Metal Guitar Lesson!
Monday, January 25, 2010
If you are looking for heavy metal guitar lessons online you will find several options to choose from. You have books, CDs, DVDs and online guitar membership sites: these are the usual ways for people to learn to play guitar online, although you occasionally find personal tuition advertised by one or other of the national franchises.
The question is, is it possible to learn heavy metal guitar online, or do you simply learn how to play guitar, and then adapt what you have learned into the heavy metal genre? The answer is a bit of both. A guitar beginner won't just start right off learning how to play heavy metal. It might be possible to do so, but you would suffer because of it, and here's why.
You have to get to know your guitar before trying to get any sound out of it. A good beginners course of guitar lessons will first show you each part of your guitar, such as the body, the soundboard, the neck, the strings and so on - even as far as the eyelets the strings are tied to, because these can also affect the sound. There are certain adjustments that can be made to your guitar that can change the sound, and the way you string it can be critical.
The positioning of the pick-ups, and even the type and make of pick-up, has a bearing on what sort of sound you get, and for a heavy metal player the pick-ups are very important, as is the choice of strings. These are all aspects of your guitar that you should be taught as you go along - and at the appropriate time, since much of it would be meaningless until you were in a position to understand the differences.
Before you start thinking you are Tony Iommi or Slash, you first have to learn how to hold your guitar, and then how to strum properly. Then you have to get your fret fingering right, pick up a few chords and get started on some fingerpicking. Before you can really start playing solos, you have to master some scales, particularly the pentatonics that are the basis behind most of the great licks you have heard. Most are simply pentatonic scales played up, and down the frets, perhaps with a few harmonics and chords thrown in.
Very few people learn heavy metal just by picking up a guitar and starting to play. Some do, but at some time in their career they have to learn the proper techniques or they will never get past ordinary. You need tuition for that. Or the time to stand and watch great guitarists doing their stuff and trying to copy how they do it. Far quicker to take an online guitar course!
So, your heavy metal guitar lessons online should start with a beginners guitar course, and then you should move on to intermediate. Once you can play your instrument reasonably well, and are familiar with several chords and some scales, you are ready to look at a specific genre: in your case heavy metal.
Online heavy metal lessons will teach you how to get the right sound, and also the various techniques required to enable you to increase your playing speed. You will learn hammer ons that allow you to play more that one note with a single pick of a string, and various other techniques such as vibrato and spider walking around the frets, that not only helps with the flexibility and strength of your fingers, but also enables you to play single notes pretty fast.
The most useful tool for you, however, is the pentatonic scale. Consisting of just five notes, pentatonic scales will enable you to play some good-sounding licks on your guitar, but they take some practice. When you are playing heavy metal, and are into a fast lick, you don't have time to think of the individual notes. You will be playing virtually on autopilot, and will simply be benefiting from and repeating all these hours you spent on your pentatonics.
That is all that most guitar licks are: scales played around the frets, and up and down the neck. Because they are scales, everything stays in tune, which is why they sound so good. Without proper guitar tuition you would find it very difficult to achieve, and would be nothing but one of the "might have beens" that thought they were too good for formal guitar lessons. There is nobody too good for lessons, and every single player out there can benefit from a few lessons, even if just to brush up on their skills and technique.
That is why an online guitar membership site is such a great choice for heavy metal guitar lessons. You can take the beginners courses and then move on to the heavy metal guitar course. Even when you are an adept, you can come back and practice your skills with a few advanced lessons, and perhaps take part in the forum and chat to some of your old friends. More...
The question is, is it possible to learn heavy metal guitar online, or do you simply learn how to play guitar, and then adapt what you have learned into the heavy metal genre? The answer is a bit of both. A guitar beginner won't just start right off learning how to play heavy metal. It might be possible to do so, but you would suffer because of it, and here's why.
You have to get to know your guitar before trying to get any sound out of it. A good beginners course of guitar lessons will first show you each part of your guitar, such as the body, the soundboard, the neck, the strings and so on - even as far as the eyelets the strings are tied to, because these can also affect the sound. There are certain adjustments that can be made to your guitar that can change the sound, and the way you string it can be critical.
The positioning of the pick-ups, and even the type and make of pick-up, has a bearing on what sort of sound you get, and for a heavy metal player the pick-ups are very important, as is the choice of strings. These are all aspects of your guitar that you should be taught as you go along - and at the appropriate time, since much of it would be meaningless until you were in a position to understand the differences.
Before you start thinking you are Tony Iommi or Slash, you first have to learn how to hold your guitar, and then how to strum properly. Then you have to get your fret fingering right, pick up a few chords and get started on some fingerpicking. Before you can really start playing solos, you have to master some scales, particularly the pentatonics that are the basis behind most of the great licks you have heard. Most are simply pentatonic scales played up, and down the frets, perhaps with a few harmonics and chords thrown in.
Very few people learn heavy metal just by picking up a guitar and starting to play. Some do, but at some time in their career they have to learn the proper techniques or they will never get past ordinary. You need tuition for that. Or the time to stand and watch great guitarists doing their stuff and trying to copy how they do it. Far quicker to take an online guitar course!
So, your heavy metal guitar lessons online should start with a beginners guitar course, and then you should move on to intermediate. Once you can play your instrument reasonably well, and are familiar with several chords and some scales, you are ready to look at a specific genre: in your case heavy metal.
Online heavy metal lessons will teach you how to get the right sound, and also the various techniques required to enable you to increase your playing speed. You will learn hammer ons that allow you to play more that one note with a single pick of a string, and various other techniques such as vibrato and spider walking around the frets, that not only helps with the flexibility and strength of your fingers, but also enables you to play single notes pretty fast.
The most useful tool for you, however, is the pentatonic scale. Consisting of just five notes, pentatonic scales will enable you to play some good-sounding licks on your guitar, but they take some practice. When you are playing heavy metal, and are into a fast lick, you don't have time to think of the individual notes. You will be playing virtually on autopilot, and will simply be benefiting from and repeating all these hours you spent on your pentatonics.
That is all that most guitar licks are: scales played around the frets, and up and down the neck. Because they are scales, everything stays in tune, which is why they sound so good. Without proper guitar tuition you would find it very difficult to achieve, and would be nothing but one of the "might have beens" that thought they were too good for formal guitar lessons. There is nobody too good for lessons, and every single player out there can benefit from a few lessons, even if just to brush up on their skills and technique.
That is why an online guitar membership site is such a great choice for heavy metal guitar lessons. You can take the beginners courses and then move on to the heavy metal guitar course. Even when you are an adept, you can come back and practice your skills with a few advanced lessons, and perhaps take part in the forum and chat to some of your old friends. More...
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