playing thrash guitar

Tune down to "D".

Ignore the highest two strings.

Make sure your sound is fairly compressed.

Clip and mute strings a lot.

Forget anything you've ever heard about melody.

Make sure your band has a good drummer or you might as well go home.

Don't quit your day job.

 

What he said.

 

What MeridienFC said and as much gain as yer amp has, eliminate the midrange and crank up the treble and mid bass. And play really loud too.

 

I presume you're already familiar with power chords?

 

This should get you started:

http://www.worldguitar.com/pentatonic1.html


Since you're a thrasher, you'll want to concentrate mostly on the minor pentatonic scale patterns.

You can move on to more challenging things once you've mastered these.

 

Actually, this link is better, as it gives you all the patterns:

http://www.geocities.com/trollstjerne/pentatonic.html

Again, the minor harmonic patterns (toward the bottom of the page, in this case A minor) are more important for your needs.

Once you learn the basic patterns, you'll be able to solo freely (improvise) in any key.

I’m serious, if you practice these for half an hour to an hour a day, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you’ll learn how to solo.

 

Not sure exactly what you mean, but based on the link above, you should practice playing each of those individual patterns up and down again (vertically on the fretboard) as smoothly as possible. In other words, you’re going to have to play them slowly at first, then gradually speed up as you get comfortable with them. Don’t rush it: be patient and play them slow enough so you don’t make any mistakes.

You’ll need to memorize those patterns too. Once you’re comfortable enough with them, you can practice bending the notes and sliding horizontally along the fretboard between each pattern.

Those basic patterns will serve you in any key. Once you have learned positions 1, 2, ect. you just need to adjust for the key you’re in. For example, if you learn the patterns on the link, you’ll be able to solo in A minor. To solo in B minor, then, you need only shift everything up two frets. By the same token, to solo in G minor, you need only shift everything down two frets.

Keep in mind that all lead guitar is scale-based. The simpler stuff is based on these blues (pentatonic, or "five-note") scales, while the more complex stuff tends to be based on full ("seven-note" scales). (Guys like Van Halen and my favorite, Matthias Jabs of the Scorpions, base their soloing on a combination of pentatonic and full scales.) Therefore, if you want to someday freely improvise solos, you absolutely have to learn these scales. Otherwise every note you play during an improvised solo would be guesswork. Make sense? Learning these patterns by heart means you’ll never hit a sour note, because you’ll always be playing the right notes for the key you’re in.

 

Another hint.A friends band always played two songs by Slayer and Sepultura at every show.They always tryed to pick a different song by these two bands for each show.As a result of only covering two bands,ALL of their original music surprisingly sounded like Slayer and Sepultura.

At first,try picking 80s bands like Anthrax,Overkill,Metal Church or Exodus from the "simple,yet still raging" category to um...study.After you have those initial bands...studied,check out groups like Testament,Possessed,Carcass,Pestilence,Entombed,Unleashed,At The Gates etc...

Newer stuff to look for Hammerfall,Primal Fear,Edguy,Gamma Ray,Iced Earth,Nevermore and the musically mind blowing Blind Guardian from the Power Metal side.The Haunted(WOW!),Witchery,Cororation 187,Carnal Forge and Old Man's Child from the Death Metal side.

Practice your ass off.Most metalheads need good guitar playing to stay interested in the music,any music for that matter.

Good luck.

PEACE

 

Wow, there's more to it than just hammering the guitar over and over?

 

What Mattbro said. Also realize though that when you begin to solo, don't just play a scale, be creative within that scale, try string skipping a scale (ie. if you play 3 note per string scales play the 3 notes on the low E then the next three notes in the scale pattern on the D string, then back to the A string then to the G string and so on) or combining a minor scale with a minor pentatonic scale.

Also learn arpeggios which will lead you into sweeping.

 

Woah, there! The raking is still a couple of years away for Mackem.

Mikester, you sound like a shredder...?

 

I don't suggest this unless you want that POD sound. Slashing the mids is a relatively new fad and thrash music from the 80's rarely if ever did this.

 

This little number:



http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7...9007964236/g=home/search/detail/base_id/35138

 

Kind of, but I try to use sweeps very tastefully, NOT like Malmsteen. I maybe use them to start an idea or something, but also the arpeggios are very very useful for connecting ideas and learning the fretboard.

Mackem, if you have any money, go to a guitar store, try not to make it a chain one, see if they have any used pedals. Usually you also can negotiate more with the smaller stores. The store that I used to work in had lots of them, people get sick of them, and usually you can get them cheap. Also you might find really cool older gear that people forget about how cool it really is.

 

That sounds about right. I'll throw them into a solo here or there, but I don't overdo them, at least during the songs themselves. OTOH, I go to town with arpeggios when I'm doing a solo on stage - that's when it sounds more like Yngwie.