To Live Is To Die Guitar Lesson – Metallica


In this To Live Is To Die guitar lesson video series, I will show you how to play this instrumental classic off of Metallica's ...And Justice For All album in it's entirety.

We will be using standard tuning throughout, just as Metallica did on the original recording.

"To Live Is To Die" starts out with a beautiful acoustic multi-guitar section. What I have done here is arrange those parts so that they can be played on just one guitar. It can be a little tricky to play, but it is well worth the effort.

From there the full band enters and we are off! The opening riffs are pretty simple by Metallica standards and there are some really cool grooves to lock into.

This is followed by Kirk Hammett playing a melodic solo line based in octaves. The part happens multiple times in the song. Metallica then mixes up the feel with a more funk kind of feel riff. It can be a bit tricky locking in with this one.

Up next is Kirk Hammett's main guitar solo. This solo will close-out the first video lesson. Kirk plays a lot of pentatonic based licks for most of the first half of the solo but then suddenly launches into a fast tapping lick that eventually leads into a tremolo picked lick.

He wraps-up this solo with a series of licks similar to what he played earlier, albeit with a slight variation thrown in there.

The second video lesson starts out with the harmony guitar section. I will demonstrate how to play the power chords under the harmony parts, plus break down each harmony part individually.

"To Live Is To Die" then falls back into a mournful clean guitar fingerpicked section with slow volume swells over it. This fingerpicking can be a little intricate, but lucky for us, it is played the same way for each repeat.

Kirk Hammett then has one more solo over this clean section. This melodic solo moves around quite a bit and can be quite the challenge.

After the solo the harmony section appears again and it is played just like earlier in the song until the extended ending, which I will cover in detail.

For some of the song I will give the exact minute and second mark each new parts occurs so it will be easy for you to figure out where you are at.

I hope you guys enjoy learning this guitar marathon from the great Metallica!

Carl...

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To Live Is To Die Guitar Lesson Pt.1 - Metallica

To Live Is To Die Guitar Lesson Pt.2 - Metallica

1 Comment

  1. Jordan Seibert on May 20, 2017 at 10:25 am

    what kind of settings are you using for the fingerpicked section?

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