Help with right hand technique - Galloping

Donnie B.

Banned
Well-known member
Disclaimer: This is not gay.

Sick of being envious of all you guys' right hands.

I can pick single note stuff really fast but if I try a galloping steady rhythm I eventually trip up and lose the cadence.
I wanna be able to do it steady and at will like you seem to be able to do.

Not looking for songs. Just muscle memory type riffs/rhythms that I can practice.
Think 'chug chug for dummies'. :D

Thanks
 
You could practice old Death riffs for regularity. Some tunes like Leprosy, Open Casket, Spiritual Healing etc. Some riffs with groups of four notes, some others with groups of six notes. Start slowly and tap your foot. Be aware that it won't happen in a few days or even weeks. To get up to insane speed, it takes a lot of practice (at least for me it did, maybe some people are more gifted LOL).
 
What's the best tab site for really accurate notation of this type of playing?
Just listened to Disposable Heroes it's too fast to pick up right off by ear.
 
This is a counting issue.

I'm good with this in that I've played a ton of fusion and prog with lots of very complex time sigs and/or passages.
My timing is excellent in that I can jam over anything if playing leads. I can play fast enough to keep up with the
songs but that machine like right hand rhythm where you can add quick little double time or triplet riffs without
losing the steady beat is what I need to burn into memory.

My only real point of reference is the old Iron Maiden gallop. The newer stuff is so fast it's hard to immediately
get what's going on exactly. Like those fast stutters while maintaining a rock solid quick tempo; I hear it fine but
can't translate it to my right hand. Probably from just not ever playing that way.

I'm certain once I have it figured out it'll start coming natural pretty quickly.
 
Last edited:
How to play metal with your right hand in 20 minutes:
Start with something easy. First take a simple song with a herta and master that. this will do.

after you have mastered that (shoould take 5 to 10 minutes), you need to move on to mixing triplets into a 4/4 measure. this will do

you are welcome

count or don't count. If your pick doesn't catch on fire, you are doing it wrong and letting the dark lord down
 
For me, and this may make the situation difficult,
is putting hours on the throne behind the drum set.
I remember after really putting in the time & effort on drums, then picking up the guitar and just laying into it with a deadly meaty and precise
right hand.
This also opened up chords in much more rhythmic way.
Ministry "Thieves" is a good one for me to get in the zone of it.
It's weird, the similarities in how i hold the drum sticks and get 'that' ultra-quick spring action in the fingers is the same as the machine gun action in my fingers when I hold the guitar pick.
And utimately Donnie,....my right foot on the kick drum is aways sending out "potential future sycopations" to my right hand on the guitar.
Like I'm sending Morris Code signals to..
my internal rhythm compass.
GROOVY.
 
Last edited:
Interesting. I've never consciously counted for riffs like that, I just focused on the sound of the pattern and replicate it.
I think you're in the majority of guitarists. For songs that you can play pretty much immediately, you'll usually be able to figure out the counting just as quickly. I think it's still good to do even in those cases because it allows conscious control of muscle memory development. The body is going to keep time one way or the other.
 
My best friend, Nacho, is a bitchpicker. He always has been. He also does this weird thing with his arms when he gets into it where he looks like a chicken flapping it's wings, but...whatever. He has a hard time keeping his hand anchored to the body and all that wrist movement takes away from the momentum of the picking hand, IMO.

He quit playing for a while then went and bought this beautiful E-II Horizon III, his first night with it he brought it over and I told him we weren't moving forward with anything else until he started working on his bitchpitching. I had him in here playing this for a good hour straight until he was getting very chug perfectly clear and in time.



It's also a thing of finding the exact spot along your bridge that's going to get the exact chug sound you want. There are subtle differences as you move toward and away from the bridge and mixes those with different amounts of pressure from the pick gets you different things. Chugging isn't known for it's dynamics, but there's a lot at play, IMO. When my buddy and I were in a younger days, we were listening to a lot of Killswitch and we thought when they were hitting those palm mutes that ring out, it was the bass from the amp making that "OHM" sound, we had a whole thing about how to create the "OHM". It's definitely not the bass in the amp making it!
 
Oh man, I had a friend in high school who was a bitchpicker.

It's hard when someone is your friend, and you have to tell them that their big, climactic, ascending run in the "return to serenity" solo sounds like a series of fart noises, plinks, car crashes, and car horn honking.

Bitchpickers, as a rule, will never realize their technique is bad until you have an intervention with them.

I'm glad @RevDrucifer had an intervention with his friend, because that shit drives me insane to listen to. Especially in a guitar store or something.
 
Bitchpicker?

What defines this?

Where you pick way too lightly, and unevenly.

The elbow wagging around, or fingers around the pick making a "rolling" motion is a dead giveaway.

Basically, instead of using your wrist for the motion, to simplify it, you're over complicating it with elbow and finger motions. The side effect is the strings play *you* rather than the other way around.

I had only encountered it once, as mentioned with my friend above, before I started giving lessons.

Then I encountered it pretty frequently.
 
Oh man, I had a friend in high school who was a bitchpicker.

It's hard when someone is your friend, and you have to tell them that their big, climactic, ascending run in the "return to serenity" solo sounds like a series of fart noises, plinks, car crashes, and car horn honking.

Bitchpickers, as a rule, will never realize their technique is bad until you have an intervention with them.

I'm glad @RevDrucifer had an intervention with his friend, because that shit drives me insane to listen to. Especially in a guitar store or something.

Friends don't let friends bitchpick.
 
Where you pick way too lightly, and unevenly.

The elbow wagging around, or fingers around the pick making a "rolling" motion is a dead giveaway.

Basically, instead of using your wrist for the motion, to simplify it, you're over complicating it with elbow and finger motions. The side effect is the strings play *you* rather than the other way around.

I had only encountered it once, as mentioned with my friend above, before I started giving lessons.

Then I encountered it pretty frequently.

That is a perfect assessment of a bitchpicker, well done, sir! Especially "the strings play you", because that's the ultimate downside of it.

It seems the more hi-gain amps become popular, the more bitchpickers it creates. I'm 38 and probably belong to the last generation of guys who HAD to lay into the strings to make an amp do what you wanted it to.
 
That is a perfect assessment of a bitchpicker, well done, sir! Especially "the strings play you", because that's the ultimate downside of it.

It seems the more hi-gain amps become popular, the more bitchpickers it creates. I'm 38 and probably belong to the last generation of guys who HAD to lay into the strings to make an amp do what you wanted it to.

I am 36, and basically same thing. I grew up playing medium gain tube amps, especially live - because that's what was around.

There was no way to get an amp to roar with light touch. So it taught you the difference in dynamics.

Alot of bitchpickers pretend that playing light all the time is "dynamic" - but it causes a clearly identifiable effect on the way you sound. It sounds like the notes are tripping over each other
 
Back
Top