Online Guitar Lessons

As a guitarist, you’ll have noticed that professional death metal guitarists can really give you a lesson in chords by the way they fly around the guitar neck. The progressions sound filthy and awesome and all of the skills they pull off almost appear effortless.

Even though some of the methods and tricks for playing death metal guitar chords are challenging, they are important to learn since most of the skills are easily transferable to rock and jazz playing. If you want to develop better skills of pounding out awesome chords for metal, try these 6 effective tips to play metal guitar chords.

1. Be mindful of your finger position on the frets. Playing chords should have a very full and resonant vibration with it, but if you’re getting some twangy sounds in there, you might need to adjust your finger in between the frets. The most effective way to place your fingers on the fret board is to stay closer to the lower fret marking of the fret space that your finger is occupying at the time.

2. Accommodate your fingerings for the next approaching riff. Many times when guitarists mess up during a death metal riff, it’s only because they’re not planning for the future of the song. There is more than one way to play any lick on the guitar, so plan wisely as how to play certain parts to be ready for the next one.

3. Slide between chords. A very choppy song can seem like the instruments are not working together when they perform. Try to slide between each chord in a very subtle way in order to create the illusion of continuity between chord progressions.

4 With a new style comes new calluses. If you’re not used to the aggression and speed of death metal guitar, you might notice the development of some new calluses. Playing in this genre with the drop tunings of either ‘D’ or ‘C’ means that calluses need to form on the underside of your index finger where it lays across multiple strings.

5. Play your chords ugly and proud. Contrary to other lessons you may have learned about other guitar genres, death metal is as ugly and evil as it gets. Don’t be afraid to create dark chord progressions of only three chords that are adjacent to each other. If you can get them to grind, then you have made something brutal.

6. Partially palm-muted chords make the guitar growl. If there are sections in a song that seem like they need to strike hard but with some eerie reverberation, then maybe you want a partial palm mute. Get into a palm-muting position with your strumming hand, release the pressure by 25%, and then strike a chord for a hard hit followed by a low hum.

When playing death metal, really focus on what can make your tone dark, powerful, and aggressive all at the same time. Try out these effective tips and start really thrashing through your metal riffs better.

Kyle Hoffman has performed in a number of successful musical acts as an accomplished guitarist with enthusiasm in the meal and rock genres. To learn his effective tips on learning fast electric guitar for FREE, visit his well-known guitar blog, How To Guitar Tune!