Metallica: A Musical Analysis

[Parkwayvwhitechapel]

Metallica is one of the most successful and influential rock/metal bands, they're legacy remains undisputed, originally playing new wave of British heavy metal like diamond head inspired by blues rock such as deep purple, mixing the punk rock thrash sound, always being one of the more melodic and progressive thrash bands of the big four, i would classify Metallica's earlier music as melodic progressive thrash metal, but later they experimented with hard rock,blues rock.

here's a analysis of their sound and riffing/solos.

Tuning and Key

Metallica tune to E standard on most of their recordings, with exception to drop D on a few tracks, and that weird drop C# they did with St.anger, But mostly Metallica tune to E standard and 90% of their songs are tuned to E standard, Live metallica tune slightly different though.

Live, Metallica Tune to E Flat (D# standard) only when playing live and live performances, but recordings are mostly in E standard.

Most and nearly all Metallica songs are in the key of Em, Metallica love the Key of E minor.

Because it's the natural key for the guitar and accessibility and it's the lowest possible note in E standard, as Metallica love having heavy riffs but don't downtune.

Chugging a E5 power chord is most of Metallica's discography.

Sometimes Atones and chromaticism is thrown in to add heaviness, but generally most of what metallica play is based off or around E minor.

Scales, Chords ,Time Signature and Riffs

Metallica favour the key of E minor, so naturally they use the E minor natural scale ( Aeolian mode) in most of their songs, sometimes going into the Harmonic minor and Phrgyian dominant modes, they also use the blues scale and flatted fifth in a lot of their songs.

Sometimes even mixing the natural minor scale with the phyrgian dominant and even blues scale, to add tension and dissonance.

Below this video, you can see where metallica use F note and A# along with the E natural minor scale , borrowing notes from the phrygian dominant and blues scale to add dissonance.

Metallica use mostly power chords for the majority of songs, but they have several songs with acoustic or clean intros, they mostly use the E minor Chord and Emadd2, they usually have arpeggiated chord intros or likewise.

Emadd2 is what makes up most of Welcome Home Sanitarium's arpeggio intro

Songs with Emadd2 chord includes Welcome Home (Sanitarium) and Fade to black, both songs have a arpeggiated intro and use that chord.

Time signature is usually 4/4 common time, but Metallica usually like sometimes going into unusual time signatures along with key changes, the songs Trapped Under Ice, Escape have notable Time signature changes.

Double bass drumming is quite common in Metallica's songs.

Riffs are usually power chords, palm muting. Metallica tend to gallop riffs a lot and use triplets , a lot of metallica riffs have the galloping rhythm that was pioneered by iron maiden and popularized by metallica, it's a down, up, down motion in triplets.

the Galloping Rhythm is a staple of metallica's sound and is in most of their songs.

Riffs and Leads tend to be harmonised in minor thirds,

Solos tend to be very fast and use mostly the Minor pentatonic and Natural minor scales.

Kirk Hammett uses a range of techniques such as tapping, bends, legato phrasing, hammer-ons and pull-offs, double stops and the whammy bar, he even sweep picks in some circumstances such as leper messiah solo , just look at the picture below, this lick is sweep picked

Kirk Hammett sweep picks this lick in leper messiah

Also Kirk Hammett loves to use staccato/palm muting whilst doing scale runs in triplets, and using double stops too, look at the below video to see what i mean by triplet scale runs

Also Kirk Hammett signature blues lick is this one, he often loves using the blues note in licks, such as this.

Tone, Gear and Rig

Kirk Hammett uses Ibanez tube screamer overdrive aswell as His own signature dunlop wah wah pedal.

Both Hammett and Hetfield are endorsed by and use ESP guitars.

in the mid 80s metallica used Mesa Boogie Amps most notably on the album Master of Puppets.

[OldSchool_Metalhead]

i was actually listening to "the shortest straw" when I found this take. cool stuff man. I feel like they made major changes after cliff burton died because of how influential he was for their thrash era. when I started learning to play thrash metal on guitar I practiced a lot of their thrash era stuff like Jump In The Fire and Master of Puppets

[Parkwayvwhitechapel]

I like playing Jump in the Fire, it's has a nice riff and the bass part in the beginning is cool.
that's actually a example of metallica song that uses blues scale and it's also in the key of G minor

[ericclayton]

It was actually Cliff that pushed them in that melodic direction. They would have gone commercial anyway, had Cliff still been with them. But the Black Album would have been that much better.

[OldSchool_Metalhead]

@ericclayton that's true

[Lance1965]

Great post.

My main issue with Metallica though is their songwriting has really gone downhill compared to their early albums and Hammett rarely comes out with catchy solos anymore. I have their last album and I do like it but there isn't a memorable solo on it in my opinion.

[Parkwayvwhitechapel]

he's more rock influenced now and post and justice for all era,

[Lance1965]

I read that his solos on the last album were mostly improvised and it sounds like it to me too. There is no real structure to a lot of them.

[OldSchool_Metalhead]

yeah in their last album Hardwired... To Self-Destruct, I kinda felt like in a few songs they made an attempt to get in touch with a thrashy side again. I think the album is cool but it will never beat the kill em all --justice era. plus there's even more wah pedal in the solos it seems. isn't there already enough wah in the other stuff? lol

[Lance1965]

@OldSchool_Metalhead Yes the riffs are good but they don't have the catchy appeal that their early riffs had so the songs are not too memorable in the long-run. I can't see too many people talking about Hardwired 20 years from now.

[ericclayton]

It's a good record, but not a classic.

[TonyMetal86]

Nice take, i'v been a metallica fan since the early 90's... they perfect.

This is me singing "Mama said for Metallica"

[TonyMetal86] sings Mama Said by Metallica, what an incredible voice on StarMaker!
m.starmakerstudios.com/share

[ATuairiscean]

The way I judge bands I am neutral on is if I would listen to them if they came on MTV or radio. I do with Metallica

[SirRexington]

I love metal, I write my own lyrics all the time, but I have never understood music theory.

[Kemil_Zhoki]

Don't feel badly about that. Most successful musicians do not know much formal theory.

[Parkwayvwhitechapel]

@Kemil_Zhoki Jimi Hendrix couldn't read music or sheet tablature , he mostly played by ear.
and prince played purely by ear and was self taught.

[AllThatSweetJazz]

Okay but all of that has nothing to do with *why* they sound like that.

[Parkwayvwhitechapel]

what do you mean?

[AllThatSweetJazz]

I mean the art as opposed to the music theory.

[sp33d]

These guys coming to Estonia summer 2019. I should go, too, damn, seen em live once before.

[Parkwayvwhitechapel]

they are pretty solid live, their tone is amazing live

[Anonymous]

Omg Fade To Black, ah yes!

[ChocolateCheesecake]

Awesome

[Secretgardenblood]

Nice take

[Montana07]

Niceeeee

[olegsev]

This is great