Metal Reviews

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Loved it. I wish you the very best in your musical endeavours, good luck and have fun man.

Way to go man, way to go.

An experience like that happened to me when I first got an electric guitar in my hands, when I was 20. Everyone was surprised that I could play power chords and managed to play something that sounded metal (minor keys). That of course was because of my long years of metal music experience. I knew power chords were played with your index finger and your ring finger, I had seen it a million times. I guess us metalheads get a headstart with playing instruments because we already know what it should look and sound like. I had no hope of having anything to do with music until that day, now I've been playing guitar for about a year and I think I'm decent at it.

I hope you reach your dreams, sounds like you have the ambition to do them. Never lose that feeling.

Great piece, Ben, good luck with it all.

Good editorial and all the best in your musical endeavours.

that's awesome, good luck. i wish i had the motivation to practice an instrument consistently

Hmmmm...Ok then. Thanks for telling me. Wait, a don't give two shits about your arrogent 'editorial'. And in the past you where OK. Living the metal lifestyle? In a way, poser.

Aren't you like 16?

I'm 18 in June and I've never met anyone who doesn't know me who thought I was under that age. Why?

Well maybe it's because you acted like some young teenage prick with your post if you didn't like the editorial then don't read it but your comment was uncalled for and immature.

Agreed, thought the whole 'rockstar dream' is even more immature.

omg you KNOW about my psychic powers to evaluate stuff before reading it?

Uncalled for? If I'd first visited this site and read that I wouldn't be into metal now, it screams of immaturity, loneliness and a desperate need to succeed at something not meant for him. I hated everything about it and to me it just made him look like a poser.

Plus, it was arrogent as fuck and his realisation that metal is constructed in a musical way...WHAT THE FUCK. That's generally how music is made you silly streak of piss. The whole editorial reeked of shit to me, I'm sorry.

I'm happy for you that you're picking up an instrument Ben and enjoying it (playing guitar is a shitload of fun), but no offense, but a lot of this sounds pretty pretentious. Playing Crazy Train for two hours and learning a power chord and now you "understand" how all music is made?



What rules are we talking about here? Staying in key? Working within scales? I think there's a lot more to writing music than your giving credit for here, if so. Its not just about staying in key and following direct scales- it takes a great deal of creativity, and for most, a good knowledge of music theory. Once again, your enthusiasm is great, but similarly, singing along to a Nightwish song isn't tour experience in any way, shape or form.

I really think you might want to slow down on all this stuff. If you're serious about this, get professional lessons, or at least work with some professional musuicians. Learn how songs are made instead of just assuming you get it after 2 hours of play (hell, I've been playing for seven years now and I don't completely get it). Ambition is a great thing, but:



You might want to slow it down. Focus on learning your chops first; you're setting the bar way too high. You just learned the intro to Crazy Train and now you want to write songs like Glenn Tipton as your ultimate goal and play in Madison Square Garden? Once again, don't take offense, but you sound like a lot of people who start playing guitar in their teen years without any conception of what it or songwriting is actually like and just assume that its either all the way or nothing. Well, you're likely going to have to settle for the middle somewhere, and there's nothing wrong with that. Maybe you can write a Steve Harris song, and if so, awesome. Its definitely worth trying for. But most people, no matter how many years they've been playing for or how great they are, can't do it. Its nothing to be ashamed of.

I guess my overall problem is that as someone who has played guitar for seven years, has jammed with people who are much better and talented than me and who have played for even longer, out of those many many people, and out of all my friends who do music professionally or are taking Music as their major in university... None has claimed as high a knowledge of music and songwriting as you seem to have, or simplified it nearly as much. Once again, good luck with it and I appreciate your enthusiasm, but please do slow it down for your own good and don't make general assumptions about songwriting and music until you have some grounding.

I think you guys are being a bit harsh. Go with the enthusiasm! It's fine for you smug Thrashheads to say how you picked up a guitar years ago, but for those of us that see learning an instrument as a feat equal with conquering Everest, it must be pretty amazing to find that you're playing the music you love.

Hallowed Be Thy Name is hella fun to play.

Enthusiam is great but Brahm has a really good point. Saying that you're a failure unless you manage to affect others with your music is a bit of a crazy goal because it takes dedication, which it seems you have, but you'll also need a lot of talent and luck, even to get a band together, and to get to the point where people other than your friends are showing up to your band's gigs. Aiming so high right away is just, like... setting yourself up for disappointment.

My advice is play music, have fun, take pride in your personal accomplishments, and if anybody else cares about your music then that's just an added bonus

of course, and when your first getting into it, it's only yourself stopping you from getting better....

Keep it up mate=)

Being pretentious was not my intention. What me saying that I understood how the music went, well since I am a novice and untrained I can't relate musical terms, is that I hear where the note is, I hear the next note in my head and then I find it on the fretboard. Instead of being a complete mystery as to where to go its discoverable. The foundations are the same. The chord changes still have to work within a framework. Everyone can play a transitional passage from high to low to mid or whatever . But the way they're played, the style of the player and the rhythm and the technique are what makes it so much more.

Trust me, I don't expect to become some shredder over night. I'm prepared for long arduous hours spent slaving away on technique. But the fact that every day it gets better and better is what makes me have such lofty aspirations. Since this is something I am taking deadly serious I've started from the ground up. I learned the proper way to utilize the left hand, how to hold the neck, where to place my thumb and to not let my fingers, especially the pinky, stray too high. For speed the fingers barely come off the string. I use techniques taught by Ron Jarzombek from Watchtower and David Gallegos from Power of Omens to develop the agility amongst my fingers.

I know that to get better you play with people who are better than you and watch and listen and learn. I've played with country guitarists, classical guitarists (arpeggios look like a bitch to get started on), and blues players. Anything and everything that I can learn to get better I am soaking up.

Sometimes in life, especially something like this, it is all or nothing.
Those are my goals and I won't stop until they're accomplished.

The important thing is that no matter how good you are, there's always a helluva lot for you still to learn... And that's what makes being a musician so awesome.

let me give you a tip... metronome! It's a great way to develop tempo, and useful when you're playing with others