Hi
I have a question about which right hand technique to use when playing the intro part of Metllica's song Master of Puppets. The part I want to play is the secod part of the intro. For clarification I will include a tab piece here:
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|-----2-----3-----4-----3-----2-2-----2-----3------54---54---54---|
|-0-1---0-1---0-1---0-1---0-1-----0-1---0-1---0-0--32-0-32-0-32---|
My question is not really about this song in specific, but it helpes to explain my problem, and it is with this song I have the problem.
The part above part goes a little bit too fast for me, and I have a problem to keep up with the tempo. As I see it you can play this in two ways with your right hand. These are:
1. Start off with a upstroke/downstroke and then alternate between upstrokes and downstrokes.
2. Start off with one upstroke, then two downstrokes. Etc.
The second way seems a bit faster to be since you don't need to move the pick so much up and down, but I have a problem with hitting the notes clear with this approach.
The first way sounds better, but I'm not able to play that one fast enough, but I can play much more accurate with his method.
So my question is which approach you think I should take. I have got a feeling that playing every other upstroke and every other downstroke is a good thing, but sometimes when I'm gonna play things fast it feels like the pick have to move too much up and down.
I hope you can understand what I mean and that you can lead me in the right direction.
/Rickard
Do whichever feels best to you :) Personally I tend to use downstrokes whenever I can, it was a little limiting at first, but now I find I harldy ever have to use an upstroke, I can play fast enough using downstrokes.
My advice is not to try strumming in a different way, but to slow down the tempo of the song.
Learn it at half speed/quater speed, whatever suits you, then once you get the hang of it, speed up a little at a time until you are playing how you want it.
This is how a lot of people learn to play/write complex solo's.
Pete
Hi
The part above part goes a little bit too fast for me, and I have a problem to keep up with the tempo. /Rickard
Here's some software that I use for making practice cds for my students: http://www.ronimusic.com/
You can slow down a song while retaining the pitch then save as a .wav file to practice along with.
There's a free Trial version but I ended up buying it since it's so helpful and time saving.
silvertone
Thanks for you input. I guess I will just keep practicing in the way that sounds most accurate, and then eventually try to play it faster. Maybe it's good to practice with a metronome so that you can actually see that you do some progress in playing faster.
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|-----2-----3-----4-----3-----2-2-----2-----3------54---54---54---|
|-0-1---0-1---0-1---0-1---0-1-----0-1---0-1---0-0--32-0-32-0-32---|
DD U DD U DD U DD U DD DD DD U DD U DD D/ D D/ D D/
This is how I do it ....each letter goes to each tab number but it's all down down up until you get to 2-2 on the 5th string which is also down down followed by down down the it's down down up again until you get to the powerchords and it's all downs.
Thanks shredgeek! I will try your way as soos as I get hold of a guitar. I'm currently not at home and have no access to a guitar where I am now.
I would say play it whichever way works best for you. However, according to Kirk Hammett (via a Guitar World article - Jan '06), it is played with all downstokes as are all three riffs to the song that are shown.
It seems to me that using all downstrokes will be much harder. I think you should be able to play twice as fast if you use both upstrokes and downstrokes.
For some songs a find it hard to play other than just downstrokes though. When I do that really fast by hand starts to hurt and I can't keep up the speed. Do you know of any excersices that will make my right hand be able to play faster?
