This is part of an ongoing series of posts documenting my current guitar student’s private lessons. Obviously, the strength of private study is that each lesson is customized to your needs and goals. But there’s likely something useful here for beginner guitarists who don’t have access to a teacher. As usual, the tab/notation and audio examples were created with Guitar Pro, which I’ve used for years and recommend. If you follow that link and buy a copy, it helps support the site. If you’d like to start from the beginning, here is Lesson 1 and Lesson 2.
My student likes a wide range of music. He’s mentioned Tyler, The Creator; Weezer; and Nirvana, among others. One of the artists he admires is Metallica. And, as I’m also a fan, it’ll be fun for both of us to explore some of their songs. “Fade to Black” is one he likes, so I tabbed out the memorable intro/verse riff. This is not my work, obviously. Please don’t sue me, Lars:
That’s a beautiful riff, and, though it might sound easy, it’s quite challenging to get straight and keep straight. It’s that fourth bar that gets you. So, while I provided this to my student as something for the future, I wanted to create something simpler but in the same ballpark which would help him prepare for it. So I wrote this, which shares some similarities with the “Fade to Black” intro as well as the intro to “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” but is an original work nonetheless:
Both of these are what I call “ring through riffs” where you have to be careful not to accidentally mute notes. We already looked an an example of this in Lesson 2. You can play either of with with a pick or fingestyle. In fact, it’s best to practice them both ways. Riffs, like these, where a lot of notes ring through are excellent practice for targeting the specific strings while avoiding others, which is important in guitar playing.