For Students Who want to Learn Rock and Metal
Many of my students want to learn rock and metal from me, since it’s my specialty.
I’ve been playing metal for almost 30 years now, and I truly enjoy teaching it. But at the same time, some of those students are the toughest ones to teach.
Here are the things they need to overcome:
1. Some students don’t want to listen to or play other kinds of music, meaning their musical boundaries are very limited.
If you want to be a good musician, you have to be a good listener.
Please don’t have any preconceptions—listen to all kinds of music.
People are made of what they eat. Musicians are made of what they listen to.
Don’t limit yourself to rock or metal.
As a professional metal musician, I totally understand that you might not enjoy listening to dance music or hip hop, but you should at least listen to blues (very important!), jazz, pop, and funk.
There is so much to learn from other genres. Focusing on only one type of music will limit your growth.
2. Most students who want to learn rock and metal have strong enthusiasm, but that enthusiasm can sometimes lead to impatience.
Some of them want to play their favorite band’s songs right away. They don’t want to practice easy songs slowly; instead, they jump into challenging songs too quickly, which doesn’t help them improve—it can even hurt their progress.
Be patient. Don’t expect results in six months.
Music is a lifelong journey.
If you want to play fast shredding solos, start practicing slowly—say, at 60 BPM.
3. Some of them tend to ignore the importance of music theory:
“Do I have to learn this chord?”
“Why do I have to practice this easy pop song? I’m not interested in that kind of music.”
“Metallica didn’t go to music school, but they’re legends!”
Compared to other genres, rock and metal are harmonically simpler—but you still need to learn the basics: chords, scales, and theory. That knowledge gives you real freedom.
Learning music is like learning a language. Even if you can’t read or write, you can still speak and listen.
The same applies to music. Even if you can’t read notes, you can still play guitar.
But do you really want to be someone who can only speak, but not read or write?
If you understand theory, you’ll know how songs are made, what chords are used, and why those scales fit.
4. Many students also have bad habits.
Because they’re passionate, they watch lots of YouTube videos and try to copy licks or songs without proper instruction.
This often leads to serious issues, which I can recognize easily.
Fixing problems is much harder than learning something new.
During the first lesson, I can diagnose your bad habits within five to ten minutes because I’ve taught thousands of students over the last 30 years.
Then I tell my students, “These are the areas you need to fix.”
There are two types of students:
A) Students who carefully listen, spend time fixing bad habits, review the materials I send, and practice hard.
B) Students who don’t really care, don’t practice what they learned, and just keep watching YouTube videos or Googling tabs.
Who do you think becomes the better player? The answer is obvious.
Let me be honest: for students who don’t care, I eventually stop trying to teach deeper things. I just teach fun songs they want to play.
So if you hear a lot of comments from me like, “You need to fix this” or “You need to practice that” it means I’m trying hard to help you truly improve.
Those comments come from care—I see you as a true student.
If you just want to have fun playing for an hour without stress, that’s totally fine.
But don’t expect to improve much.
5. Many focus too much on fluency, not accuracy.
Playing fast with advanced techniques is important in rock and metal, but playing accurately, musically, and cleanly is far more important.
If you turn your amp gain up to 90% and play an E power chord, it instantly sounds like Metallica.
Even if you don’t understand guitar, it may sound “metal.”
But that’s the danger—high gain can hide sloppiness.
Metal demands precision.
If you don’t play accurately, it just becomes noise.
Professional musicians can hear that right away.