well i listen to a lot of black metal and some death trash etc.. so i know that u need a lot of speed and dexterity, and technique u also need to be very clean in ur playing. so loads of practice. and thats for any style u want to learn.
i dont want to impose but focusing strictly on metal might inhibit ur playing as u get better, ull want to expand ur horizons and listen to as much diff music as possible to get a different feel, different time signatures, etc.. meaning u can play around with other genre structures such as jazz and incorporate that into metal. there are many bands that do so, specially in drumming.
well learning the open major and minor chords i find is like the first few steps to take you get to practice changing between chords and u build up strength and agility face it it takes a while to do them properly hitting the right notes and fretting without buzzing, till u can do changes very smoothly without looking or feeling tense.
the first thing to do is relax, notice all your muscle movements if possible and focus on playing without feeling any muscle spasm.
to get a good left hand do some fret board exercises such as.
start with ur index and middle finger from the 1st string frist and second frets [respectivley to ur fingers] and practice alternate picking when doing this exercise.
and move up and down on all strings u can keep going till the 12th fret till u get better then keep going on all frets. alternate between all ur finger ie 1/2, 2/3, 3/4 1/4, 1/3, 2/4.
theres loads more of these i can email you if u like, cus itll get too long for here.
learn the notes on the fret board, when doing chromatic scales. then learn scales so u can improvise from them.
major and minor and then harmonic / melodic / penta and modes
as u go along a metronome would be excellent, so u keep good timing and ur strumming is not off. practice at different levels of speed ull find that something u can do fast sounds like **** when its played very slow, cus u need to sustain more notes and have more sure hands.
well i should stop now and theres a lot of good advice here from the others that posted. too.
:)
'i dont have low self esteem, it's a mistake. I have low esteem for everyone else' - Daria