Wake of Souls

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Instructor: Sean Conklin Level: Advanced Topic: Cool Riffs Style: Metal

Excerpt: Welcome! This tutorial is based on a snippet from a song I wrote called "Wake of Souls". We're going to be focusing primarily on tight rhythm playing with metal genres, particularly with progressive metal and metalcore. Also, please note that the song is in Drop D tuning. If you aren't exactly sure what that is, click here. Once you've seen the video above...

Media Length: 1:31

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Instructor: Sean Conklin Level: Advanced Topic: Cool Riffs Style: Metal

Excerpt: In this exercise, we're going to use a lot of palm muting on the 5th and 6th strings mixed between some higher notes. The higher notes are all on the D and G strings, so we're naturally going to be using some string skipping as well. Since the palm mutes are pretty fast with the thirty-second notes, it's imperative that you practice this slowly at first. Ge...

Media Length: 0:50

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Instructor: Sean Conklin Level: Advanced Topic: Rhythm Style: Rock

Excerpt: This riff is pretty straightforward. We're basically going to be strumming through some Drop D chords while exclusively using sixteenth notes. One thing I really want to point out with this, is how much we need to focus on muting unwanted strings. In the video, you might notice that I'm literally strumming all 6 strings the entire time. But each chord only ...

Media Length: 1:09

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Instructor: Sean Conklin Level: Advanced Topic: Cool Riffs Style: Metal

Excerpt: In this riff, we'll be going back and forth between 32nd notes and 8th notes. There won't be any palm muting in this one, so be sure to let the strings ring out nice and clean. Also, give the 8th notes a good amount of vibrato as you can see me doing in the video. There is one particular timing observation I'd like you to make with this one. The actual riff...

Media Length: 0:30

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Instructor: Sean Conklin Level: Advanced Topic: Rhythm Style: Metal

Excerpt: This is my favorite riff of the song. Melodically, it somewhat shadows the very 1st riff we did. However, it sounds much more aggressive here, especially with the accompanying drum parts. Be sure to keep your palm muting tight and your picking solid. Also, be careful with the descending pattern at the end of bar 18. It requires some fast arm and finger move...

Media Length: 0:48

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Instructor: Sean Conklin Level: Advanced Topic: Cool Riffs Style: Metal

Excerpt: Have all the parts down? Great! Then it's time to practice with the backing track. If you ever record yourself playing along, be sure to post it in the forum so we can all hear your chops!

Media Length: 1:32