Death metal guitarists really have a way with flying all over the guitar neck during a brutal song. They can give you a lesson in going between chords and riffs effortlessly while putting on a great show too.

Even though some of the methods and tricks for playing death metal guitar chords are challenging, they are important to learn since most of the skills are easily transferable to rock and jazz playing. If you want to develop better skills of pounding out awesome chords for metal, try these 6 effective tips to play metal guitar chords.

1. Put your fingers near the frets when pressing on strings. When you first started playing the guitar, you may have learned to place your fingers in between the frets on the fret board. Something you may have not learned is that your chords are more effective when they are nudged up against the lower fret marking of the fret your finger is occupying.

2. Put your fingers in a position that prepares them for the next riff. Throughout a death metal song, you’re going to encounter chords and riffs of varying difficulty, so you need to be prepared. Be mindful of where you play each chord so that you can be in the best position to execute the next riff that’s coming.

3. Transition your chords smoothly by sliding. As brutal as metal might sound to the audience, it is still an action of creating a very continuous sound between a group of musicians. Help that consistency along by sliding between each chord in a very smooth style.

4. Prepare for more calluses. If you’re playing death metal guitar, you’re most likely playing in one of the drop tunings of ‘D’ or ‘C’. With these tunings you’ll be laying your index finger across three strings at a time to create power chords. You’ll find out soon enough that more calluses will begin to form along the length of your finger.

5. Play your chords ugly and proud. Contrary to other lessons you may have learned about other guitar genres, death metal is as ugly and evil as it gets. Don’t be afraid to create dark chord progressions of only three chords that are adjacent to each other. If you can get them to grind, then you have made something brutal.

6. Partially palm-muted chords make the guitar growl. If there are sections in a song that seem like they need to strike hard but with some eerie reverberation, then maybe you want a partial palm mute. Get into a palm-muting position with your strumming hand, release the pressure by 25%, and then strike a chord for a hard hit followed by a low hum.

Death metal has a very rigid and brutal style about it, and mastering its characteristics is how you truly master the genre. Put these tips to some good use and see if you can really amp up the power and control of your chords.

Kyle Hoffman has performed in a number of successful bands as an experienced guitarist with enthusiasm in the rock and metal genres. To learn his valuable tips on learning fast electric guitar for FREE, visit his popular guitar blog, How To Guitar Tune!

To learn the guitar is a great endeavor, and it requires quite a bit of work. You will also find that it is a lot of fun. You might feel however, that with all the practice you are doing, you are amounting to absolutely nothing as far as your guitar playing abilities goes. There are a few tips that you can follow in order to hone your skills, and regardless of your current skill level, you will still find them to be extremely helpful.

If you want your skills with the guitar to get even better, then it is important to remember to keep good posture. If you do not keep good posture then you may find that you cannot play incredibly well. Make sure that you have a chair which has no arms. If it has no arms then you will find that it is easier for you to support your instrument. You will find that your sound is better too, when you have good posture.

Ever thought about the way you hold your pick? You should if you want to play guitar even better. You see, you want to hold the pick firmly, but you don’t want to grip it too hard. You need to have a good enough grip on the pick that you won’t accidentally drop it.

The reason you don’t want to grip your pick too hard when you are playing is fatigue. When you hold the guitar pick too firmly your entire arm is going to start getting tired pretty quickly. Go with a grip that is firm, but not too firm, and you’ll get a great sound and won’t tire out your arm as much.[youtube:aROLg5l-9Yk;[link:Beginner guitar lessons];http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aROLg5l-9Yk&feature=related]

Naturally you need to figure out whether or not you’ve chosen the right pick. There are a few different types of picks which are flat picks and finger picks. The majority of people use flat picks, but that doesn’t mean you have to. There are different levels of flexibility, and if you are just starting out, you should start with a soft pick, and if you want to go to a firmer one later you absolutely can.

One other thing that you should do is learn to play arpeggios. Though you probably haven’t hear of or learned to play them, they are nonetheless very important and will greatly improve your playing. They’re pretty easy, good sounding, and are even fun if you can get into them.

You can’t use a guitar pick to play arpeggios. You will need to use your fingers to do this. You use your thumb on the bas note to pick it, then take the index finger on the third string and pluck it. Then you use the middle finger on the second string, and the ring finger on the top string. You have not picked four different notes. Now you have to learn to do this faster. Practice this over and over until you get it. Once you master arpeggios, your playing will really sound nice.

Those are only a few tips. There are many more, though these will definitely help you out so long as you stay in practice. It doesn’t matter if you’re only learning to play, or if you have been learning for a while, these tips will help you a lot no matter what.