Metal for Life with Metal Mike: Utilizing Powerful-Sounding Chord Voicings That Include Open Strings

These videos and audio files are bonus content related to the September 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now or at the Guitar World Online Store.

Within the genre of heavy metal, the art of rhythm guitar can sometimes seem a bit predictable—either root-fifth (or root-fifth-root) chords shifted up and down the fretboard on the same strings, or open low-string pedal tones played against two-note power chords, and little else.

In this column, I’d like to demonstrate a few different ways that metal guitarists can open up their approach to rhythm guitar by utilizing some less-common chord voicings and those that include open strings.