I am working on my bands songs, we have three guitarists and we have parts that overlap and we can work well with 3 guitar harmonies, rhythms and what not, but i am wondering if anyone can help me with some ideas for how to work three guitarists so each of them has a part to play.

The way i have been composing the songs is i suppose symphonically guitar 1 = Violin Guitar 2 = Violin and Guitar 3 = a Organ/Piano type deal,

Also Should we all practice with metronomes to keep in time better?

Play around with some of the ideas concerning polyrhythms in this thread:

http://metaltabs.com/forum/showthre...ght=Polyrhythms

Sometimes it may help to vary your harmonization during a riff. For example, the first half could be harmonized in 5ths while the second could be harmonized in minor 2nds. Alternate notes could be harmonized differently to add a schizophrenic feel to proceedings. Each guitar can also add minor flourishes to the riff as it is repeated - just to keep the listener on his or her toes.

__________________

since you want that all three should have a part to play, make sure each guitarist's ideas are welcome when you're composing a song...each one should be able to bring up riffs/harmonies of his own so that the other two can compliment the third.

instead of using 3 harmonies, you could use one guitar for providing the backing structure...and NEVER overlook the rhythm guitars cuz thats the most important part of the song.

__________________

Try writing riffs using 12-tone row ideas. A 12-tone row is a series of twelve non-repeating notes with no tonal center (making it atonal, pantonal, serial...etc.), here's an example:

|---------------------------|
|----------------------1----|
|-------------1----2-0---3--|
|-----2---3-1---4-----------|
|-4-2---5-------------------|
|---------------------------|

You could have each guitar play each section of four notes, with this example, you would have one guitar playing a minor tetrachord and the second playing a major 4th higher and the third playing 2 major 4ths higher.
A basic version would look like this:
Gtr. 1 Gtr. 2 Gtr. 3

|----------|-----------|---------|
|----------|-----------|-----1---|
|----------|------1----|2-0----3-|
|-----2----|-3-1----4--|---------|
|-4-2---5--|-----------|---------|
|----------|-----------|---------|

Of course you could try different patterns but this style of writing is very limiting at times. You could also take it a step further with trem. picking notes, using chords, playing with different poly-rythyms. Hope this helps and makes sense. Notify me if you want any further explanations or different transpostitions of the pattern.

3 guitars? youve got one hell of an asset there so long as you use it right.(im assuming your talkin about 3 guitars AND a bass)
a couple of ideas:
echoing
have a riff with two dicernable parts like a long slide followed by palm-muted chugging, then syncopate the guitars in a kind of round thing.
gt1 15\------0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

gt2 0-0-0-0-15\------0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

gt3 0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-15\------0-0-0-0

or you could emphasise stuff much more

gt1 0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-3-------5-------

gt2 0-------0--------3-------5-------

gt3 0-------0--------3-------5-------

or more complex stuff like i dont know how to describe this

gt1 e|19~----14~----12~-----15~-14~--

gt2 A|9-------12------11-------9--------
gt2 E|7-------10------9--------6--------

gt3 E|0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-3-3-2-2

ok though heres the thinking bit
those riffs above are kinda simple, but for a reason. if youve got loads of shit going on then its gonna sound busy, and listeners are gonna think jesus whats going on, and blank it out. remember youve got bass(which in the examples above, should probably follow gt1 in the first two, but gt3 in the third)drums, and vocals. which are gonna cloud the issue. so do simple stuff like that during singin, but in bridges gaps and otherwise vocal empty patches in the songs you can go crazy.
heres one
gt1 e|-----13~---10----7~--------12--11--

gt2 B|20~--------12~----5-7-8---12--10--

gt3 G|4-5-4-2-10-9~---7-3-4-5---12--11--

bass E|0-1-3-7-8---5--3-2-0-2-3-7-8-5-3--2

bear with me, im making this up on the spot and i dont have a load of musicians anywhere near me so its all what i hear in my head, but play this damn fast and it should sound cool. jesus i dont envy you though lets hope your mates are willing to help write songs.
point is its an amazing thing so long as you dont do it too much and bore the shit out of people.
bit like shredding then.
use it to destinguish between verse and chorus
P.S. practising with a drummer is the best idea
but a metronome will do if you cant find a drummer who is willing to put up with three guitarists making mistakes.

please forgive my spelling

__________________

do you know theory well and how to write manuscript stuff? i find it easier to write out counter point parts that way...
don't worry about showing off... many musicians these days forget that the space inbetween each note is just as important as the notes themselves.

think one person playing the rythem/chording...

one person playing the "riffing"/main melody

and the third person can comp/improvise/counterpoint to either guitarist.

do you have a bassist as well?

as for guitar tones, you probably want very different sounds for each person...
for example, the person playing more rythem/chord type guitar work will want more lows and maybe even a little scoop in the mid department as to not invade the other guitarist's frequencie's...
while the "riff"/main melody guitarist has slightly less lows, alot more mids and a fair amount of highs..
the comp/solo guitarist will want more lows to fatten up his sound more than the riff guitarist yet maintain alot of mid range to cut through more than the rythem guitarist. and a little less highs to not distract to much from the main melody.


this way you'll "feel" the rythem, hear the comping, yet still concentrait mainly on the "riffs".
otherwise it could get pretty muddy sounding if everybody has the same tone... that's when the volume wars begin.

__________________

I've heard examples of this (or at least very near to) from Spawn Of Possession and Anata - both fantastic technical death metal.

__________________

I think I'll check 'em out.

I can certainly recommend Anata's Under A Stone With No Inscription and Spawn Of Possession's Cabinet albums. Both brilliant records that should give anybody plenty of ideas and inspiration for complex riffing.

__________________

We play alittle something like this

Gtr1:
|------4"7"8"7"----------8"
|--2"3"--------6"------7"--7"
|2"--------------5"4"""-------5"4"1""""
Gtr2:
|----------
|------4"3"6"4"--------7"6"
|2"5"6"--------3"5"4"3"----5"4"1""""
Gtr3:
|-20~~~~21~~~~-----16---------.17
|-19~~~~20~~~~--19---19-------.20
|------------------17--------17~~~17
|-17~~~~18~~~~
|-
|-

Something like that if you guys want a sample i got some powertabs, I want someone to hear them and suggest some ideas and what not, As some of them i think sound really good, but others are not so cool.

Also yes we have a bassist working on training him in jazz and theory, Me and the other guitarists are going to record this sort of dissonant and dark shit this summer, and we have an 8 song record we are writing up based off weird mind boggling rhythmic shit.

What kind of "weird mind boggling rhythmic shit"?

Its not really that mind boggling of rhythm parts its just sort of not Death metal type stuff infact i was sort of just being a dipshit when i said that what it is we are working volume swells and stuff it sounds really trippy and shit. Its got some staccatoed notes and some weird doubled over notes where guitar one is staccato and guitar two is allowed to wring out or guitar one is 2 eighth notes and guitar two is a quarter and guitar three would be an overlaying part.

Also can anyone help me with some theory? Like good scales and keys for weirdness?

Also anyone know where i can find some weird solo methods like that of robert vigna some ideas? i have my style but the other guitarist (Hes only 14) and he needs some work on his Lead playing as he sounds like a Kerry King wanker, if he sounded slightly more like Trey Azagthoth wankery it would be ok.

Thanks all who have replied so far and will continue to reply to this thread.

www.looknohands.com has some good scales. Look for diminished, augmented, harmonic and whole tone type scales. Maybe if your other guitarist used some delay in his solo's he could play a bit more sparsly, giving less of a "wanky" feeling.