Riff using A5 power chord

Example 2 of metal, we're looking at the A5 power chord we've just played in the previous example. Here we're really testing our picking skills. So as I mentioned, that circle motion, we're trying to work that into our playing. It's all about muscle memory and repetition. And this is a great example for getting that built into our playing. So what we have is that a five chord for four bars played as half notes, two beats each. 1, 2, 1, 2. In the final bar, the fifth bar, we have this a five chord as a whole note. And we're just going to let that ring out to finish. The key here is we want to keep our first finger pushing down on that second fret of the D string. And this is the first example we've seen in this course so far where we're not playing a finger per fret. You can see we've lifted up the first finger. So now our finger per fret would be fret 2, 3, 4, and 5. But using finger 1 for the second fret, finger 2 for the third, 3 for the fourth, and pinky, the fourth finger for the fifth fret. So it's all about keeping those positions so we can slide up. As we've got plenty of notes up the neck, we need to do that eventually. But it's our first look playing with the first finger on the second fret. This just sets us up really well for playing these chords. With the middle finger, it's easy to kind of block some strings. So using the first finger is key for these kind of chords. So let's try this line here. We're going to try and keep the first finger pushing down the whole time, watching out really carefully. To not hit any other open strings, we only want to hear the two notes that are written, A and D. When playing these chords, it's easy to kind of hit the wrong strings. So I use my palm rested on the bridge to keep a solid bass, so I can hit the same strings accurately each time. What I'm doing here is resting my palm on the bridge behind the saddles. This bit here where the string comes through. If your hand's in front of this and actually on the string, you're palm muting, which is a cool technique, but not one we're looking at yet. So we want to make sure we can play these open first. So we're resting behind the saddles, and that way we're just a bit more accurate. Whereas I find when you're floating, it's very easy to play the wrong strings. You can see I hit some by accident there. I'd like you to practice that over and over again until you're making sure you can definitely only hear those two strings. A good tip as well is to turn the volume on your guitar down. When you have all the distortion going, it's easy to hear notes get lost. Whereas when we have the guit off, you can hear exactly if you're adding too many strings. So making sure we've just got those two. And once you can do that, start to add the distortion back. Let's give this one a go of the backing track.