For the past couple of months or so, I’ve really been studying and practicing on how to become more of a hard rock and metal musician. That’s the kind of musician I’ve always been to be honest with you and it is the whole reason why I picked up the guitar to begin with ’cause I wanted to play hard rock/metal like all my favorite bands that I grew up listening to.

I’ve been playing along with a metronome a lot lately… just messing around and noodling… making my own hard rock and metal riffs and I realize I seem to be doing fine. When I make hard rock and metal riffs, I do more than just power chords… there will be lead fills and lots of intervals too… and of course, lots of full chords as well. Been practicing my rhythm chops even more and experimenting with syncopated rhythms so I can make my riffs sound even more interesting.

I’ve been trying to build up my speed with my rhythm playing ’cause if you want to play hard rock and metal gotta play fast rhythm guitar and I’m working on that. Yeah, I would like to make a hard rock/metal/prog type of album someday in the future and it’s being planned in the early stages right now.

I think this week, I’m gonna plug in the electric guitar so I can see if I can come up with riffs with a distortion or an overdrive pedal.

I’ve always wanted to make full band rock music and it’s going to happen at some point. Will I make the full band tracks MIDI? Not sure yet. I’m thinking about looking for real human musicians to collaborate with ’cause I think that will be awesome. Find out if there will be bass players and drummers willing to work with me. Just swap mp3’s through e-mail and do it that way. Do it as an online collaboration kind of thing, ya know?

I’m dying to make my first metal/prog album. I’m thinking a lot of it would be heavy rock and some of it will be pretty mellow/slow. Just think of Opeth and Dream Theater. I think I’m capable of making that kind of music… ya know, that proggy/metal kind of stuff you’re hearing a lot nowadays.

I’ve been playing a lot more guitar than ever ’cause it’s all I mostly do pretty much. Always looking to improve. Making rock and metal riffs isn’t really that hard… just gotta know your theory, your scales and have good rhythm chops then you should be all set.

Kev