I'm a new member here, and what's a more suitable way to introduce myself than to scream "Shit! I need help!"

Anyways, I've been visiting here for a while and have been checking out the tabs and I've currently been learning Flash of the Blade (via Guitar Pro 5) and Burzum's Journey to the Stars (to develop my tremolo picking) and Pink Floyd's In The Flesh just for the hell of it.

I've also been doing a couple scales, such as Blues, Pentatonic, Minor, Major and Symmetrical.

I just wanted to know if I'm on the right track, because the songs I'm practicing are coming along very slowly (except In The Flesh). So I was wondering if anyone could provide some personal tips to my journey on becoming a lead guitarist.

Thanks a bunch, and I hope to get to know you all!

Hails and Keep it True!

Well how many years have you been playing? What do you already know? How often do you practice, and for how long? Your doing the right thing by studying and practicing all the major scales but without knowing any other info i couldnt tell you where to start.

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I've been practicing for about 6 months now, and have started taking it seriously for the past 3. I practice about 30 minutes to an hour (give or take). I already know a few scales, how to read tabs, picking techniques, and a few chords (A, B, C, D, G, Bm, E, Em, and F).

More chords than I know
But 6 months is really nothing. It seems to get easier to memorize and quicker to start things the more experienced you are...
I could memorize something in 5 minutes now, which would've tooken (token?) me and hour when I was 6 months in.

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taken


careful with all that practicing, you make grow to resent your time with the guitar

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I don't understand what you mean.

what transient means, is that you should be careful not to overdo on the practicing, forcing yourself to play even when you don't feel like it. Don't make it into a chore, just enjoy yourself when you are just starting and learn little bits along the way.

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Good point! But sometimes when you're stuck you just have to play through the unpleasant parts so you can advance and have fun. I'm by no means allow what is a developping passion for me turn into washing the dishes.

probably the best/funnest practice you can do is improvise. you want to be a lead player, well whenever i listen to a guitarist. no matter what style i like to hear people break free of just looking at music as .. well music. by improvising you do this. once you get good you'll be able to improvise to any chord. thats why alot of people like to listen to jazz.
download a free copy of fruity loops , pull out the strings and put down random chords and try and play over it. the main thing you want to do is think like a listener when improvising. ask yourself if that sounded cool, like shit etc and build off it.

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I don't like Jazz for that reason of improvisation. As a developping musician seeking to create my own Heavy Metal band, I'm looking to develop my technique so I can write songs using the Baroque system of musical structurization.

Although, sometimes I just pick up my guitar and start playing chords and tremolo pick random frets and just invent some scales to make kick-ass pseudo-solos. I always thought just to improv is something useful when developing a picking technique or your familiarity with the fretboard.

But thanks for the advice bro!

My Two cents:

Really practiace the hell out of your picking because if your looking to lead you will need a strong foundation

Practice Sweep picking on a scale that just advances 3 half-steps per note Ex: 3 6 9 12 15

Practice arabian, minor, phrygian scales a lot

of the course the timeless1234123412341234 practice th9ing

Oh and i practice about 3 hrs. a day

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I think Tranny was being sarcastic, practicing 30-60 min a day isn't really all that much. I mean you don't want to overdo it either, but if you're serious about it, a mere 30 min a day isn't going to be enough to really get good.

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Yeah, I mean 30 is the absolute MINIMUM I practice a day if I have a lot of homework to do, etc. My average is a about an hour but sometimes I practice an hour twice a day. I wish I had more free time, then I would play guitar a lot more often. I'm just hanging out today though, playing guitar all day.

I'm having a blast too.

If you don't know already, i'd suggest learning how to move those chords around the fretboards, into different positions, and how to invert them. It'll really help your playing, and your ability to just play without having to jam along to a song

And good luck!

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I'm having a blast too. [/QUOTE]


GOOD :cheers:

that's the best thing you can do, enjoy it

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alright then , thats all i was concerned about

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Can anyone recommend some songs that I can play (I'm at an amateur level I'd say. Nothing TOO difficult but not exactly really easy either).

If anyone has any tips on good newb Metal songs, than that'd be appreciated.

sanitarium-metallica
one-metallica
symphony of destruction-megadeth
holy wars-megadeth
slayer- season of the abyss
joe satriani-always with me always with you

.........

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YJM, do u think that holy wars is easy? Dude its tiring.

