30 Days of Metal Riffs: Metal Rhythm Guitar Lessons

Are you ready to learn how to play some killer metal riffs on guitar? I welcome you to the ultimate metal guitar lessons I created for you: 30 Days of Metal Riffs!

Here’s is what you will learn in this 30 day heavy metal guitar lesson series with guitar tabs in each video:

How to play and combine different metal guitar techniques (such as galloping, alternate picking, palm muting and more!)
A variety of metal guitar styles from the many sub-genres of metal (ex: classic metal, thrash metal, death metal, etc)
How to expand on these lessons to write and compose your own metal riffs
How to establish a daily guitar practice pattern and stick to it
You WILL be a BETTER metal guitarist, musician and riff writer within these 30 days

**If you want to just watch the entire playlist on YouTube, CLICK HERE.

Lesson 1: METAL CHOPS RIFFS

The first metal guitar lesson in the 30 Days of Metal Riffs series is called POWER CHOPS.

Why must we call it that? Perhaps I was a wee-bit hungry and pondering on eating pork chops!

Anyway, Power Chops is a classic thrash metal style of guitar playing. The techniques you’re going to use are heavy power chords with palm muting. And you’re also going to be playing a metal riff at the end of the progression.

The goal of learning the Power Chops metal guitar riff is to teach you how to play the simple techniques (power chords and palm muting) along with moving your fingers around the fretboard more (aka: the riff at the end).

Go grab your guitar and check out the video for Power Chops below:

Metal Riffs 1 Video

Lesson 2: CHOP CHOP RIFFS

Lesson 2 is a more intense follow up to the first lesson in 30 Days of Metal Riffs. I’m calling it: ‘CHOP CHOP‘ (my wife tells me to ‘chop chop’ all the time!).

The focus in this metal rhythm guitar lesson is playing single notes. The purpose here is to move those fingers around the fretboard more.

You’ll also be palm muting, which is one of the core guitar techniques in metal music.

The lesson is broken down into two parts:

Palm muting single notes: You’re on the open E string while playing single notes between those palm mutes.
Different types of power chords: You are going to learn how to play some different types of power chords at the end of the riff. This will hep you expand what you know and will also help you be more creative when playing and writing metal riffs on guitar.

Here’s the video…

Metal Riffs 2 Video

Lesson 3: GALLOPING (RIFFS) BULLS

One of my personal favorite metal guitar techniques is often referred to as ‘galloping’ so I’m calling this lesson GALLOPING BULLS.

**Background Note (this is totally irrelevant, btw): The name ‘galloping bulls’ spawns from this game at the Tampa Hard Rock Casino. It has these cool yet fierce looking bulls on it, and when you press the button, you can hear them galloping. It sounds like a metal song (don’t worry, I don’t have a gambling problem…I never blow more than $20!).

Back to the lesson…this is a very fast, quick-pick (if you will) technique. ‘Galloping’ is performed by alternate picking the string, but in a triplet-style manner (I really hope that makes sense, but you’ll hear it in the video lesson below and it will then make sense!).

If you’re new to galloping, or triplets, then I recommend that you start out by learning this lesson one small section at a time. You will get it, I promise! But this technique does take some practice if it’s new to you.

Metal Riffs 3 Video

Lesson 4: MOVING POWER CHORDS

You’re probably asking “Dude, do power chords move by themselves?‘

No, they do not. Well, unless they’re possessed or something! If that’s not the case, then YOU must move them!

That’s what this metal guitar lesson is all about. You’re going to practice quickly moving from one power chord to another.

This is a classic metal guitar style of playing. Like palm muting, playing power chords is a skill that you must master if you want to be an accomplished metal guitarist.

Power chords may seem simple in nature. But when you start moving power chords it can become more challenging.

As you would expect, you’re also going to end the moving power chords with a riff. Remember, I don’t want you to just learn one simple riff each lesson. My goal is for you to be able to integrate multiple metal guitar techniques into one riff.

Watch the video and start moving those power chords around…

Metal Riffs 4 Video

Lesson 5: DEATH THRASH METAL RIFFS

Do you like playing death metal on guitar? Do you also enjoy playing thrash metal?

You’re going to combine elements of both sub-genres of metal music with this lesson called DEATH THRASH.

The focus with this metal guitar lesson is alternate picking. But there’s a catch. This isn’t your normal alternate picking lesson. You’re going to be picking on your guitar very fast!

With a light palm mute, you’ll alternate pick back and forth on the string while moving around from one note to another. Keep those hands in sync with one another so that your guitar playing is smooth. Even though this is a fast death metal meets thrash metal riff, you want each note to be distinguished.

Both death metal and thrash metal bands use this technique in their music. And we add an additional dose of thrash metal guitar playing with the ending riff.

Learn this riff by watching the video below…

Metal Riffs 5 Video

Lesson 6: PLAYING RIFFS BETWEEN CHORDS

Lesson 6 could very well be the most important concept of playing metal guitar. It is crucial that you learn how to play RIFFS BETWEEN CHORDS.

You know that I preach this like a religion: DO NOT just play mere power chords all the time!

I want you to throw in riffs because this is what will separate you from a dude (or dudette) who just plays guitar in their bedroom now and then, and someone who sounds like a pro when they play.

The goal with this metal guitar lesson is for you to play a simple rhythm (in this case, a few power chords) and break it up by doing some riffing.

Here are some places where riffs can be played between chords:

Riffs between the verse and chorus
Riffs to break up a long verse or long part of the same progression
Riffs between a chorus and bridge
Riffs going into or coming out of the guitar solo progression5
Intro and outro riffs (going into or coming out of another rhythm)

Seriously, it’s imperative that you learn this concept. So watch the video below for more details on how to do this. And then I want you to take what you’ve learned in this guitar lesson and start adding your own notes to it.

Metal Riffs 6 Video

Lesson 7: ARPEGGIATED RHYTHMS

What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the word arpeggios, or arpeggiated? Probably sweep arpeggios, which we associate with guitar solos.

Those are awesome, I want to share a lesson on ARPEGGIATED RHYTHMS. This lesson is different all of the rest as it’s not your standard metal guitar style of riff.

However, learning how to arpeggiate your rhythm playing is going to do nothing but enhance your overall abilities to play metal guitar!

So what exactly are arpeggiated rhythms?

It’s similar to playing a chord. Think of playing a regular G or C. Instead of strumming all of the notes together, you would play each note of that chord one by one.

Now you need to make it sound metal! How do you do that?

By palm muting while arpeggiating the notes. There’s a touch of elegance required when playing arpeggiated riffs and rhythms.

Want an example? Listen to the beginning of Lucretia from Megadeth (off the Rust In Peace album).

Alright, let’s learn this arpeggiated rhythm!

Metal Riffs 7 Video

Lesson 8: 80’s MELODIC METAL RIFFS

Remember some of those killer riffs from 80’s metal bands? That era gave us a ton of awesome guitar riffs!

This lesson is based on that style of music, so I’m calling it 80’s MELODIC PATTERN.

You may find this to be the most intense and difficult lesson of the series simply because you’re moving those fingers around a lot more. In fact, you start riffing immediately with the intro.

There’s a mixture of metal guitar techniques here as well, such as complex palm muting (going from one note that’s palm muted to another that’s choppy, then back to the palm muted note). You also have a progression of different types of power chords after the riffing is done.

I called these power chords on roids!

You’re playing the root note (the first note that starts the chord). But you’re not necessarily playing a normal power chord with that second note being the 5th note. Instead, you’re experimenting with other notes for that second note.

Playing these different types of power chords will make your song standout from every other metal song. And the pattern itself is very melodic, which is why I call it t