This Speed Metal ActionTab is from the Jamzone.

The key to this fast style of playing is to pick in time with the drums - using just downstrokes on the slower beats, and down / upstrokes on the faster beats. It's all about timing and making your rhythm guitar follow the drums very tightly.

Keep your picking hand tight to the strings so that you can palm mute quickly. Your pick should always be above the Low E string in order to constantly pick it. However, you'll also need to quickly release the strings by raising your palm off the strings for the occasional open chord strikes. You must do this fast and efficiently, quickly returning your palm to mute the strings again for the next dampened strokes.

It will take time to co-ordinate both hands to switch between palm muting and using open chord strikes together. However, if you've done the Core Skills Exercises on Palm muting you should find this skill will come much quicker.

In essence all we are doing is constantly palm muting the Low E string along with every bass drum hit. If you keep that in your head whilst practicing this, you'll get the hang of it quicker.

Now that's obviously not all there is to it. We are also using open chord stabs at the beginning of each bar (each bar is 8 beats). Each bar begins with a progressively higher powerchord stab, and returns to chugging out the Low E, until the last bar of the loop where we stab out a few chords before returning to bar 1 again.

Let's take a closer look:

Bar 1 - Open E5 Stab followed by 7 downstrokes (8 beats altogether)

Bar 2 - Open F5 Stab followed by 7 downstrokes (8 beats altogether)

Bar 3 - Open F#5 Stab followed by 7 downstrokes (8 beats altogether)

Bar 4 - Open G5 Stab followed by 3 downstrokes, then 3 open stabs to finish the bar (F#5 - G5 - F#5). The first 2 stabs are actually 1.5 beats and the last stab 1 beat, which gives a total of 8 beats for this bar. If in doubt, follow the crash symbols for those 3 chords.

After that, the whole sequence repeats again from bar 1.

Now when the double bass drum kicks in, we still play exactly the same sequence and chords. However there is one major difference - when palm muting the Low E you need to use a downstroke AND an upstroke, instead of a single downstroke. This doubles the picking speed for the palm muted notes.

You can see the difference clearly in the tablature view. Count the 0's between each chord stab to see for yourself. All we are doing is doubling the picking by playing a downstroke + upstroke. At the start of the tune there were 7 palm mutes before the next bar, now there are 14. Follow the double bass drum kicks to keep tight time.

This WILL take practice. Work on getting the first (slower picked) bars right first. Get it tight and right. Once you get to the point where you can play the riff without thinking about it, then it's time to work on the faster double-picked parts.

Remember, the chords fall in exactly the same place, its just the palm muting inbetween that speeds up to 2 picks instead of 1. Use the loop feature and get it tight along with the ActionTab...once you can keep the rhythm (it will take a fair bit of practice), then start thinking about keeping pace with the normal speed audio.

Learning this style of picking is very important. It is a fundamental skill for thrash, speed and black metal styles. It is hard at first...but don't give up on it...keep at it, and spend some time each day working on it. Once you get the picking and timing good, you'll be able to play a lot of similar style riffs and much faster songs!

Lastly, the little interlude in the middle is just a G5 chord and G flat5 repeated twice. These chords break up the pace and make it a little more tuneful. We'll make use of that for some speed solos next.