How to Use Octaves for Heavy Metal Guitar

Transcript

All right. Let's talk about octaves and how to use them. One simple use of octaves is as a substitute for power chords. So, you can take any riff and take a sliding power with chords. Say, something like this.

I could play the same thing with octaves. So, using octaves on the 4th and 6th string. I'm muting the 5th string.

All right. So it just gives it a little different texture. I could alternate between the two.

Okay. So that's using octaves in a riff. You can also use octaves in solos. They're great to substitute for single notes and playing in a melody. Right now I'll play a quick little solo using mostly octaves. One more thing, when I go across the strings, the shape changes. As soon as I get to the 2nd and 4th string there's a three fret difference. 1st and 3rd string, three frets. Be sure to see the other how cast video I did on octaves.

Okay. So that was done with mostly octaves. And a lot of that was the E-dorian mode, and I'm often sliding from octave to octave.

Okay. So it's not that hard. Take your time. Learn it. Have some fun with octaves, and I hope you enjoyed the lesson.