This might sound a bit weird, so I better explain a bit first.

I'm a self-taught bedroom guitarist, been playing about 6 years or so. None of my friends are really into metal, so I can't use them to get feedback from. I mostly play old 80's metal. I can play quite a few songs that to begin with I couldn't play at all a couple of years ago, and I've nailed them pretty much perfectly.

I just wanted to give a list of my favorite ones to play, and for you to tell me if they're easy songs or not. Theres loads of stuff that's still lightyears ahead of me, but I think the stuff I can play is pretty advanced, I just wanted somebody who knows their metal to tell me how hard the stuff I'm playing is.

I can play stuff like "angel of death", "post-mortem", and "raining blood" by slayer. "cowboys from hell" and "powermetal" by pantera, and "master of puppets" "the four horsemen" and "seek and destroy" by metallic. I can do all the riffs perfectly, (just not the solos).

How hard are these songs? They seem pretty advanced to me, and I couldn't play them for crap a couple of years ago... I just find it really difficult to guage how much I'm improving. Any kind of feedback will be much appreciated.

i only really knwo about the slayer ones... and i could play them all after a year... they're not TOO TOO hard because they dont have any crazy off beats or triplets like say... necrophagist or suffocation.. but jesus christ they take alot of practice to get up to speed when you're jsut starting. It took me 6 months to perfect raining blood... mind you that was over a year ago and right now it would probably only take me a week... Theyre good starter metal songs definately, now you just have to aim higher. I'd recommend some old arch enemy (burning bridges album), or old cannibal corpse (the bleeding album) to broaden your understanding of stuff. Mind you, i progressed so fast because im a huge guitar nerd and probably play and hour or more a day.

__________________

Those Songs Are not so hard ......if u have played in 6 years you should be able to play much more Advanced stuff

Check Out Necrophagist : Foul body atopsy That One is hard

__________________

Heh, well I have been playing for 3 years and I barely pull off Orion and The Four Horsemen... Man I suck... Haven't been playing with full intrest until some months ago though.

So, if you can play all of those songs 100% I would say that was pretty good.

__________________

Angel of Death may be the hardest pysically....but I think the hardest one to play that you mentioned would be "Master of Puppets", assuming you can play ALL 8 MINUTES AND 36 SECONDS perfectly. Lots of beginners can play some of the riffs but it took me a while to get the whole thing down perfectly all the way through.

__________________

Fuck it... I for one don't base/judge applied skill on how well someone can play other people's shite (refering directly to metallica )



Nows the time to start on improvising... How you ask? Learn a scale, then find a decent and simple backing track to practice the scale over, then work from there

ok, sounds about what I expected. Thanks for the replies guys. I can play all of those songs the whole way pretty much perfectly. Maybe one or 2 mistakes in the clean bit of master, but nothing really noticable.

I've only had a decent guitar for a year or so, the rest of the time I think I was being held back by the crappy honher strat I used to have.(i've got a peavey rotor now.) The strat was a piece of poop, and I instantly improved about a thousand times over when I got the peavey.

Thesadpartofthestory.... thats quite a coincidence. I'm working on that song now. I can't do it perfectly, but I can struggle through pretty well. I should be able to nail it if I put some time in.

I make up my own stuff, but tbh I don't have any great aspirations to be some rock-god or anything. I just like playing the music I like for my own entertainment.

Can anyone else recommend some more stuff to progress onto? I'll check out those archenemy and cannibal corpse, but some more suggestions would be much appreciated.

If you are into it, I'd recomend Opeth. It's not too difficult, but not too easy either. And lots of different and unconventional riff's.
Most solos aren't too hard.

__________________

Try some megadeth, from rust in peace or peace sells.

__________________

Oh you crustfucker........this spam thing is really getting out of hand guys. Now its invading already existing threads.

__________________

stupid goddamn ads

anyways, Those songs really aren't that hard. If you like those songs and listened to them 1000 times, you've already done half of the work. Its easy to learn the songs that you listen to the most. But anyways, its far from technical.

Start playing some extreme stuff like technical death metal, technical prog metal.... and so on. THAT is what you call hard.

__________________

You've been playing for 6 years? wow work on their solos. I played for 2 years and i can play pantera, metallica, and slayer solos.

Yeah maybe you need to really start pushing yourself, start learning the solos.

