking the strings softly and then you can move your hands for days.
I think thats also why alcohol is a preformance enhancer… to a point ofcourse. It connects you to your body better and lets you relax, once again to a point… I think alcohol is a bad thing. But it does work.
Bark at the moon is great, got that A string peddle with power chords. I find those type of rhythms a real challenge to control.
I think it also depends a lot on how you hold the pick, doing those peddles with three finger grip is way harder than just index because of the pick angle.
The intro to 5150 is also a difficult part. Van Halen - 5150 - YouTube
It’s got those hard double stops up the major chord and that has always tripped me up. Great intro to practice.
What you could do @aliendough is create an exercise for yourself that includes a sweep a strum and a single note picked line. In whatever combo you like, and try to get that up to speed, it should really force your hand to flow between each of those different picking motions and your body will adjust to it by nature.
I think it is mostly the up stroke that is holding many of us back, If you’re a downward pick slanter that is, so focusing on getting that smooth and loose is what will even you out. I find the up stroke is what catches me out on just about everything, sweeping, single lines, strumming…
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Fight Fire with Fire helps incorporate power chords into your tremolo which allows you to play lots’a thrash stuff, this riff in particular:
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Btw what picking style are you using atm? I seen you using both normal and trailing edge I really like your playing here.
When I tried trailing edge like that the pick got stuck a lot, I just don’t have the hands for it. You seem to do it well tho!
Came here to say that, surprised it hasn’t come up more in the thread. I always liked the Martin Birch era Maiden sounds and wanted to see how close I could get with S-gear, wound up playing through a fair number of tracks and they have some great picking at medium tempo.
Phantom of the Opera, Aces High, Killers, Genghis Khan, the list goes on and on. They have some really punishing downstroke stuff but I don’t think it really translates to alternate picking; I just play alternate and focus on getting things very even, it’s still helpful.
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Skeleton’s in the Closet from Anthrax is another one, and the duplet fill in RR’s I Don’t Know is incredibly challenging to play cleanly.
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The one in the pre chorus (double picked palm muted riff)? around 2:05, should be cued up below
It’s been probably 20 years since I’ve tried playing any Randy stuff. He was my favorite rock guitarist in high school. I could never play that part lol! I know now that’s because I was DSX, so I would have need to start on an upstroke to make my setup back then work (which I never even thought to try since starting on an upstroke felt weird).
I just now tried that part since I have a USX posture I’m comfortable with these days, and it’s night and day different from the high school days. There is still the string tracking aspect that makes it a little challenging. But before it felt like I had immediate stamina issues and that’s why I couldn’t play it. Now, from an “effort” standpoint it feels like cake. From an “accuracy” standpoint, yep - a little challenging.
I guess that gets back to one of @tommo’s points. If we find something causes us stamina issues, we might be approaching it incorrectly.
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Yep that one has been challenging me since high school too. Duplets have always given me trouble, not with stamina, just getting them clean when there is irregular back and forth patterns like this one. One direction is OK, or the same type of thing in Bark at the Moon where it’s backwards and forwards repeated but this one is much tougher. The live version he plays it almost twice as fast, Randy was a real monster.
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Sorry, I havent had much time to reply as of late!
I’m in standard tuning, but I have Transcribe, so I can change the tunings (although it sometimes sounds a bit odd depending on how much you increase the pitch).
Yeah that’s a tough one, I tend to use hybrid picking for that riff. I can’t play it anywhere near proper speed though!
I’m using normal pick grip. I like trailing edge, but I have recently had a lot of problems with my CMC joints and trailing edge puts a lot of extra pressure on my thumb and causes me pain when I play. 
One part that I would love to be able to play is Raise My Sword by Galneryus. The tab for the intro has the picked notes notated as 16ths - but I just can’t play it! I’m not sure if Syu is trem picking or if he is nailing those 16th notes.
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What do you mean trem picking or nailing them?
Like flubbing a few notes because hes just spamming tremolo picking? (not the “tremolo bar”)
Thinking about this a bit more, something I do regularly is play “silently” around people, like sitting in class I’m allowed to fiddle with my guitar as long as I’m getting work done.
I notice just trying to play without disturbing anyone really hones in my technique, it becomes a lot more finessed.
It’s also something I remember from first plugging in an Amp loud, every little move is amplified, your technique really is forced to relax into more efficient and as a consequence effortless motions.
See if you can practice around people in a quiet setting?
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