I know that there has been threads on this subject before, and I'm sorry to rehash it, but they were no help to me.

I'm having trouble playing in a death metal style. I have to be in standard tuning all the time, so that may be one reason, but I just can't seem to get that twisted riffing style. Any pointers other than "learn death metal songs" ( not that I don't want to, but they don' seem to be transfering to my own playing)??

Thanks.

my only suggestion is to stop caring about what style you're playing.... just play. Your style is your own, you shouldn't care about anything other than that.

or tune down to B...even if you play melodic riffs at B, they get that "twisted" thingy.

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I would if I could.....lessons, being in school bands etc. necessitates my being in standard.

Man,


I play in standard and I'm currently working on a few chops that are death metal. Peek into the diminished scale, work with some different time signatures (current riff I'm workin on is in 7/4), and learn to sweep. Those are a few tricks to the trade. Hope this helps...

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you do understand what hes talking about right? hes not mimicking someones style, he just wants to write death metal, but cant get any ideas...

yes B tuning helps, just look at a bunch of scales and try to put them together and make it evil sounding... im not really sure myself but i hope that helps...

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i have pretty much this same problem. very few of my riffs are heavy and death metal ish. try writing with a bunch of notes on one string... or palm muting slow chords. alternate picking styles (not just trem, unless youre deeds of flesh or something) play around with time signatures and scales if you think its necessary.

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exactly. stay true to ur music.

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learn a lot of scales,and get used to them

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staying true to your music and your true aural self and all that shit is great, if you arent really concerned with what kind of riffs youre coming with. some of guys have it easy and the heavy riffs just come to you :P but maybe you have a hard time with soft, melodic stuff? theres definitely merit in accepting the kind of music and riffs that you right,and ive reached that point. but musical expansion and writing in difficult areas will make your songs that much better. so from now on, no more "just accept what you write" because thats not what creating and writing music is completely about

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you dont need to tune down to sound heavy, anyone that tells you that really isn't that accompolished of a musician (no offense to those who said tuning down is important), hell old death metal was in Eb and D, you could probably tune down to Eb or D and not have to worry about the trouble of tuning back up to much unless you got a floyd rose.

Work on thrash first it will help alot when you move into death metal,

also learn Harmonic Minor, Augmented, Diminished, Super Locrian, Locrian and Aeolian, Mohammedan is good too

Also Death metal can sound like basically anything, it doesnt have to be 1000000 tremolo riffs and anal pounding drumming.

Work on Diad chords (Major 3rd, Minor 3rd, Perfect 4ths, Diminished 5ths, etc, etc)

Dont just use low string shit, moving up into the high strings is alright it might not be as thick, but Immolation, Gorguts, etc did it alot.

Try using many different timings as the dude above me said.

Also listen to bands that are considered Death metal, but dont copy their style just listen to how they form their riffs, and see what you like

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good advice.

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This isn`t really such a help full advise but just try to play a lot of death metal. And if that dosn`t work, play some more. I know this didn`t exactly made you any smarter, but trust me, that should do it, it shure did for me. And about the tuning thing, i play in d and that works for me, but you could always try to get another guitar if you can afford it.

D is a good tuning, but taking things to C# brings in a whole new realm of heavy. its something about that tuning that really makes it much more vicious sounding

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Hmm, not sure what you're having trouble with. I played Deicide and stuff like that on an acoustic and it felt just fine. :P Just learn to tremolo pick smoothly and fast. Lots of palm muting on low chords, tremolo picking, pinch harmonics on low strings/frets with bends, that sort of stuff should sound very DM-ish. You don't have to tune all the way down to B, Eb or D should do just fine. Or C standard, if you want to play some In Flames and Suffocation...

I've been lazy and I haven't downtuned my guitar, I need to get thicker strings otherwise if I go to C or D it's going to be a spaghetti fest.

haha! spaghetti fest. never heard that before

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im almost always in D, learning stuff by Death, Children of Bodom, etc. though for some reason, not many bands tune to D. its usually either C# or lower. but yeah, you really dont need to go any lower than D to sound 'heavy'.