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I knew Selloutallica (hehe :stoned would be mentioned, but thanks for the advise. I'll check those songs out.

well he seems like he wants a challenge. its intermedite or how ever you spell it. but with his work ethic its possible to play.
besides it shows the importance of knowing scales in solo's

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i cant tell hard from easy (as is aparrent with YJ) but Zero Tolerance is really fun to play. So is raining blood and Mastodon-Iron Tusk

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Currently I've picked up the song "The Heavens Drop With Human Gore" by Judas Iscariot. It's coming along nicely and proving to be somewhat of a challenge, but not TOO hard (made that mistake by trying to learn some King Diamond and Mercyful Fate)!

I'll check out Holy Wars and try to learn it despite Dave Mustaine being a complete fuckwit zealous Christian.

lots of things that you think you can't play will be great practice. metallica's master of puppets, battery, etc. what helped me a lot was getting Power Tab. you can slow down the tab to whatever BPM you need to keep jamming and playing along with the music even when you can't play it at full speed yet. it'll help build rhythmic ability and keep workin your chops, too. lots of megadeth, metallica, etc is pretty good even when beginning. just don't rush into playing them at full speed. make sure that you're playing them perfectly slower before increasing the speed. if you practice something sloppy and too fast for your abilities, it will continue to be sloppy. practice it perfectly and it will continue to be perfect as you speed it up

Oh, of course! If I tried practicing songs at the speed it's originally at, I would've smashed my guitar long ago!

Thanks for the tip though bro, I'll see if those Selloutica songs will come in useful.

You could try some stuff from Sepultura ChaosAD\Roots, Pantera's Vulgar or Megadeth's Youthanasia, all simpler stuff, to kick it up a notch try some Slayer from Seasons.

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Thanks! I'll give these songs a go! Looking at the tabs, seems like good practice bro!

Aye!!!

just play the selloutica songs before they sold out.. when they were actually putting effort into their music. anything off kill 'em all, ride the lightning, and master of puppets should work you pretty good =)

There's no force in the universe that would make me learn any tabs off anything Black album and later.

Are there are excersizes anyone can recommend to get me kickstarted on solos? Recommend some sweeps and scales and anything of that nature? I need some education on sweeps, so that would be fine if someone would write a short excersize or link me to one.

Thanks a bunch!

heheh. i dig some of the stuff on the black album, but that's definitely where i draw the line on metallica.

scales.. well. look around for the modes. there's a good fountain of theory knowledge connected to them, and it will very likely take a while to understand it. it's actually pretty simple, but many people speak of using modes like they're a magical secret, because it can be tough to get the big picture, and it's very difficult to adequately explain it. it just clicks after a while. so ya, don't worry too much about understanding it just yet. learning the different fingering patterns for the modes is good practice, and you'll use them in appropriate situations eventually, so it's good to know them. i suggest learning them in order (1st ionin[major scale], then dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, aeolian, then locrian). knowing the correct order will come in handy later.

also check out the harmonic minor and diminished scales.. they can be a lot of fun, and as with every scale, it's good practice even without knowing the theory of using them "correctly."

make up your own exercises with all of the scales. different patterns as you go up and down the scale, like the first 5 notes of the scale, then shift to the 2nd note of the scale and go up the 2nd through 6th notes of the scale, then 3rd through 7th notes, etc. do those sorts of things coming back down the scale as well. there are infinite possibilities to come up with, so have fun coming up with things. there should be a lot of examples of the scales out there, and i'm sure one of the stickies in this forum has them a well

as for sweeps.. well. a lot of people that can shred it up still have trouble sweeping. i wouldn't be too worried about it for now, but if you want to start, i'd say start by doing 3-string sweeps on the top 3 strings (gbe). and just sweep 1 fret apart, like 14th fret 3rd string, 13th fret 2nd string, 12th fret 1st string. practice it in reverse, too (14th fret 1st string, 13th fret 2nd string, 12th fret 3rd string). do that moving up/down different positions. then add in a 4th string after a while, then 5th, then 6th. i can't sweep for shit, so don't get too discouraged. it's not easy.

yeah man start off with three string sweeps to get the feel of them and the motion down. Big sweeps with barred bits are whats tricky as fuck for me. I got this Yngwie video from my guitarist and its helping alot with them,

Since we're talking good practicing songs, you might want to take a history lesson too - Iron Maiden's "Infinte dreams."
If someone told me that this song was made exclusively to give guitarists a tailormade education kit, they wouldn't be all that hard put to convince me. Listen to it, or take a look at the tab. You'll see.

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i was just listening to metallica's kill 'em all and remembered that No Remorse and Seek & Destroy are relatively easy and they're a lot of fun. check them out.. they're fairly slow as far as metal goes.. not tons of 175+bpm 16th notes.. lots of 8th notes.

I'll consider your tip Amadeus! Thanks!!