One of the essential elements of great metal is the execution of razor-sharp harmony lead guitar lines.
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Just listen to any of the most celebrated songs by Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Metallica,
One of the essential elements of great metal is the execution of razor-sharp harmony lead guitar lines.
Just listen to any of the most celebrated songs by Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth and many other metal bands of all stripes, and you will hear the types of guitar harmonies I am referring to.
Many students have asked me how to go about constructing multilayered guitar harmonies and which notes will sound the best. To answer these questions for everyone, in this month’s column I’ll show you a simple and effective way to build a classic metal-style three-part harmonized guitar line.
The very first thing to decide when building guitar harmonies is what scale to use. The vast majority of metal music is based on minor scales, and the one that is exploited most often is natural minor, also known as the Aeolian mode. The intervallic structure of natural minor is 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7. In the key of E, the notes would be E F# G A B C D. This is the scale we are going to use in this column to build a three-part harmonized lead guitar line.
FIGURE 1 illustrates a melody, or primary line, that I constructed specifically for this lesson. Using the open low E string as a repeating pedal tone, the melodic line is played in a steady eighth-note rhythm (with the occasional quarter note added), with an opening melodic pattern (bar 1) that repeats in bars 3 and 5, functioning as a recurring theme. Play this melody repeatedly until you have it memorized and comfortably under your fingers.
Now let’s add our first harmony line, or secondary part. The most common way to create harmonies is to use the notes that are a