Question: Hello Tom Hess! Wow! First, great site, great tips, great EVERYTHING! You rock, and your tips are very useful. Now, my question is about this: I have difficulties creating metal guitar riffs and cool rhythms (Heavy Metal) and I don't know much about music theory...Can you help me understand how to make cool metal guitar riffs?

Tom Hess's Answer: The fastest and most powerful solution to your guitar playing problems would be to find a great guitar teacher who can help you learn to come up with creative rhythms and guitar licks consistently.

One of the ways to create new metal guitar riffs is to come with the rhythmic pattern first using a single power chord. This way your focus is on coming up with the most creative ways of playing that chord (using different note values) that you can think of. After you come up with a cool rhythm for only one chord, you can use it for playing metal guitar parts that consist of several chords at a time.

In addition, you should also practice making variations from a single musical idea (for both lead and rhythm guitar phrases). This will help you not only to come up with new ideas much more quickly but also with adapting an existing idea to any musical situation.

Improve your metal guitar playing with guitar lessons online.