Let’s find out which songs are considered as easiest Metallica songs to play on guitar.
Metallica has been an inspiration to many young guitarists starting to play this instrument since the 80s. This iconic band has gained their glory and has become one of the most mainstream metal bands today. It is also known as one of the “big four” of thrash metal bands together with Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth. Even since they published their first album, their music has been evolving and taking different paths. Although their music has changed through time, they are one the thrash metal icons as we have noted and they have been adding more heavy, hard rock influences as the time passed. That is why we didn’t include Metallica’s songs in our list of 16 easiest heavy metal songs to play on guitar and made this list exclusively for them.
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Being one of the most popular bands ever, there’s no need talking about them a lot on this occasion. But perhaps a fun fact about Metallica that you probably haven’t heard of is that they entered into the Guinness World Record in 2015 for playing on every continent, including Antarctica back in 2013.
As for the list of heavy metal songs we have mentioned above, we have also first searched for guitarists’ opinions on music forums. We have consulted Ultimate Guitar, Guitar Zone, Metal Tabs and Metal Storm. Of course, those are all opinions by players of different guitar skills, but you have to start from somewhere. Learning different kinds of songs will help you improve in different techniques and parts of guitar playing, whether it is keeping (and changing as well) the right tempo, learning picking, palm muting or arpeggios and basic chords.
Every self-taught guitarist has their learning method, and of course playing some songs they are familiar with, like easiest Metallica songs, for example, will help them to memorize and learn faster. There is a great choice of online guitar lesson websites, and popular easy to use software like Guitar Pro, and of course, opinions of other fellow musicians on music forums. There are plenty of all of those, and of course, the YouTube as a great source of guitar lesson videos. Considering all of that, here are some ideas where to start at, so let’s see which are the easiest Metallica songs to play on guitar.
7. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
This is a very diverse song, changing from 6/4 to 4/4 time signature throughout the song. Considered a ballad, it is dynamic in terms of constant changing between clean guitar and fast distortion riffs. The tricky parts of this song are the solos of course. It might take some time to master them properly, depending on your guitar skills.
6. Fade to Black
This was the first ballad that Metallica has ever released, so being a ballad, it is in somewhat slower tempo, which is perfect for beginners. It is nevertheless excellent for practicing picking techniques, especially on solos.
5. Nothing Else Matters
Probably everyone knows this song, whether being familiar with other Metallica songs or not. As many ballads, this song is written in 6/8 time signature (characteristic for waltzes by the way), so it is also a great song to practice something different than usual 4/4. It is also a slow song, so all the hard parts, if there are any, are easy to be mastered.
4. Creeping Death
This energetic song, that’s up next on our list of easiest Metallica songs to play on guitar comes from Metallica’s second Album Ride the Lightning, and as Kirk Hammet says, it has one of the best solos they have written. Don’t give up on this song just because of the fast solo, it’s not as hard as it might sound.
3. Sad But True
As most of their songs, Sad But True was also written for E standard tuning, but it was tuned down to D in pre-production, and that’s how it was recorded. That’s not a bad thing to know before considering starting learning one of the easiest Metallica songs to play on guitar.
2. Enter Sandman
It is interesting how one of the most recognizable Metallica’s riffs was actually very much influenced by the sound of Soundgarden’s freshly released album Louder Than Love, as Kirk Hammett stated.
1. For Whom the Bell Tolls
Anyone familiar with playing Metallica’s songs will agree that For Whom the Bell Tolls is one of the easiest Metallica songs to play on guitar. The famous introduction to the song is actually played on bass with distortion and wah-wah (written by Cliff Burton even before Metallica), so if you really want to follow the exact notation and instruments, there’s one part less to learn. By practicing it you will master power chords and palm muting. This song has been performed live 1,383 times until July 12, 2017, so if they didn’t get tired of it for all these years, you should certainly give it a try and repeat it a couple of times while learning it.
