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Metal For Life Blog

~ The official blog of Metal Mike. I'm a heavy metal musician most commonly known as a long standing guitarist to Judas Priest frontman, Rob Halford. I'm a highly sought after heavy metal guitar and music coach. I am also a solo artist, an entrepreneur, a business owner, an avid car nut and a closet extrovert. I believe Heavy Metal should be lived loud & proud and it has been a highly motivating source in my life. I'm here to share my thoughts, pass on lessons learned and sometimes chew on big subjects. If you enjoy the content of Metal For Life, I only ask you to share my blog with one more person. Thank you & welcome.

Metal For Life Blog

Monthly Archives: December 2019

Exploring Musical Styles Outside Of Your Own As A Musician

19 Thursday Dec 2019

Posted by Metal Mike in Guitar & Music

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Today, I want to touch base on exploring different styles of guitar playing. I think I can relate enough to that idea as I have studied a bit of classical and a bit of jazz to kind of summarize my idea on this.

I think it is a worthwhile investment to take a look at different styles. What I also think is important is to keep in mind that you are a predominantly a metal player (most people reading this blog are, as an example) and use whatever you learn in other styles to your advantage to do what you do as a metal player. In short, this was my outlook for years. Still is.

For a good couple of years, I consistently practiced nylon string classical guitar, mostly because of Randy Rhoads. But, I knew that being a classical guitarist was not my future and if I practiced my fingerpicking a lot, my pick technique would suffer. I mixed classical and metal together where I would fingerpick top 3 strings and use the pick for the bottom 3 strings. It worked with my teachers, but I knew this was not going to work in a conservatory. I was fine with it. Classical guitar allowed me to learn about sign reading, position playing, counterpoint and melody. Lots of great stuff, really.

While in college at Berklee I was surrounded by many jazz players. I was not in love with jazz and did not like the way it sounded. It just never had the attack I like in music, but picking up a jazz licks and analizing jazz chord progressions proved useful for when I want to sound a little “outside” in my metal playing. Even in college, I knew I was not going to play jazz, but I kept an open ear. I must admit, the closest I got to jazz was Al DiMeola and it’s not that close, lol.

I did lsten to other instruments like saxophone and players like Eric Marienthal, etc. I also listened to non-metal guitarists such as Robben Ford, Stevie Ray Vaughan. It kind of allowed me to think a bit outside of metal, which was my diet for the rest of the 90%. It allowed me to learn different phrasing, listen to space between notes, things like that.

So, long story short – there’s no shame in picking up anything anywhere. I just think it’s important to always keep in mind that you’ll have to translate it back to your own language which is metal.

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