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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

Category Archives: Guitar & Music

Are You Ever Too Old To Learn An Instrument?

17 Monday Oct 2022

Posted by Metal Mike in Guitar & Music, Inspiration & Motivation

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Here is your answer – No. You’re never too old to learn anything, including a guitar. Applying yourself to learn an instrument has nothing to do with your age, but rather with how much time you have (or, rather allow) to practice. Not everyone will be Eddie Van Halen, but with proper instruction and time put in you can get playing.

Your boss at work, or your customers don’t care if you play the guitar, golf or like to fish. As an adult life brings more challenges, people feel they can’t really commit to playing. 20 minutes every 3rd day is not going to do it, even if you had the talent of Eddie. I have seen some of my younger students get incredibly good at a guitar in rather short period of time. Their advantage was having the focus and time to sit at the guitar and play it for 5 hours plus a day.

I started to play the guitar late, I think at 15-16. Most of my friends were much better than me. Ok, all of my friends were better than me. But, I have put an immense amount of practice during my High School years (Read: no time at the beach, no hanging out, no parties) and most of them were not even in the running by the beginning of my Junior year.

I also mentioned this before, but I never met anyone whose fingers were too short, too long, too stubby to play the guitar. That excuse does not exist.

So, how much time do you need to get some decent playing in? If you can dedicate honest 30-45 minutes 6 days a week, you would have made a great progress in 3 months. This will be enough to play several songs, melodies and most likely even write your own stuff. If playing an instrument is important to you, often times you have to give up on other things to find the time. For adults, it’s a game of priorities and time management and figuring out what’s important.

I also believe that we should all carve out at least 1 hour every day to do the stuff we love to do. It’s necessary. Otherwise, life becomes a boring box you live it.

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Expanding By Eliminating

07 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by Metal Mike in Guitar & Music, Inspiration & Motivation

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The idea I want to present to you today is the ability to take a deep dive into a subject by eliminating many outside possibilities.

Let’s take a look at playing the guitar, for example. A long while ago, I made the decision to become a specialist in playing the music that I love, which is Heavy Metal. In truth, it was not much of a “choice” really since Metal really grabs the most of my interest. But as a musician, as you grow, you do hear other things and become interested in other styles of music. For me, I always liked the way classical guitar sounded (Thank you, Randy Rhoads), but I realized that if I devoted the necessary time it took to become very proficient at classical guitar, my main goal of playing Heavy Metal would suffer. I decided to expand my ability as a Metal guitarist by eliminating choices that did not lead to the ultimate goal. Yes, even if it was hard to do.

I see this play out a lot in musicians. Many musicians I know want to get good at everything. They want to play a lot of styles and be genuine in each one. Even these days, through teaching many young players, I see a person play as many as several instruments. I mean, sure, it’s wonderful. You learn new things, you develop, etc. But, it’s crowded out there. I believe in order to become a specialist at something you have to 1) devote most, if not all, of your time to become proficient at that one thing and be known for it. 2) you have to understand that it is “ok” not to excel at everything. Believe me, you are still a very valuable person. 3) you have to understand that it is better to do one thing at 99%, than 9 at 40%.

In some way, people feel that they are missing something, or that they do not add up to something, unless they do and know about everything. If you are one of those people torturing yourself, it is “ok” not to be that way and just follow where your true heart leads.

One last point. I am not asking anyone to completely disregard, hate on or never look outside their chosen deep dive. Just know that you’ll have to forgo many B choices and ideas in order to excel at your chosen path.

Guitar Pick-Ups – Magnetic Properties

10 Friday Apr 2020

Posted by Metal Mike in Guitar & Music

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Tags

guitar, Guitar pick-ups, Music Gear

Today, let’s talk a bit about guitar pick-ups and the magnets in the pick-up itself. Honestly, for years, I never dug into the “making of” a guitar pick-up. I knew that I liked passive pick-ups probably because in the beginning most guitars were sold with them already. I, just like everyone else, looked at pick-up names and which guitarists used what. I tried to emulate their tone. Over time I found that I really do prefer passive picks-ups above anything else out there.

But, of course, there is a lot more to a guitar pick-up and how it’s made.
Let’s take a look at the magnets, how they sound & what difference do they made.

Ok, here it goes.

– Alnico II: Nice full low end, more prominent mids and sweet top end.
– Alnico III: Clear, warm lows, full mids and softer high end.
– Alnico IV: Tighter bass response than Alnico II, even mid-range, bright.
– Alnico V: Bright and glassy top, cutting mid-range, tight bass. For example, my favorite pick-up is a Seymour Duncan SH4, also known as the Jeff Beck (JB4) pick-up. You guessed it – it has Alnico V magnet. The glassy top is great for leads as it reminds me of DiMarzio PAF-Pros that I like a lot as well. I used PAF-Pros when I played Ibanez a long while back. My SH-4s have a really nice glassy, buttery top end for lead notes, which suits my playing and what I’m trying to do with my guitar. SH-4 also brings to the table 2 other things that I look in the guitar pick-up: Tight, warm bass and tight, exaggerated harmonicaly rich mid section.
– Alnico VIII: Tight low end, smooth treble.
– Ceramic: Bright and edgy with enhanced upper-mids, agressive harmonics, punchy low end. Favorite of players such as Alexi Laiho.

