In this short series of lessons, we are going to go over some of the very basics of heavy/palm-muted riffing, primarily centered around the low E string. Hence the "Mondo-E String-Death-Chunk" title. LOL In this first one, we're going over some of the fundemental mistakes that us metal players tend to make with tone & distortion. Namely not enough Mids in the tone and way too much gain/distortion to produce a clear articulate sound, that projects well and doesn't get swallowed up by the rest of the band. #1 TONE: With the issue of tone...quite often, the...

This is just a quick Jam & Intro Video for this 3 Note Per String Tutorial. The overall purpose of it will be to learn how to cover the entire range of the neck of the guitar using 3 note per string-Shred/Speed style licks. All the licks in this set of lessons will be based in the A Aeolian Mode (A Natural Minor scale).

Ok....For this one, we'll be starting with the very basic mechanics of the palm muting technique. For right now we are focusing solely on the picking hand and how to get it going...hence the rather minimal tab here. Don't fret though (lame pun...I know...LOL) as more riffy material will be on the way here soon. As for this lesson, I do a lot of explaining in the actual video...so I will try not to bore you with too much more here. I just want to add a couple of thoughts that I missed in the video portion. #1. As far as the angling of the pick goes...I faile...

This first installment will cover the A Natural Minor scale (A Aeolian Mode), over the entire neck, using 3 Note Per String patterns. Please note that all though I am starting this lick at the 5th fret, you can easily fill in the gaps below the 5th fret by transposing the notes above the 12th fret down to the first few frets of the neck. Also, even though this example is alternate picked, feel free to use what ever method works best for you....Or better yet, practice it using every combo of picking/legato that you can think of. LOL The more the better! ;-)

For this one, we'll be starting in with a rhythm element that is one of THE staples of Metal/Thrash-type playing....The "Reverse Gallop". We basically take the standard old school metal, "Galloping" rhythm and reverse it, which oddly (& simply) enough, serves to make it sound much heavier. Instead of the Cavalry Charging feel of the classic "Dum-didi-Dum-didi" type of Maiden-esque riff, we end up with a very heavy, staccato machine gun sounding riff when played with some heavy Mesa tones & lots of palm muting. Now there is a lot more to the differences in ...

For Part 2 of these Mondo E-String Death Chunk lessons, we will start to breakdown the sections of the rhythm that I played in the intro segment. That bit comes from a song that I wrote back in my old band and is very heavily influenced by the old school thrash styles of bands like Metallica, Slayer, etc. The main rhythm figure of his tune as a matter of fact, was very much in the vein of Metallica's Disposable Heroes, while the jump to F# (which will be covered in the next lesson) is a rather common Slayer move (more on that later). Back to this lesson...If you've go...

For this one, we are starting the process of building a very basic metal riff, using our "Reverse Gallop" figure. We start off with the reverse gallop, followed by two more 8th notes. This basic building block phrase takes up 2 beats within a measure in standard 4/4 time....so by repeating it twice, we have one full 4/4 measure. Our short little riff segment here is 2 full measures long though, so what we are doing then is simply repeating this phrase 4 times over those measures. Just to add a bit of interest to it, on the 4th repetition of the phrase, we will move f...

The staff here at Guitar Tricks had suggested a couple of easy lessons based around some fairly straight forward, palm muted Metal rhythm playing, so I wrote & recorded this short riff segment and will use two lessons here to break it down for you. This first riff is the easier of the two and is based very heavily on the many of the tricks of the trade from the mid/late 80's Metal scene, which has made a pretty big comeback in the last few years. It's very similar to something that you would've heard on an early release by artists like Metallica, Anthrax, S.O.D. or...

This segment is part 1 of what will probably end up being a 6 or 7 part Lesson that will break down and teach you all the rhythms and the solo from an original tune that I did called "Qaurantine Zone". It's basically an old school Megadeth influenced tune, with some modernized elements to it. It was written and recorded with a 7 string guitar as the tab shows....but you will still be able to apply most of the rhythm and solo techniques to a standard 6 string guitar without too much trouble. This first segment will focus on the intro riffs and solo backing parts. Mo...

