• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Howcast

Howcast

The best source for fun, free, and useful how-to videos and guides.

  • Arts & Crafts
  • Entertainment
  • Food & Drink
  • Health
  • Home & Garden
  • Relationships
  • Explore Guides
  • Contact
  • About
  • FAQs
  • Explore Guides
  • Arts & Crafts
  • Entertainment
  • Food & Drink
  • Health & Wellness
  • Love & Relationships
  • Home & Garden
EntertainmentHow to Play Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Shred on Heavy Metal Guitar

Transcript

Shredding techniques, it’s a very broad term, and there are other videos that I’ve done for Halcast where you can see me talk about speed picking, contour sequences and stuff like that. And that all applies to shredding. But what I’d like to do right now is take bits and pieces of that and show you how I might combine that into a shred solo. Let’s pick a key, let’s say I’m gonna be in E minor, so I have my pentatonic scale, I have my seven note natural liner scale, and I might combine some sequences where I do four notes at a time, I might do some hammer-ons and pull-offs with the pentatonics.

I might do some mandolin or world music influence picking, you know where I pick really fast. So here I’m going to do a combination of those things.

Okay, so one thing I might do if I needed to play in a shredding situation is to take a pattern and do variations on it and move it around. if I take the first two strings and play a four note pattern, maybe I could change one note. Then I might let it breathe for a bit and play some bending. I might throw some sweep picking in there. So shredding is really just a combination of whatever licks you know, pretty much as fast as you can play them without losing control, and trying to sneak in some slow, melodic parts here and there to let it breathe. I hope you’ve enjoyed this lesson on shredding techniques.


Lessons in this Guide

What Are Rock Cliches?

How to Play Heavy Metal Guitar with Alex Skolnick

How to Do 2 Octave Sweep Picking on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Do Right Hand Fretting on Heavy Metal Guitar

Cross String Picking Mechanics on Heavy Metal Guitar

4 Finger Vibrato Techniques on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Do 1 Octave Sweep Picking on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Do 2 Techniques with Two-Hand Tapping on Guitar

How to Play Legato on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Do 3 Techniques with Two-Hand Tapping on Guitar

How to Play Lead Heavy Metal Guitar Melodic Licks

How to Shred on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Do Alternate Picking & Play 16th Notes

How to Play String Skipping Arpeggios on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Use the Whammy Bar on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Improve Speed on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Play a Major Arpeggio on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Speed Pick on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Play Heavy Metal Guitar Solos

How to Play Pinch Harmonics on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Change Keys in Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Play Sixteenth Note Triplets on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Play Natural Harmonics on Heavy Metal Guitar

4 Improvisation & Phrasing Techniques on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Play Pedal Notes on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Play Triplets on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Play Thrash Metal Rhythm Guitar

How to Use Drop B Tuning on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Play Heavy Metal Power Chord Riffs

How to Use Rests in Rhythmic Patterns on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Play Metal Guitar Riffs in Drop D

How to Play Heavy Metal Guitar Riffs in E Minor

How to Play Rhythmic Patterns on Heavy Metal Guitar

How to Play Heavy Metal Power Chords

How to Play Heavy Metal Guitar Riffs in A Major

How to Play 1 Fret Bends on Heavy Metal Guitar

Copyright © 2026 · Howcast · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Ventures with Springwire.ai

Privacy Manager