Beginner metal songs?

cnev, thanks for the clarification, and certainly no offense taken. That's what makes it all art, I suppose - one man's metal is another man's hard rock.

Hot funk, cool punk, even if it's old junk
It's still rock and roll to me :wink: :lol:

kent,

By the way you mentioned that Ac/DC was metal when they came out but that was in the 80's almost thirty years ago...the times they are a changing man...there not metal anymore I think they are considered pop...J/K

oooooo... I hadn't even considered Black Sabbath....hmmmm.....As long as I don't choose Iron Man, I'll probably be OK. 8^)

As for why metal is called metal, the story I've heard is that a record producer was being introduced to Led Zeppelin's demo reel for the first time. His comment was, in a heavy British accent, "That sounds like heavy metal dropping from the sky!" And heavy metal was born. I think that reference comes from the movie "The Decline of Western Civilization: The Metal Years."

Iron Man is actually one of the easiest black sabbath songs to play, unless you have issues with moving up and down the neck, if you do, then now is a good time to work on that.

I think the genre for AC/DC should be butt rock, not the definition found on some sites, mainly due to the vocals... not that it didn't work and work well, but that is the only band to me that could qualify for that genre... I realize there is a different definition for butt rock which somehow seems to mean bad hair bands... nothing against AC/DC, I like them, just they are exactly what the phrase butt rock means to me.

Speaking of times changing... I don't care if elvis is alive, dead, macking on alien space babes that drink pepsi not coke, can we label him a country singer yet? Johnny Cash rocked more than Elvis.

A bit off-topic, but: I had never given much thought to why it's called "metal", but I recently read in a thread about "Obvious Stuff You Only Just Realized" (or something) that it's because "metal" is harder than "rock". That made sense to me, anyway, but of course it's not necessarily true...

I think they are considered pop...J/K

:evil: :evil: :evil:

hi

easy is not an objective definition, it all depends on your current guitar ability. I'm into hard rock and heavy metal and i'm trying to learn to play it so I can tell you that there are not so many easy songs around in hard rock/heavy metal, at least not as easy as in pop/rock circuit! There is not any "Horse with no name" or "For what it's worth" in hard rock!
Assuming that you could change chords quite fluently and you can correctly play at least a few rhythms, to me a song could be defined easy if it has the following features:

a) few chords and regular chord changes (i.e. each measure or each half-measure)
b) a simple rhythm which for hard rock could be the classic all downstrums quaver notes (dd/dd/dd/dd)

Most hard rock songs are not that easy because they include a few riffs which usually are a sequence of different chords (sometimes each chord could last a mere half-beat) and also a combination of single notes and power chords combined with a selective use of palm muting to bring in accents.

Adding to it they are often based on off-beat rhythms which means that you have the ability to change chord or pick a single note on the offbeat instead of the usual downbeat

Ac/Dc (or Kiss) are an excellent way to learn hard rock because their songs are built with just a few chords (sometimes also open ones) but most of their rhythms, being heavily based on syncopation, are not that easy, they need a bit of work to be learnt. I'll probably get an Ac/dc music sheet to learn a few of them!

Iron Maiden are not easy at all because sometimes their songs includes rhythm changes (i.e from 6/8 to 4/4 and back, or from triplets to quavers) and the same goes for bands like Slayer, Metallica etc

The easiest way to start is Nirvana which has a lot of quite easy songs (i.e. check "About a girl" or "polly" in the Easy songs) which could be played with both power chords or open ones. If you want osmething more hard rock-oriented bands like Bachman turner overdrive has some fine hard rock songs with some easy riffs, Skid Row's "18 and life" it is also quite easy if you substitute the intro arpeggio with a simple strumming. Billy Idol's Rebel yell and White wedding are also quite easy

or you coud learn the classic Smoke on the water, which riff is so famous you could play almost by ear (the verse and chorus are very simple too) or a few Black Sabbath songs are quite easy

Matteo

Matteo,

I think that's a prettty good description.