This segment will be looking at a shreddy lick, that is a little more musical....a little bit more (LOL). The basic pattern generates a little more interest, by doubling back on itself constantly, rather than just racing straight across or up the neck. This is still essentially a hardcore "Shred-Lick" so there is still a TON of notes in this one...but if used properly & somewhat sparingly, it could work well within a song, as a climax to a solo or similar. Also check out the end of this video for a quick little lesson on that whammy lick that ends the runs in this lesson...

This is just a quick Pentatonic Picking Exercise, in the E Minor box position (12th fret). It will hopefully help you to develop your 2 note per string picking abilities and give you just a slightly different way of approaching the typical Pentatonic box-style licks. The whole Eric Johnson connection mentioned in the vid may not be all that apparent right now, but as we develop and expand on the technique it might make more sense. Of course this picking pattern could be applied to any key, anywhere on the neck and in future segments, we will try and expand on the basi...

Ok....One segment down and on to part 2 here. For this 2nd riff we will be dealing with more than just the E & A strings and straight Root/5th power chords. We are going to go a little bit further with the whole 80's Metal inspired chromatic theme as well as mess around with some pinch harmonics and sliding octaves. So even though it's still pretty simple & straight forward, there is a bit more to remember this time around, so learning it & getting it all under your fingers will be an important step towards playing it smoothly. Measure 1 - 2 The riff starts off w...

For the third lesson in this tutorial, we're going to work on breaking out of a single position on the neck, by taking a 6 note pattern (3 per string) and repeating it over 3 different octaves as we cross the neck. By using octaves like this, not only do we get out of a single position...but it can also help us to look at the scale in a slightly different way. Rather than just seeing it as crossing the neck at a specific position, we can start to see how these groups of notes repeat themselves all over the neck and how we can use this to our advantage, by learning them & u...

For this segment, we are going to work with an exercise that doubles as a lick, that could very easily be incorporated into a solo. We're going to tackle a descending pattern on the E & B strings, that will take us from the 22nd fret, all the way down to the 5th. The lick keeps a steady pace of 2 triplet patterns (6 notes) per string as it works it's way down the neck. But be sure to pay attention to the position shifts in each section, as the basic pattern reverses itself every 12 notes. As much as anything...The key to this sort of run, is really getting the rhythm of th...

This is just a brief intro video, talking about the overall ideas and goals of my Basic Tapping Tutorial.

For this lesson, I pulled out a Thrashy-Blues type lick, that is similar to the style that guitar players Gary Holt & Rick Hunolt used to employ back in the late 80's/early 90's. Most notably on tunes like Toxic Waltz or Cajun Hell, that were built around thrashy, yet blues based riffing....albeit with a ton of chromatic chunking thrown for the sake of nastiness. LOL Likewise...the bluesy elements of their leadwork was also laced with a ton of chromatic lines, harmonic squeals and over the top whammy madness. This particular lick will mainly focus on some bluesy openi...

This Em Arp lesson is geared towards building the skill of alternate picking, both single string lines and arpeggios. This particular run, represents the type of arp/single string mix that I typically like to employ in solos. I've always favored runs/lines/licks that employ a mix of single string and arps in them, so this is a pretty standard example of a segment that I might use over an Em metal type backing. It should give both hands a pretty good workout, since there is single string lines, arps, position shifts, alternate picking and sweep/economy picking utiliz...

Alrighty, just a short drill here to go with the previous lesson. This one is not about licks or anything that you would use in a song...but more just about learning the notes of the neck a bit better. In the previous segment, we worked with repeating licks in different octaves.....here, we are going the opposite route and using a 3 note pattern across 4 strings, that all sound at the same pitch. Which naturally means a lot of positional shifting to do. So, the goal here will be two things primarily...#1) To find these 3 notes across the strings & again realize how the gu...

