Metal exercises

Standard tuning, palm on the bridge, everything slower than you want it. Metal rhythm is percussion: the pitches barely change, so the only thing left to judge is timing. Short wake-ups: Metal drills. Open power-chord gym: Rock exercises.

Technique path: Drills · Exercises · this page

Each card has pedagogy, TAB (high e on top — see Foundations · TAB), and Play. One model at a time; Play becomes Stop. Tempo follows the metronome. Standard EADGBE — drop-D is not in this room yet.

Sources (two-check): Hal Leonard rock method palm-mute / downpicking habit · Berklee-style right-hand-to-click practice. Generic figures — not transcribed riffs. Sweep and tapping: Solo exercises and Solo drills.

Suggested order

  1. Muted chug stamina — E5, all downs, palm mute.
  2. Syncopated mute — off-beats speak, downbeats breathe.
  3. Gallop seed.
  4. Reverse gallop.
  5. Gallop through E5→G5.
  6. Metal mute variants.

Beginner

Muted chug on E5 at 60. Pitch stays; ring dies.

Intermediate

Gallop seed. Syncopated mute E5/G5.

Advanced

Reverse gallop. Gallop with a change. Then Metal drills.

Chug and mute

Palm on the bridge, leftover strings dead. Core open-string mute lives on the Exercises hub; here the left hand holds E5 so the mute has to survive a shape.

Muted chug stamina on E5

E5 on every click, all downstrokes, palm mute. Two minutes in real practice. Volume comes from the amp — keep the wrist small. If the forearm burns, the pick grip is too tight.

A|-2-
E|-0-   all ↓  P.M.

Unmuted downs live on Rock exercises. Deeper: Metal drills · downpicked chug.

Syncopated mute

Hit on beat 1 and on the & of beats 2 and 4. Alternate E5 and G5 each bar. Same figure as the rock gym, listened to as percussion — the mute is the groove, not a fill.

    1  &  2  &  3  &  4  &
E|-x--0--x--0--x--0--x--0-|  P.M. on x

Rock framing: Rock exercises · syncopated mute.

Gallop

One eighth then two sixteenths. Count 1 & a. Generic figure — not a transcribed riff.

Gallop seed

Muted low E. The first hit is longer; the two sixteenths tuck in after the midpoint.

E|-0-00-0-00-0-00-|  P.M.

Deeper: Metal drills · gallop.

Reverse gallop

Two sixteenths then one eighth. Count 1 e &. Same mute, flipped weight. If the long note rushes, the first two are too heavy.

E|-00-0-00-0-00-0-|  P.M.

Deeper: Metal drills · reverse gallop.

Gallop through E5→G5

Keep the gallop running while the left hand moves E5 to G5, one bar each. The right hand must not pause for the change — arrive on beat 1 with at least the root fretted.

E5                G5
E|-0-00-0-00-|    |-3-33-3-33-|  P.M.

Deeper: Metal drills (gallop-with-a-change, start/stop).

Metal mute variants

Open-string mute gym: change the subdivision. Left hand stays out of the way.

Hub pick variants (open or mute): Exercises · pick.

Practice note

How long: 8–10 minutes. Two on muted chug, four on one gallop figure, two on a change or reverse.

Listen for: every hit the same length, and silence where the mute is supposed to speak. Rushing the sixteenths is the usual miss.

Then deepen: Metal drills (triplet, half-time, chromatic approach, first-piece 8-bar rhythm you write).

Exercises home Metal drills Rock exercises