Black Metal Guitar
Black metal guitar is raw, fast and atmospheric. Tremolo-picked minor chord progressions, blast beat tempos and a deliberately lo-fi tone define the genre. The picking hand does most of the work here, sustaining rapid sixteenth notes over long passages while the fretting hand moves through dissonant chord shapes.
On GuitarZone you will find tabs from Dimmu Borgir, Emperor, Dissection and Bathory. The riffs are deceptively challenging because of the endurance required.
Blashyrkh 1
Burzum 3
Darkenhöld 6
Dimmu Borgir 5
Dissection 4
Dueil Angoisseus 1
Echoes from the Stone Keeper 1
Emperor 4
For All Tid 1
Galdrum 1
Impaled Nazarene 1
Memoria Sylvarum 1
Mourning Palace 1
Ulver 2
Unhallowed 1
Black Metal Guitar Technique
The core technique is tremolo picking: continuous alternate picking at high speed on single notes or intervals. Most black metal sits in E Standard or lower tunings. The tone is intentionally thin and saturated, often with scooped mids, which makes every picked note blend into a wall of sound.
Start slow. Set a metronome to 120 BPM and tremolo pick eighth notes cleanly before pushing to sixteenth notes. The genre also uses arpeggiated clean passages as contrast sections, so you get to practice both extremes.