Guitar & Musician Forums

I've been playing for more than 30 years. Played blues, rock, and jazz. My son took up the guitar and after a year, saw how serious and focused he is. I taught him what I know, but he's a metal head. So I want to start learning metal too. Oh, he also mentioned yesterday he wants to focus on neoclassical (inspired by Jason Becker).

So which songs do I need to learn to get me going? What I mean is this... When I was learning blues, learning Clapton's Unplugged Album got me started improvising decently. In rock, it was learning Free Bird and Alive (among others, but those two started it). For jazz, it was All of Me, Rhythm Changes, and a bunch of other Django Reinhardt songs that helped me cracked the code.

What songs for Metal would help me get started as a metal player? Songs that would teach me the essential techniques, phrases, progressions, etc. I play fairly fast (From playing Gypsy Jazz), but not metal shredhead fast. I've never learned sweeping arpeggios, tapping, alternate picking, and most other usual metal techniques.

Always start with Opeth.

How about some Sabbath?

Death - Crystal Mountain, Mastodon - Blood and Thunder, Carcass - Heartwork, Megadeth - Hanger 18, Slayer - Angel of Death, Children of Bodom - Bed of Razors, Opeth - The Leper Affinity. Just a few songs I can think of off the top of my head that are a lot of fun to play and will show you a variety of techniques used in metal.

Start with Metallica, and find Ben Eller on YT.

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Pantera (90’s era albums) has good solos with pinch harmonics—look for their ballads like “Sleep” or “Floods”. Has a southern rock infused metal sound. Testament is old school thrash with solid writing and melodic+shreddy solos. “Alone in the Dark” and “Trial by Fire” are what got me into them. I can’t play any of this, so can’t tell you which songs are good for what, but those are my two faves in that genre, fwiw.