HOW TO PLAY THIS MONTH’S SONGS

“LUX ÆTERNA”

Metallica

THIS NEW, CLASSIC-thrash-style track by Metallica finds the band in top form, featuring aggressive, tightly executed 16th-notedriven riffs, high, powerful vocals from James Hetfield and a characteristically blistering and melodic guitar solo from Kirk Hammett.

The song’s fast tempo pretty much necessitates the use of alternate (down-updown-up) picking for the picked 16th-note rhythms, many of which are palm muted (P.M.) When performing the descending power chord slides in bar 1 and elsewhere, you needn’t squeeze the strings any harder than necessary to fret the notes cleanly. Although this may seem counterintuitive for such a punchy-sounding riff, use a light frethand touch here. Doing so will minimize unwanted friction, thus making the slides easier to do.

The staccato (short, detached) power chord hits in bars 2 and 70 (indicated by small dots above the tab numbers) are performed by relaxing your grip on each chord shape immediately after strumming it. You don’t want to let go of the strings, but rather loosen your grip on them just enough so that they break contact with the frets and stop vibrating, so as to “choke” the notes.