Zakk Wylde – Pentatonic Hardcore

The following video is probably Zakk Wylde’s most famous. I believe it was originally distributed by the magazine Young Guitar. The instructional video is an hour long and has Zakk going through many different basic and advanced skills including Pentatonic scales, chickin-pickin licks, vibrato, pinch harmonics, alternate picking and much more. If you follow this video and practise it every day for about 3 years, maybe you will be able to shred like him.

Zakk Wylde – Machine Gun Man Video (Headbangers Ball)

Now this next video I think is my favourite ever. It is Zakk playing Machine Gun Man (Pride and Glory) on an acoustic at Headbangers Ball. Not only does he show of his insane acoustic shredding skills, but he blows me away with his amazing singing ability. Some people can sing, but you can always tell a good singer when they can maintain their tone when singing at full volume. This video gives me goose bumps pretty much every time I watch it.

Zakk Wylde – Pentatonic Speedballer

This last video is title “Zakk Wylde – Pentatonic Speedballer”. Essentially it is just him shredding and you watching. If you happen to have the book that goes along with this though you would get the tabbed music so you can follow along. I find it entertaining to watch, but from a learning perspective it doest really have much to offer on its own, unless you are already that good. I like it because he plays a lot of bluesy riffs in there and tosses that in with his shredding.

These three videos should give you an idea of Zakk Wylde’s playing style. I suggest you just do some searches on the video sites like Google Video and YouTube to see what else you can find. He has quite the cult following and I’m sure there are a lot more out there.

Happy shredding.

Alexi Laiho Interview and Instructional Video

This first is pretty sweet it’s both an interview and a practical lesson. Alexi talks about a lot of important stuff like practicing with a metronome, starting slow and building speed, how he writes a solo, and his musical influences.

At about the half way point he does do some hands on stuff on his guitar. He starts off playing it quickly and then slows it right down so you can learn it. He shows off some sweep picking licks with some tapping thrown in and then some chord phrases. At the end of the video he goes through 5 or 6 licks from some of his songs as well.

Alexi Laiho Lesson Riffs

This second is another half and half. There are two sections of Alexi Laiho and his “buddy Robert” playing some licks and two instruction bits where Alexi slows the riffs down.

At about the 4:30 mark Alexi starts to show the licks at a slower pace, however the video is a little blurry so you will have to get the general position of his hand from the video and figure out the rest by ear. At the 8:30 mark there is another demonstration section where the two seem to jam for a bit. At the 13:00 mark more of the riffs are demonstrated slowly. The video is still very blurry though so don’t expect much. I’m guessing that with the original video there is an accompanying tab or sheet music book.

Young Guitar Magazine Alexi Laiho Video

In this next clip its pretty impossible for the average person to determine what Alexi is doing. It is still pretty sweet to watch though.

Children of Bodom playing Downfall at the 2003 Tuska Open Air Metal Festival

To finish it off here is a 4 minute video of Children of Bodom playing Downfall at the 2003 Tuska Open Air Metal Festival in Helsinki. “Ooh Hell yeah!”

So there you go. I hope some people can find what they are looking for now!

This should be today’s (and every other day’s lesson): start slow and build up your speed. If you can not play each note cleanly, slow down until you can and slowly build up your speed.

This guy though, is very good. The musician is Chris Feener and the first video is titled Neoclassical Shred.

The second video from the same player is called Petrucci Shred. He plays licks from Flight of the Bumblebee and Into the Acid Rain Unison.

Basically his skills give me something to aspire to. I have just started practicing from John Petrucci’s instructional video, so hopefully I can build up my speed and ability and one day shred like this.