Since you like classic rock and blues also how about

Purple Haze (Hendrix)
Hey Joe (Hendrix)
Sunshine Of Your Love (Cream/Clapton)

I was listening to the satellite radio on my way back from lunch today and heard Metallica's Seek & Destroy for the first time in awhile. The rhythm parts of that song didn't sound to hard to me. Plus it sounds cool! :-) I thought to myself that I'd have to find the tab for it and give it a shot.

Jason

Seek and Destroy is pretty easy. The middle section is fairly fast, but not overly tough if you practice...

Also on Kill 'Em All is: Am I Evil (I think King Diamond or someone did the original), which is a very nice sounding metal song that is fairly easy to master. Take a peek at Four Horsemen on the same album.

I feel that anything on MoP or newer is considerably more challenging than KEA or RtL.

Am I Evil might be a good choice, because the finger tapping part is one of the easiest and yet gives you a technique to practice.

If you really want easy, Black Sabbath or AC/DC is the way to go... However, like many have said, this is not really heavy metal.

BTW - When you say "all of the way through," are you talking about the solo too? If so, Am I Evil is out of the running! Stick with Black Sabbath or AC/DC in that case.

-Rip

I was listening to the satellite radio on my way back from lunch today and heard Metallica's Seek & Destroy for the first time in awhile. The rhythm parts of that song didn't sound to hard to me. Plus it sounds cool! :-) I thought to myself that I'd have to find the tab for it and give it a shot.

Jason

Kirk,

If you are looking for a really, really easy beginner's song, you might want to check out the rhythm part of AC/DC's TNT. E, G, & A chords over and over in a couple of different progressions. TNT is even easier than the intro to Back in Black. There is a youtube video of a guy playing TNT and then the intro to Dirty Deeds, as a tribute to Malcom Young's birthday. I will try to post the link later (can't get at youtube from work :| .

Someone mentioned Seek and Destroy. Justin Sandercoe has a three part lesson on that song that seems pretty good to me. http://www.justinguitar.com . I think you can get at it from the youtube lessons link on his main page.

H

Songs by Motorhead are also good to start. I love that band.

Whoa! :shock:

Iron Maiden's Running Free might be one to try also. Scorpion's Rock You Like A Hurricane, and Metallic's Jump In The Fire are a few suggestions.

Nice easy metal song 8)

Black Sabbath Electric funeral

It don't get any easer then that. Have fun, its a blast to play.

Thanks for all the great ideas. To answer a few questions:

When I mentioned beginner, I wasn't very clear about what level of beginner I suppose. I've been playing for only a few months, but I can play things like Day Tripper, Message in a Bottle (slow - I'm trying to speed it up, but it's at 172!!), intro to Crazy Train - that sort of thing.

Also, when I mentioned "all the way through" I meant the whole song - intro, solo, outro, various bridges, and other musical terms I don't fully understand. Most songs have multiple guitars so there's multiple rhythm and lead to choos from. But, I want to try and get the whole process down from beginning to end. This should give me a solid goal to work toward and be challenging.

At this point I've settled on two to work on right now: Sweet Child o' Mine (GnR) and Back in Black (AC/DC). Now, before anyone starts a flame war, these are "metal" enough for me, and I'll back off "metal" and just point out that they are just the right genre for now.

For the future, some of the early Metallica songs will be interesting to approach, but I'll hold off for now on Master of Puppets. I'll probably need a teeny bit more practice/skill to get that one. Also, there are tons of AC/DC, Iron Maiden, and many others that I'll try. Here's a short list of some of those on my list to try eventually. Note the absolute lack of a consistent genre.

Rock and Roll (Led Zeppelin)
Revelations (Iron Maiden)
The Black Widow (Link Wray - if I can ever find any sheet music for it)
Stray Cat Strut (Stray Cats - they're metal, right??)
Love Me Two Times (The Doors)