224 - The Birth of Metal: How It All Began

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Here's your host, Amazon best selling author of the book Learn to Play Electric Guitar, Paul Andrews.

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Beginner Guitar Academy podcast.

Episode 224 and today's episode is the first in a series of episodes throughout March looking at metal music and this episode we are diving into the origins of metal music, tracing its roots from blues and hard rock to the defining moments when Black Sabbath unleashed the first true metal riffs.

We explore the pioneering guitarists who shaped the genre, breaking down some of their sensual metal riffs and giving you some practical tips on how you can start playing them for yourself.

Before we dive in that though, I do have a little bit of beginner guitar kimme news and that is I've released this month's song Study and the song Stove this month is Paranoid by Black Sabbath.

So it's going to be talking about Black Sabbath in this episode.

They are instrumental to development of metal music.

So what great bound to look at and what great song as Paranoid and it's got a great little solo minor pentatonic, it's got mainly power chords, looks at palm muting quite quick at around about 164 beats per minute, but definitely a fun one to learn.

And it is live now in the Academy.

If you head over to the songs section you'll see it there.

You've got the tab, you've got the play along tracks, we got the scrolling tab with the audio in the background.

So how we put it together.

Remember you could obviously slow those down to practice speeds and then build them back up.

So if you need to learn that classic track, so go and check it out, say it's live in the Academy right now.

So that's all the news out the way.

Let's dive into this week's content.

Before heavy metal became the genre we know today, its foundations were being laid by early blues musicians and rock pioneers.

The heavy distorted sound of metal doesn't appear out of nowhere.

It evolved from the raw, expressive playing of blues guitarists and the energy of early rock and roll.

So when I'm talking about blues guitarists, we're going go all the way back to the Mississippi Delta down by the R Swamp so Deep.

And some key artists around this time were Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf.

And each one of those added something to the blues.

Like Robert Johnson with the legend that he sold his soul to.

The Devil at the Crossroads reflects kind of the dark themes that you find in metal music, as well as use of minor keys and haunting slide guitar.

Matty Waters electrifying Chicago blue style of the 1950s, featuring heavier guitar tones and strong rhythmic drive, influenced countless rock guitarists after him.

And you got Howlin Wolf, whose deep growling voice and aggressive approach to the blues vocals paved the way for the powerful, commanding vocal style in metal.

So definitely check out those three artists if you haven't already.

And if you've been playing around with some blues.

Take the Blues Shuffle, for instance, or Spread Rhythm and put a bit distortion on it and you'll start to hear the DNA of metal just in that.

Also take 12 bars blues, and instead of playing maybe open chords or dominant seven chords, which give that kind of bluesy sound, try some power chords, and that's going to add sang, a, you know, much heavier sort of sound, especially if you add a bit of overdrive on there as well.

So Blues takes us nicely into 1950s, 1960s, and the early rock and roll and rock kind of pioneers.

Some classic tracks link ray's rumble from 1958, one of the first songs to use intentional distortion, and Ray poked holes in his guitar amp speaker to get that gritty, overdriven sound.

The song was so intense that it was banned by some radio stations despite having no lyrics.

Then we have the Kinks, you Really got me from 1964.

Dave Davis slashed his amp sports speaker with a razor blade to create a fuzzy, distorted sound.

And the song's power chord riff became, you know, famous in rock.

And if you're a beginner guitar member, you'll find that in the Rift section on the website.

And then you got the who.

My generation from 965, Pete Townsend took distortion and feedback to the next level.

Often smashed guitars and amps and very aggressive kind of live performance.

But those three songs kind of kickstart the power, the intensity, what you're going to hear in hard rock and metal styles.

After that, we have the late 60s where we start pushing the boundaries even further.

Gets a bit more heavier, gets a bit darker, gets a bit more aggressive.

And bands like Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page on guitar.

There's heavy blues riffs, wild distortion and some classic songs like Dazed infused to A Whole Lot of Love.

We have Cream, Eric Clapton's Thick Odour and tone in songs like Sunshine and Love was another example of heavy riff driven songs.

And then Jimi Hendrix, whose groundbreaking use of feedback fuzz and whammy bar tricks pushed guitar playing to a whole new extreme.

And songs like Purple Haze were quite heavy for the time.

And you can start hearing some of those influences, should we say, in that style, which will go on tends to influence kind of metal.

So what we can take from these early genres is straight away power chords were used instead of traditional chords.

Has more of a powerful sound, cranking up the gain and distortion for thicker, heavier sound and longer, more dramatic guitar solos, often with effects added like wah wah or fuzz.

So while bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple were pushing the rock to its limits, something even heavier was brewing in Birmingham, in England.

And that was Black Sabbath.

So February 13, 1970 was a cold grey Friday when Black Sabbath released their self titled debut album.

The first track was called Black Sabbath and opens with the sound of rainbow, thunder and a church bell.

And then the guitar kicks in.

This riff changed music and I don't think we're over the top basically saying that it's a slow, ominous three note riff, one of the most haunting kind of heavy sounds basically ever recorded up to that point.

And it's built on what is known as a tritone, also called the devil's interval.

This interval was bound by the church.

If you were to play it, people just walked out.

It was deemed as unholy.

It was seemed as just not nice on the air.

