5 Things You Need to Know Before Taking Metal Guitar Lessons

Before you start your metal guitar lessons, be sure to take this advice from guitar teacher Zachary A.…

Taking metal guitar lessons at first can seem rather challenging, but learning to play metal guitar really isn’t as a daunting of a task as it may seem.  As you continue to read, I will go over few different tips and practices that would be beneficial to know before embarking on your epic journey in learning how to play metal.

1) Finding the way that you learn the best, and sticking to it

There is a multitude of different methods to learning how to play metal guitar, and the guitar in general. Find the way that you learn the best, and stick to it. It might take you a few attempts at various methods of practice to achieve this, but it will be extremely worth it. It’s important to find the right method that works for you, because when you’re trying to learn from a way that doesn’t fit you just right, you might end up getting frustrated and discouraged, which might eventually lead you to give up and lose interest.

2) Practice makes perfect

In order to get truly good at anything – especially a musical instrument – it requires practice and a dedication to practicing. You should set aside a certain amount of time that works with your schedule to practice daily what you learn while taking metal guitar lessons. There might be a lot of distractions around you that might interfere with this. (In my case, this would be the television or a good book.)

But, you need to shut off all the distractions: turn off the television, put away your cell phone, stop watching silly YouTube videos of cats (no matter how entertaining they are) and practice guitar. It truly is the only way that you will progress as a musician. Everyone seems to want to become a virtuoso musician over night, and, well, this never happens. People who put in more hours of practice than anyone else are the ones who become virtuoso musicians. It’s a proven fact. History is the evidence.

3) Listen to the masters

Listen to the virtuoso guitar players of the metal guitar like Sinister Gates, Dimebag Darrell, Dave Mustaine, Steve Vai, and – saving the best for last – Randy Rhodes. You can learn so much from just absorbing all the music that they play. Also, developing an ear for the notes is a priority for successful musicians. Some lucky people have what they call perfect pitch. For the rest of us, myself included, it’s important to listen and play the song you want to learn again and again. This ‘musician’s ear’ you’ll develop comes in handy all the time, even when reading tabs; because tabs aren’t always accurate, and you’ll have the ability to notice when the notes are incorrect.

4) Don’t limit yourself to only metal music

All genres of music are beneficial to you. With a broad knowledge of music, you improve your range, capabilities and diversity as a musician. Every musician out there has had influences that have helped shaped the way that he or she plays. So, even if there are musicians out there that you enjoy and would like to play like, don’t limit yourself to only studying their music. Do some research, and look up who they listened to and who influenced them when they were starting out learning the guitar. Listen to their influences; you should be able to find similarities in their influences with the guitarist that you are aspiring to be.