The only thing to keep in mind is that some of these descriptions such as “softer” or “cutting” are a little subjective. But, the above guide is a pretty handy thing to know when shopping for a pick-up.

See what pick-ups are in your guitar and what magnets they have. Look them up on a website, see if the above descriptions make sense. It’s a great way to know your instrument better.

What I Learned From Knowing Great Musicians

28 Friday Feb 2020

Posted by Metal Mike in Guitar & Music

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Often times I get a parent who asks me how much their son or daughter should practice in order to get really good on the guitar. And, I have to be honest, as soon as I hear how much and how long I already know that someone is sizing up their effort.

This way of thinking makes sense on the surface, but it’s an improper way of looking at it.

Guitar is an animal. We never really master it completely. And, the guitarists I know that became very proficient at it play CONSTANTLY, or at least have spent a big part of their life playing CONSTANTLY. Yep, that’s the secret.

It almost takes an obsession of sort to just LOVE the entire process of playing the instrument.

This is why I see young players get good extremely fast and that is because they are able to put in a lot of time playing. They go to school, eat and play guitar. That certainly was me, too.

But, with enough time with the instrument in your hands and keeping your focus on the guitar, everyone can achieve a good level of proficiency. This is absolutely true. I see it happen all the time!

99% of my students want to get good and simply enjoy playing the guitar in order for them to play their favorite songs, write and/or record their own songs, be able to jam with friends, a band and just get closer to the music they love – metal.

So, I say go for it … play as much as you want!

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
– Aristotle

Piggy Bank & Your Guitar

11 Tuesday Feb 2020

Posted by Metal Mike in Guitar & Music, Inspiration & Motivation

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One idea, or rather analogy, that helped me as a practicing musician over the years was one of a piggy bank. But, not one you put money in, but one that holds the currency of guitar practice.

Whenever I practice guitar I imagine depositing practice currency into the piggy bank. When you practice a lot, you deposit a lot of currency into it.

You see, once you start gigging a lot, playing professionally even, you will be doing a lot of travelling to gigs or shows. If not travelling, you’ll be doing other tasks that will allow you to do music.

When you are not able to practice, you can imagine yourself taking out some of the practice currency. This sounds imaginary, but being a musician works very much like that.

When flying to other continents and generally being in a band, you sometimes spend more time at the airports or vans than with the guitar in your hand. This is why its important to have the practice curency in the bank because you will need to draw on it. But, in order for it to carry you, it must be there first. Thinking in above terms can also be a very motivating factor to play your instrument more.

It’s a simple idea, but one that has helped me in the past as much as it helps me today.

You Are Never Ready (At, Least In The Sense That You Are Expecting)

02 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by Metal Mike in Guitar & Music, Inspiration & Motivation

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As we head into 2020, I wantto share something with you, which I hope will prove a little helpful. I know realizing this on my own end helped me put stuff in perspective.

Truth is – we are never ready for the next thing that can prove beneficial and door opening for us. If we “were” 100% ready, the “next” thing would not be a big thing at all, you see?

In any big thing that happened to me, I always felt that I needed to stretch my abilities to get there. When joining Halford, I knew that it was the 1st time that I started playing music with true professional players, several of them like Bobby J. or Roy Z. have already done major label albums and have toured the world. I had to step up and learn – a lot. I put in countless hours sweating riffs, working on accents that seemed to be easy for everyone else, or working things out because in my mind – I was always behind.

When asked to join Testament I was also not 100% percent if I was ready. I could play the solos, but the intense rhythm work in the band was beyond what I ever did. Again, I stepped up and spent about 8 hours every day for 4 months prepping and in the end, the experience has brought up my playing to another level.

With Guitar World’s Metal For Life column I thought that I knew enough “stuff” for maybe 4 columns? I ended up doing nearly 5 years of monthly lessons. I had to dig deep, learn new things, categorize what I knew and did not know.

Anything, and I mean “anything” that I ever did that had some sort of a timeline stamp of importance, I had to stretch my abilities to reach it.

I mean, does anyone feel that they are really ready to record their first album? You grab an opportunity and go for it with excitement. Figure out stuff as you go along. And, hopefully get it better the next time around. I recorded my 1st album on a shoestring budget while delivering pizza, but it was enough for the Metal God to hear and to give me a shot.

The Trick is THIS: This is where REAL Happines and Fullfillment lies. As humans, we have to progress. We were designed for it. And pushing ourselves to that excitement area, even though we have to set up, is the only way to do it.

It is important not to stop taking these outside steps. As we get little older, it can seem to be harder to do this. Because now we have responsibilities, mortage, crap we aquired to take care off, etc. But, just thinking out loud – keep above in mind.

