3 3. OPEN STRING PEDAL TONES

As Heard In: Symphony of destruction, Walk, Angel of death, Enter sand man ,2 Minutes to midnight

The open E pedal note is a core thrash metal sound. Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine and Metallica’s James Hetfield were at the forefront of developing the 80s British heavy metal sound into new territory with more technicality and speed. Slayer took the ideas to greater extremes and still today, the boundaries of heavy open-string riffs are being pushed, with bands like Meshuggah utilising eight-string guitars to allow for more open string pedal note options and more adventurous sounds.

In this example, we start with a Dimebag-meets-dave Mustaine powerchord riff, followed by some Jeff Hanneman trills and finally some Iron Maiden-inspired scale sequences. All typical riff tricks found in TG’S Top 50.