Blackened rhythm guitar

The opening rhythm guitar part with a verse part.

Not much to say except the usual story: I've always heard it differently from the version published officially. Now I got it right. I've found a clip in which Hetfield actually plays it slowly once or twice and it's become so obvious. Enjoy (PDF)!

Blackened - Guitar harmony played live

Live version of the harmony played by Kirk Hammett and James Hetfield in their (+ Jason Newsted's) song "Blackened" off of "...And Justice for All" album.

I tried to figure out the fingering watching them perform the song but I'll admit it, I haven't spent too much time on it. In bar 2 I noted possible best fingering though, and the way I feel most comfortable playing it. Generally, the fingering shows the melody can be played throughout three positions: IV, VII and X (i.e. frets). The shift from position IV to VII and back to IV may seem weird but then it allows to continue the melody in position VII for most of the time.

This, of course, doesn't limit possible other ways to place the melody on the fretboard. It's just the way I personally find best.

PDF file is at Scribd as usual.

The Lake by King Diamond

A King Diamond song recorded during Fatal Portrait sessions. It didn't make the album though. I've always thought it was a great tune. This has no tabulature or solos. Fills C and D are kind of best guesses as they aren't very prominent on the recording.

PDF file.

Torn to Pieces by Death

My transcription of the bridge section of the song entitled "Torn to Pieces" by Death. I was prompted to do it after reading the article "The promise and peril of Internet sources" by Stephen Hudson. I just couldn't let the challenge pass!

PDF file.

Despite the fact that my version is quite different from Stephen's, be sure to check his website, Metal In Theory - Sourcebook for Scholarship on Heavy Music. It's excellent!

Lepper Messiah

As promised, today I'm publishing my transcription of Lepper Messiah by Metallica. If you know the so-called official score book, you're in for a shock! The whole intro is different as well as many other smaller parts.

The truth is that it's really hard to get to the gist of the riffs when listening only to the studio version. I have found several interesting live performances, including few where only Rob Trujillo is heard - that made a ton of difference. Also, I might be wrong but I think Hetfield quad-tracked some of the parts in the studio.  Hence, this is more the transcription of a live version than of the studio one.

Link to the PDF file.


 


  

YouTube envy

Browsing YouTube, I found a guy claiming to have figured out the correct way how to play the second riff from Fight Fire with Fire. In the comments section someone asked him to show the harmony part from Fight Fire with Fire and Leper Messiah. As coincidence would have it, I had done both for my own pleasure, so I uploaded my transcriptions to Scribd.com and pointed the viewers to them. However, the channel owner probably didn't like it and promptly deleted both my comments without explanation.

Fuck him.

I thought I could record the songs myself but I have neither a good video camera nor video editing skills so it would be quite shitty looking. Then I remembered I had this very blog and decided to update it with some transcriptions of mine. That's how the previous post about FFWF came up and that's how the next one will come as well. Stay tuned and look forward to Leper Messiah!

Black Flag

Although I was going to some other songs, Nervous Breakdown by Black Flag got its chance earlier. It's an easy song which I'm going to play with my band, Mechanix.

Korn -Twist

A new treat for a lost surfer. This time it's an old song by KoRn entitled Twist. I actually transcribed it by myself with the exception of second bar played by James "Munky" Shaffer which I copied from a '96 issue of Guitar School containing an interview with both KoRn guitar players and a few riffs from their first two albums.

The reason for the transcription was a scanned Life Is Peachy songbook floating around the net which doesn't have this song. It's simple enough so I gave it a try.

A link to the PDF is here.

It's On! Psychopathy Red!

This is a place where I'm going to put some transcriptions of rock and metal tunes. They'll be the ones I either wrote myself or corrected if I wasn't happy with the "official", "authorized" or "note-for-note" versions.

Even when I try to come up with better transcriptions of something that has been done before, I'm not going to claim my versions are faultless - I'm only human, right?

The first song is a new tune by Slayer, entitled Psychopathy Red arranged for one guitar - no vocal or solos.

After I have transcribed it, I was alerted by my brother, who I play the song with, that the 1st and 2nd verse may actually be considered as the same. That would require a little change to the intro , that is including an odd-meter bar. I'll add that soon.