Avenged Sevenfold - Buried Alive - Guitar Lesson

Nightmare

2010 6:44

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About Buried Alive

Few songs in the Heavy Metal catalog demand this much patience from a guitarist before they even reach the heavy section. "Buried Alive" opens with several minutes of clean, arpeggiated guitar work in G minor that requires a steady right hand and careful attention to dynamics, and rushing it will flatten the atmosphere the whole song depends on. When the Drop D tuning kicks into full effect later on, the low D string becomes a weapon: expect chunky palm-muted riffs sitting deep in the mix alongside tremolo-picked passages that will tire your picking arm quickly if your technique is tense. The tempo sits at 120 BPM, which feels manageable until you are tracking the clean intro and the fast picked sections back to back. Use the Practice Toolbar to isolate the transition between the clean and heavy sections and loop it slowed down until the shift feels natural under your fingers. Avenged Sevenfold also layer twin-guitar harmonies in the later sections, so if you are playing solo you will need to decide which voice to follow.

• The Drop D tuning is central to the heavier riffs, giving the low string extra weight for the palm-muted chug patterns that anchor the song's second half.
• The clean arpeggiated intro section in G minor is the real technique test, demanding consistent right-hand fingerpicking or careful pick work at a controlled dynamic.
• Twin-guitar harmonies appear in the later sections, so practicing each voice separately before combining them will make the arrangement much clearer.