And it is a very distant sound, but used in the context that Black Sabbath use it.

It's the kind of backbone of heavy metal.

Ozzy Osbourne described hearing the riff from Black Sabbath song Black Sabbath for the first time.

And he went on to say, when I first heard Tony play that riff, I thought this is it, this is sound.

We.

So what made them different?

What made Black Sabathos stand out and kind of pioneer metal?

Well, like Fast Place blues rock at the time, they were slow, slower, eerier and they're more heavy crunching guitar sounds.

It wasn't just distorted, it was menacing and evil.

And the tritone really helps kind of punctuate that.

And it set a new mood in music where the riffs weren't just about energy, but about atmosphere and power.

So let's dive now a little bit more into Black Sabbath and their guitar player, Tony Iommi.

So Tony Iommi basically kind of discovered the metal sound by accident by downtune, his guitar.

And that was out of necessity, not by design.

So Before Black Sabbath formed, Tony Iommi worked in a sheet metal factory in Birmingham.

And one day he cut the tips of his fingers off, so two of his fingers, which nearly ended his guitar career.

But instead of giving up, he created homemade prosthetic fingertips out of melted plastic bottles.

He then detuned his guitar to help reduce the strain on his fingers to make it easier to push down.

That lower tuning gave the riffs a darker, heavier tone, which is the signature sound of Black Sabbath, but also signature sound in metal.

He focused on power chords as single note riffs, rather than more complicated chord shapes, which then became the foundation of metal guitar playing.

After Black Sabbath opened the floodgates, bands began experimenting with speed, aggression and new guitar techniques to push metal in even more different directions.

First we look at is the new wave of British heavy metal.

So in the late 70s, a new wave of British bands started to emerge, taking the dark and heaviness of Black Sabbath and injecting faster tempos, soaring vocals and twin guitar harmonies.

Some of the most popular bands of this time were Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Motorhead.

So some great songs to check out.

We Breaking Law by Julius Priest from 1980, number the Beast from Iron Maiden from 1982, and Motorhead's Ace of Spades released in 1980.

So this time the solos were getting more intricate, more melodic.

Inspired by Richie Blackmore, players began incorporating more technical lead work.

We had galloping rhythms you can hear quite a lot in Iron Maiden, and faster tempos and aggression.

So by the early 1980s, bands were pushing limits through speed, precision and aggression, leading to the birth of fresh metal and the era of shred guitar.

So thrash metal is known for being faster, heavier, louder, building on kind of the foundation that Sabbath set in the 1970s.

And we have the big four fresh metal bands, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax.

So some great tracks to check out here would be Master Republic's by Metallica from 1986, Raining Blood from Slayer in 1986, and Holy the Punished Jew from Megadeth in 1990.

Players like James Hetfield from Attacker perfected down picking, creating a tight percussive sound.

You've got speed and technical solos for people like Dave Mustaine from Megadeth and Kurt Hammett from Metallica, and alternate picking and tremolo picking, which was essential for achieving the relentless speed of thrash metal riffs.

Then we hit the 1990s and the introduction of groove metal, which was slower, had heavier riffs with more focus on rhythm, and some bands to check out would be Pantera, Saul Patua and Machine Head.

Then we go into alternative and nu metal which mix metal with hip hop, industrial and grunge influences.

And some great bands to look out would be Korn, Slipknot, System of Down, Deftones.

Then we moved to the melodic death metal and black metal rise, extreme but atmospheric, combining speed and melody.

Key bands would be Flames at the Gates and Emperor.

And then we hit the 2000s which brings in metal core, death core and progressive metal beginning to emerge.

So some good bands look at here would be Kill, Switch, Engage, Lamb of God, Bring Me the Horizon, Whitechapel and Dream Theater.

And we can fast forward to the 2020s and the newer bands now, the death metal, the tech metal bands like Polyphia, Animals as Leaders and Spirit Box that are still pushing the boundaries and developing the style even more.

And that concludes our journey of looking at the history of metal music all the way down from the roots with the Blues in the Sea of Delta to where it starts to blossom with Black Sabbath to where we are today.

And hopefully you've got a few new bands to check out, especially if you're not listening too much metal at the minute.

Definitely recommend checking it out.

If you are a beginner guitar key member, check out the Learn to Play five Metal Riffs workshop in the Academy and if you haven't already, make sure you subscribe so you miss out on future episodes as we'll be doing metal all the way through March.

So next week we can talk about some metal riffs and we're going to talk about metal techniques as well so you don't want to miss out on that.

And if you're struggling, teach yourself to play guitar or maybe bouncing around from YouTube video to YouTube video, get a bit stressed because you haven't really got any structure, you're not making any progress.

Then invite you to come and check out my online guitar school beginnerguitarchemy.com there you'll have me as your guitar teacher whenever you need me.

You have a structured five level system taking from complete beginner to advanced as well as access to songs, to riffs, to workshops and a community of like minded musicians.

Everyone on the same journey, really supportive and the best news you can come check us out for a two week trial just for $1 over at beginnerguitaracademy.com and I hope to welcome into the Academy real soon.

So guys, that is it for me for another week.

So have a fantastic week, keep practicing and I'll chat to you next week for some more metal.

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until next time, take care.