"Holy Wars"

[jiujitsu_jesus]

I've just started working on Megadeth's "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due" in my continuing (and possibly fruitless) quest to improve my metal playing. I've got all of the riffs down except for the introduction, which has that three-note "gallop" pattern, as with the main riff in Metallica's "Battery", if you know what I'm talking about. I'm having a bit of trouble nailing this technique. Does anybody know of any exercises that would be useful for training my picking hand to perform it more easily?
Cheers. :)

[ren]

there's a lesson on the 'galloping' appraoch in full access.... but it's really just doing it a bit slower and fewer notes in isolation before building it up.

Other than that, it'll just be listening to it and practicing... maybe use winamp / media player etc to slow it down? It's really down to doing less thinking in my opinion - we guitar players get so used to analysing everything and getting timing spot on that when variations in timing are necessary, it's difficult....

Try taking a small chunk and working on that....

[jiujitsu_jesus]

:) Thanks, mate.

[rockonn91]

ha, I did that lesson...

uh nah, what happens in that lesson wont do so great in that song, i dont believe.

I dont know the song well, but try out alt picking instead?

[jiujitsu_jesus]

Yeah, I'll give it a shot. Cheers. :)

[dvenetian]

Try incorporating partial hammer-on / pull-off techniques while using alt. picking. It's a great way to fill in notes while giving your pick hand a break, especially through those Chromatics.

[jiujitsu_jesus]

Good idea!

[cayotic727]

Playing it with hammers and pull offs works but, if you want to improve your metal its really important to get it down pat because it'll show up alot.

just take paterns like (beat division not fret) 16-16-16-16-8-16-16-8-16-16-8-16-16 repeat16=16th notes of course and 8=8th notes)

or...16-16-16-16-16-16-8-16-16-8-16-16-8 repeat

and play them on the open e string with a metronome and start out really slow to get a good feel for it and once you have a feel for that pattern, speed it up keeping it as clean/even as possible for as long as possible to you reach your peak.

This will get your right arm into shape, when you add the left hand and the new note pattern the problem (especially with holywars) will be left/right syncronization. Again the best way to get articulate fast is a metronome.


Nothing can substitute for a good amount of good practice, and this'll do the trick.

[jiujitsu_jesus]

Great advice! Thanks.