Back again for another installment here...Sorry if I look a little ragged in the Vids (LOL)... Sinkin' springtime, allergy season seems to get a bit worse each year as you head down the road to being an old fart. ;-) So please pardon any unwanted puffiness and/or gnarlyness of the facial region....More so than usual, I should say. LOL Anywho... For this 2nd segment in the Quarantine Zone breakdown, we drop back down for some heavy palm muted riffing that starts back at the 2nd Fret of the Low E string (F#5 chord) and also drops down to the Low B String. Obviously a 7...

This first segment will take you through some of the basic mechanics of tapping and walk you through 3 of the classic tapping patterns that started it all back in the late 70's and early 80's.

For this lesson we are going to tackle a run that crosses the neck, using patterns that will use the same exact fingerings on each string...but again, to do so & stay within the Am scale...We will need to execute some position shifts as we move across the neck to each subsequent string. Also again, it's meant to help us break out of positional playing...and get us moving more freely up & down the neck. There are many, many different variations that we could come up with for this sort of an exercise...and there will be more to come here. But for now, we'll start with this on...

Alrighty then...Back for the 3rd installment of the Quarantine Zone Lessons. Had to break out the Stanley Cup Champion Red Wings Tee for this one...it was brand new & hadn't been washed, so it was kinda itchy yet...but I'm getting a little off track here. LOL But it does serve to make this our unofficial Stanley Cup Champs edition lesson. ...or something like that..... Ok, so this time out we are tackling 3 more riffs from the tune...Starting with a Mega Chunk-style riff on the Low B. Again, for people who do not have a 7 string, you can just transpose these rhythm...

The goal of this 2nd segment, will be to take those first 3 patterns and learn how to work across the neck using them. For this particular lesson, the left hand will be following the basic Am Pentatonic scale at the 5th position on the neck. While the left (tapping) hand will move up to the 12th position and tap the notes across the neck at that fret. Now while that does not fit within the Am Pentatonic scale exactly, because of the B note on the 12th fret of the B string....I chose to use it in this lesson since the right hand pattern is the same across the neck, wh...

This exercise will hopefully give you a starting point for working on alternate picked arpeggios. At this point we're not really worrying too much about the actual scales/modes involved...it's more just an exercise inspired by some of the Neo-Classical shreddy type stuff of the late 80's to help get you started. It beats just doing chromatic sounding stuff, right? LOL It starts with a descending pattern that works across the E/B/G strings, before ending with a pattern that adds in the D and A strings as well. The transitions and shifts are not too complicated on t...

This lesson is a quick 3 String Tapping exercise, that is loosely based on a pattern that I used a few years back in one of my tunes over at Musician War. I've never been a huge tapper overall....I'll throw in some quick bits here & there, but for the most part I tend to use it pretty sparingly. One thing that I try to do though, is make a point of using something that is somewhat different than the Van Halen-esque type patterns, like the one that ends his classic "Eruption" solo. Now don't get me wrong...There is absolutely nothing wrong with these patterns at all.....

We will be using some of the rhythms from a tune that I wrote for my old band back in the late 80's. The rhythm parts were pretty heavily modeled after some of my favorite tunes of that era and are also fairly easy to play, once you get used to the tempo. Though te bulk of the rhythm work will take place on the low E String (E-String Death Chunk...LOL), we will also take a quick look at a few other staples of that era, including palm muting, chromatic riffs, suspended chords & a bit more.

This tutorial was essentially inspired by many of the great shredders over the years, who have employed these licks so effectively. The overall purpose of it will be to learn how to cover the entire range of the neck of the guitar using 3 note per string-Shred/Speed style licks. All the licks in this set of lessons will be based in the A Aeolian Mode (A Natural Minor scale). The tutorial is labeled as an "Advanced" level group of lessons...But honestly if you slow them down and take your time & practice them carefully, they should work well for building the technique of nea...