And, remember, that you might never feel ready to jam with a drummer, a band, or whatever, but this is were Courage comes in b/c Courage is doing something although although you have Fear. It doesn’t happen to only you, but to everyone, including myself.

So, step into 2020 with some new stuff to prove! There might be some opportunities for you right now that you are considering.

As they say fortune favors the bold, and that I also find true. You’ll see stuff align for you when taking steps. It always did for me and I’m not different than anyone else b/c I go through the same exact process.

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.

4 Pillars Of Learning An Instrument

04 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by Metal Mike in Guitar & Music, Uncategorized

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Today, I am going to put up a page with some thoughts about how we progress as guitarists or musicians. After players have been students of the instrument for a while, they often wonder what should they concentrate on in order to keep progressing.

I have come up with 4 Pillars after giving this subject some thought and the idea seems to fit the 4 ways we stuff our time into as players.

I think it is important to have a decent balance between all of these 4 pillars as they all depend on each other for solid progress. In other words, you don’t want to be stuck in any one for too long and be forgetting about the others.
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Categorizing Projects And Decluttering Your Mind

23 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by Metal Mike in Guitar & Music, Inspiration & Motivation

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I would share with you a system I use to organize some of the projects I might be working on.

I found it too difficult to keep all of the things I have to do in my playing, work and personal life in my brain only. And, we are not great at remembering if we let go of something or did not work on something enough.

So, for the past few years I have been keeping a simple color folder for each project that I am working on. One folder might be called “House”, another “Guitar Retreat 2019”, etc. In each folder, I keep track of what I need to do, what I already finished and I keep my ideas in there. I don’t have dozens of these. This year, I have one for each of my live shows where I keep van rental info in, set lists, hotels reservations, check xeroxes that went out and came in. I have one for my Summer Camp, Guitar Retreat, etc. I often have one for the House and any improvements that I have going on. This system really helps me unclog my brain because it’s already cluttered there sometimes.

Additional plus of this.

The folders also allow me to say that today I want to spend 30 mins on guitar retreat organzation and 30 mins on the show in December. And, I open the sucker up and I start working. Then after my time is up, I close it and open up another project folder. It took me a while to graduate to switch from a project to project like that and put down items that I might not have yet finished. But, just the idea of having things in compartment such as a folder allowed me to keep track of things very well. What is good is also the fact that I can pull up my folder from any year for a project such as a guitar retreat and see what I did then as far as schedule, who was there, the food that was purchased, etc. I can see what I did last year, what my expenses were. This gives me a great starting point for the current year’s folder without having to start the entire process all over again. It saves time, gives you a step up. Inside each folder, I leave notes for myself, ideas. It’s cool, I really can’t see doing this other ways. I might also be a little old school and I don’t work well with keeping everything on a computer screen without physically using a pen to get info down.

Playing In Drop D Tuning As An Alternative To Detuning Your Guitar A Whole Step Down

27 Friday Sep 2019

Posted by Metal Mike in Guitar & Music

≈ 2 Comments

Today’s blog is actually inspired by a question that one of my guitar students James asked the other day. james asked me if the song “Resurrection” (From Halford’s Resurrection album) was recorded a whole step down, or was it recorded in drop D.

The answer is, as I mentioned to James, is that the guitar was tuned a whole step down. Every string was tuned a step down.

The above made me think how some guys out there play songs such as Resurrection or American Metalhead (also recorded with every string down a step), or any other track recorded a whole step down in Drop D tuning. To me this never sounds good.

When I toured with Sebastian Bach and we played American Metalhead in the live set, I had to resort to playing that track in “Drop D” and I did not like it too much. We had to do it, because it was too much to bring another guitar with us to do all these dates we used to do called “Fly dates”. This means that you play a show, go to the airport and fly to another city or country. Then next day you repeat that and repeat that again. Try that for 4 weeks. It’s gruling and all I have to say is to have some good guitar cases. lol.

So with all of these instruments travelling with us on airlines (and, you guessed it – everytime you check in, its $85-100 per guitar), its gets too much.

So, I traveled with only 2 guitars and had to play American Metalhead in drop D. What I did was I had my main guitar in E, had another back-up for it in E and if I had to do drop D song, I’d just tune down my bottom string a step down.

It worked well enough, but there is something that changes when you play D songs in Drop D. Basically, what I think happens is that the song was written with a different energy using different frets and strings to get the riffs out. When you play the track in Drop D – it is true, you are playing the correct notes, but they don’t have to same dynamic as the original track. I am not sure if the audience notices, but as a guitar player you tent to know these differences.

So, just some ideas on this for the future.

As a side note, with the tuning of the bottom string a lot to D, I stopped travelling with Floyd Rose equipped guitars with Baz. As we know, it is hard to down tune Floyd Rose on the spot without adjustment. So, another compromise – but, in return it made me a better guitar player as I had to really work on and concentrate on my vibrato since I no longer had the whammy bar. It was a great lesson!

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