Start out slow, memorise it, then keep playing it over and over.

After 6 years you should be playing some sick solos at least.

I was learning Opeth songs as soon as I could read tabs

__________________

well as long as you are playing well, all these songs, its nothing to worry about. To start progressing.. hm

well definitely that necrophagist song. I like to play that myself.

I would, if I were you, start hammering away at some Psycroptic stuff if you like them. Its challenging to start with, but all Psycroptic stuff is VERY fun to play.

For Cannibal Corpse, start with their earlier stuff and work through their discography (not every song obviously, but ones you like) as they got progressively more technical, and you can really see the difference in all their stuff. Itll also work up muscles and stuff playing the earlier stuff, I reckon.

__________________

You don't need to learn solos. Although it's awesome if you can. I can play mostly any riff you give me and I've been playing for just over 2 years now. Anata - A Problem Yet To Be Solved is probably the hardest track I can play and yes I can play it perfectly. Maybe you should try those guys.

But I do wish I learnt scales and shit now but I can't be bothered I mostly improv solo's because I sorta know how to play in key. Sometimes I find it hard to sweep in key though

check out the riffs on iced earth's night of the stormrider cd. i think its really fun to play and can be challenging(speedy palm muting and whatnot)

Learn some death, very diverse material, covers alot of stuff, not too much of a big jump from the stuff your learning, will work on trem skills, alternate picking, ect.

Learn everything on the Rivers of Gore site. 80% of it is more technical then dividing atoms.

__________________

Yes I agree with you, you can play that easily, because you're playing for 6 years, Wow that can be a big help to you!

__________________

Definately cunt. After I started learning that shit my riffing skills improved heaps.

__________________

Not so sure if anyone has suggested this yet but play some stuff by God Dethroned. Only, "hard" thing is that they use some big ugly chords at times. Metallica is pretty good for practice best if you down-pick all of it to gain speed. Try playing solos because solos are generally or should be where the guitarist(s) lets loose and just goes for it. Some bands that do this are:
- Slayer
- CoB
- In Flames
and the list goes on

When will people learn that playing "covers" all the damn time will get you NOWHERE, I repeat, NO-FUCKING-WHERE! I don't care if you get "raining blood" down riff for riff, solos and all, it will teach you NOTHING about what guitar is about....it might make your fingers more comfortable on the fretboard but it will do nothing for you as an individual player. Do you think that your favorite metal guitarist sat down in their younger years and got tabs off of the internet and learned the entire Seasons in the Abyss album? They might say they did in interviews but its bullshit. Try listening to bands as inspiration for music instead of thinking thats what music is all about...i'm drunk and tired so i'm gonna go for another year

LEARN SCALES...LEARN RHYTHM...the right way and TAG BEAVER

__________________

sir, i love you

__________________

Well, for me, they would be hard. I can't play too many hard songs. Mainly because of my lack of using a pinky, and other stuff like.... not practicing as much as I do on drums.

I'd like to learn Raining Blood, though. the hardest song I could probably play is "A Skull Full of Maggots" by Cannibal Corpse. I can't even play it too well.

__________________

Man, you are playing for your own enjoyment don't worry about it. You will naturally start trying songs that are more challenging. I am sure you will get better and better to the best of your ability in time. Some dudes can tear it up like a mofo after 1 year of playing....others it takes more time. Either way have FUN, that is why you play.

exactly. Deeds of Flesh.. no solos!

Most of the songs in your list aren't especially hard, but they aren't really easy either. The only one that I would say is moderately difficult would be Power Metal by Pantera. The Metallica stuff is especially easy, although Master of Puppets rules if you play the whole song in its entirety.

__________________

Man, If you want some good fuckin practice learn any song from Rust in Peace by megadeth. That shit will build up your speed and picking technique. Tornado of souls has some pretty tough licks in it. You can also try to learn some of Marty Friedman's solos on there, if you're up for it (and you have a floyd rose). There are kickass tabs of that album on this site. It's fun shit to play.

__________________

Damn that is the truth. I've been playing for 20 years this year and for 10 of em this is what I did. Sure I can pull off some pretty mean covers, but all that does is train your fingers in someone else's style. Improvising and playing with others, supported by some technique and theory is the way to go.

All the same man, It never hurts to have a few songs that you can bust out when need be. It's handy if you need to audition for something.

__________________