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What Scales Can I Use?

 

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Metal for Beginners I

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Every thinkable scale is used in metal, from the common major scale to less common exotic scales.

However, you have to start somewhere, and a good place to start is with the E blues scale and the E natural minor scale. Learn those scales down in the open position and start playing around with them.


Examples of where different scales are used:

The Blues Scale:
Pantera: Cowboys from Hell
Metallica: Enter Sandman.

The Natural Minor Scale:
Iron Maiden: Fear of the Dark, The Trooper (and many more).

The Harmonic Minor Scale:
Neo-classical players.

Major type scales (like the Mixolydian scale and the regular major scale):
Van Halen: Panama, Dance The Night Away (and many more).

Of course none of these styles of metal are limited to just these scales, they all mix like crazy. This is just to illustrate the general sound these scales can give you.

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