technical and musical improvements

guitars are more complicated than i though, initially because guitar playing is not  mainly about how fast or how loud you play,is more about how good you make the guitar sound,for this i had to learn techniques that are not  in my usual playing style,Metal.



 Immortal is a Norwegian Black metal band, my favourite of the genre, Tyrants was one of the first songs that I've learned, the guitarist ( Abbath ) uses a playing technique call "tremolo picking" that consists in fast alternate picking and loads of distortion. I often use this technique when playing, but after a while i struggled to keep on learning new songs because the structure of many metal songs can be way too complicated for a beginner,the amp and guitar settings can be difficult to understand sometimes, so i decided to explore new styles and apply them to my playing techniques.

To start with i though about my gear, I've got a Jackson flying V guitar, it is very light,has a jumbo fret board which forces my hand to stretch and my soloing improve, i bought two EMG active pick ups(85,81) to improve the sound of the guitar,they sound amazing,they are the perfect combination for metal as they give a very warm and fat sound, and even in distortion when i play a chord,it will sound clean.Also i installed new size of guitar strings, Dunlop 12-54 Heavy Core Strings, these are very good for drop tunings, i usually play in standard tuning but is very nice to play on other tunings ( Drop D,One step down,Half step Down,tuning in C etc..)

                                               

                                                     Jackson V Randy rhoads red

                                                           EMG 85 & 81 active pick ups

Dunlop heavy core strings size 12-54

After this i started practising new techniques,and ways of playing, pentatonic scales are very useful for learning how to use the alternate picking (up and down picking), i use it a lot, but then  i heard some jazz musicians playing, and they often use the "blues scale" . The difference between this two is that the pentatonic is composed of five notes, where the blues scale has an extra note between each octave.This two techniques have helped me so much through my practising, specially for developing my both hands strength and skills.

Now days every time i play guitar i practice this scales,on different positions on the fret board,and with different tempo too, it has made my understanding of guitar a lot bigger, and my playing a lot better.

An example of the sort of style i practice sometimes to get the timing right on my guitar playing