This tutorial will hopefully serve as a basic tapping primer course, that will take the player through a wide range of tapping techniques, ranging from the most basic building block patterns up through more advanced licks that incorporate modern elements such as string skipping, using adjacent strings, using multiple fingers on the tapping hand & more. I will also work feature some tips for incorporating tapping into your playing, while trying to avoid many of the typical cliches that are out there. How you can use a two handed approach for more than just flashy licks.

This is a 3 lessons series that teaches the elements making up my original song, Quarantine Zone.

Ok....One segment down and on to part 2 here. For this 2nd riff we will be dealing with more than just the E & A strings and straight Root/5th power chords. We are going to go a little bit further with the whole 80's Metal inspired chromatic theme as well as mess around with some pinch harmonics and sliding octaves. So even though it's still pretty simple & straight forward, there is a bit more to remember this time around, so learning it & getting it all under your fingers will be an important step towards playing it smoothly. Measure 1 - 2 The riff starts off w...

For this lesson, I pulled out a Thrashy-Blues type lick, that is similar to the style that guitar players Gary Holt & Rick Hunolt used to employ back in the late 80's/early 90's. Most notably on tunes like Toxic Waltz or Cajun Hell, that were built around thrashy, yet blues based riffing....albeit with a ton of chromatic chunking thrown for the sake of nastiness. LOL Likewise...the bluesy elements of their leadwork was also laced with a ton of chromatic lines, harmonic squeals and over the top whammy madness. This particular lick will mainly focus on some bluesy openi...

This Em Arp lesson is geared towards building the skill of alternate picking, both single string lines and arpeggios. This particular run, represents the type of arp/single string mix that I typically like to employ in solos. I've always favored runs/lines/licks that employ a mix of single string and arps in them, so this is a pretty standard example of a segment that I might use over an Em metal type backing. It should give both hands a pretty good workout, since there is single string lines, arps, position shifts, alternate picking and sweep/economy picking utiliz...

The staff here at Guitar Tricks had suggested a couple of easy lessons based around some fairly straight forward, palm muted Metal rhythm playing, so I wrote & recorded this short riff segment and will use two lessons here to break it down for you. This first riff is the easier of the two and is based very heavily on the many of the tricks of the trade from the mid/late 80's Metal scene, which has made a pretty big comeback in the last few years. It's very similar to something that you would've heard on an early release by artists like Metallica, Anthrax, S.O.D. or...

This is just a quick Pentatonic Picking Exercise, in the E Minor box position (12th fret). It will hopefully help you to develop your 2 note per string picking abilities and give you just a slightly different way of approaching the typical Pentatonic box-style licks. The whole Eric Johnson connection mentioned in the vid may not be all that apparent right now, but as we develop and expand on the technique it might make more sense. Of course this picking pattern could be applied to any key, anywhere on the neck and in future segments, we will try and expand on the basi...

This exercise will hopefully give you a starting point for working on alternate picked arpeggios. At this point we're not really worrying too much about the actual scales/modes involved...it's more just an exercise inspired by some of the Neo-Classical shreddy type stuff of the late 80's to help get you started. It beats just doing chromatic sounding stuff, right? LOL It starts with a descending pattern that works across the E/B/G strings, before ending with a pattern that adds in the D and A strings as well. The transitions and shifts are not too complicated on t...

For this quick little lesson, I picked a relatively straight forward string skipping exercise. I chose this one, because it is basically as tough as you want to make it. At lower speeds it's pretty easy to get a handle on....while at higher speeds, the jumps can get a little tricky to execute cleanly. But, since it all stays in pretty much the same position on the neck (12th Fret), there is not a whole lot of shifting to get used to. Which lets you really focus on executing the jumps across the strings. Though the overall tonality could be considered Am, we're not ...