How to Play Metal Guitar Chords
Heavy metal tends to be typified by guitar riffs and solos, but chords play an extremely important role in metal music. From three-note power chords to suspended chords to diminished chords, an experienced metal guitarist utilizes many different types of chords. But it is more than just the chords themselves that create that chunky metal sound. It also depends on your amplifier settings (primarily distortion) as well as specific techniques like palm muting.
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Instructions
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Tune your guitar. In metal, you are more likely to detune your guitar than in most other types of music. Standard guitar tuning is E A D G B E, but metal guitarists often tune down considerably. Whatever tuning you are in, make sure your strings are in tune relative to each other.
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2
Set your amp for heavy distortion. Although some clean riffs are played with an acoustic guitar, most metal is played with an electric instrument. By selecting the high gain channel on your amp and turning the gain knob all the way up, you should be able to get a decent distorted sound, but you may want to purchase a distortion pedal if there is a specific sound you want.
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3
Learn to palm mute the strings. Metal guitarists often mute some of their chords with the palm of their picking hand in an attempt to add emphasis to the non-muted chords. Lay the edge of your palm lightly on the strings where they emerge from the bridge. Make sure you can still strum the deepest strings while getting a slightly muted sound.
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Place your fret-hand pointer finger on the fifth fret of the sixth (lowest) string. Press the seventh fret on the fifth and fourth strings by either barring them with your ring finger or holding the fifth string with your ring finger and holding the fourth string with your little finger. This is a power chord, by far the most common chord used in metal. Experiment moving this chord around the neck and from string to string.
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5
Learn minor and major chords from a chord chart. These chords are commonly used as the basis for clean metal guitar sections. Metal guitarists often experiment with different chord shapes in clean sections, but these shapes are generally built around major or minor chords.
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Learn to play many metal songs. The best way to learn metal chords is to examine what chords your favorite metal guitarists use in their songs.
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Tips & Warnings
If you are playing in dropped D tuning (or its down-tuned equivalent) these chords will be played slightly differently. Because the thickest string is tuned a whole step deeper than normal, you would have to play any note on the detuned string up two frets to play any chord written in standard tuning.
When palm muting, you will get a chunkier sound out of using down strokes as opposed to up strokes.
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- Photo Credit electric guitar image by Jeffrey Zalesny from Fotolia.com
