Guest Post From The Good Musician

As you all know, once in awhile I feature a guest post. This months guest is Arjun Muralidharan. He gives us his outlook on how to become a metal musician. In my opinion a real Metal musician isn’t” Made” but is born with it in his/her blood even if it’s not the first music genre they start enjoying. While I agree with most of this article, I also must disagree with some of it. As always feel free to leave your opinion, but be mature about it.

How to Become a Metal Musician
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Photography by Skip The Budgle.

This is a guest post by Arjun Muralidharan, the mind behind The Good Musician.

Metal Music – passion of a devoted fan base and a genre unique enough that entire books have been written about how aspiring musicians can master this art. Let me share with you some tips for aspiring metal musicians, guitarists in particular.

Enough with the cheesiness, if you like metal music, chances are you’d love to be able to play metal music. Unfortunately, Metal is a tricky genre when it comes to playing, for two reasons:

1. It’s really hard: Metal Music is usually very complex, fast and comparable to classical music – a lot of instruments, challenging passages and very intricate melodic and harmonic changes (we’ll get this in a mo, don’t fret) make Metal one of the hardest Genres to play.
2. It’s technically dependent: Most of your favorite Metal bands have huge sets of amplifiers, guitars that cost thousands of dollars and a technical crew running around backstage making it all work.

Also, the massive light shows make a big difference. Now, not jokingly, Metal performances are probably as complex as a Wagner opera with 200 participants.

I often run across some aspiring metalhead guitarists, and I tend to give the same advice every time:

• Practice scales:
  Jimmy Page, a forefather of modern heavy metal, had developed his own teaching methods, including a lot of scales. Scales are series of notes, usually in a musical key (like C-major), that you should practice to play in a technically clean fashion. Start out slow, and buld up speed. Clean first, fast later.
• Get technical: Learn as much as you can about sound and acoustics. Learn how to order effects, because Metal without effects isn’t Metal.
• Perfect the basics: If you’re not taking classes, take some. Learn proper guitar technique, because Metal is technically as challenging as any advanced classical finger study.
• Play classical music: Most metal fans I know also dig some classical music. Even if you don’t practicing to play classical music will give you a different approach to music as pop or standard blues/rock does. Classical music is very melodic and complex, while musical forms in pop and rock are held simple – for a purpose.
• Mimic your favourite songs: Try playing your favorite riffs instead of trying to compose own stuff. The more famous riffs you can play, the more you will know about how metal works. You will begin to see similarities and recurring elements.
• this article and this one could be of help – but remember: If you’re not having fun, it’s not worth pursuing!