Playing metal

[the_fonz]

i never understood the point of walking around and flailing about like i have a frog down my pants on stage. Even if you dont make a mistake, you look like an idiot. What matters is the sound resonating from your noise making instrument. be it a bass a set of drums a guitar or a microphone. You can even stand with your back to the audience and stay absolutly still. People will be impressed by the sound you're making rather than how quickly you can give yourself a headache while bopping your head up and down. If your art is music, share your music, if your art is showmanship go be a figure skater.

like it or not, musical performance has a large visual aspect.
get your head out of the ground and look around.

 

[Lefty Geek]

Wow, thanks to everyone for keeping this thread alive.

I would definitely strike a balance between doubling or harmonizing parts (in my two-guitar metal band we usually have the bass play a third part instead of doubling, so it doesn't drown out the guitar it isn't following) when there's room, and just doing something simple and low when there isn't. Obviously that'll depend on what kind of metal you're playing, but unless you're going full prog you may not want to be walking arpeggios up the neck during a solo or vocal part.

Thanks, this advice is the kind I was looking for. I finally played out with the group this past weekend. One guitarist really took the lead in producing song ideas, and his stuff was really riff oriented. It was hard to do anything but double his riffs, but I had more range when just chords were playing. A lot of his stuff used the open E as a pedal, so there wasn't much room to do anything but double him. One issue that came up was string guage. The guitarists wanted to tune down to Eb, which made my strings looser than I am used to. Hard to play fast with loose strings. Going to up my gauge.

Honestly, I hope we can find some happy medium since I have never been much of a riff rocker, and I would hate to duplicate music that come out 20 years ago.

In terms of jumping around, I am sorry if you play music that constrains you. I am the youngest of this group, the young age of 34. I might not be doing somersaults, but the audience wants to be entertained.

 

[chrisisnotevil]

I think what I am mainly looking for is more theoretical insight such as whether or not to double-up on riffs or not. Most of the time when I can't think of a part to play, I just stick wait the root or some arpeggio-styling, which I guess won't work music in metal.

i double up riffs sometimes, but sometimes i groove with the drummer and use the riff as more of a guideline to what i should be playing. different songs need different approaches, just do what feels right at the time and don't be afraid to try a few things till you get something you're happy with.