Megadeth - Holy Wars - Guitar Lesson

About Holy Wars

Few thrash tracks demand as much from a rhythm guitarist as "Holy Wars." Megadeth tune down to Eb Standard, which loosens the strings just enough to give the heavy riffing a thicker, slightly darker feel without shifting the written key. The song sits in E minor at 120 BPM, and the opening riff alone covers a lot of ground: rapid alternate picking, string skipping, and quick positional shifts that catch beginners off guard. The real challenge is maintaining clean note separation at speed while keeping the aggressive tone tight. The mid-song clean interlude is a contrast worth practicing carefully too, since the jump back into the heavy sections requires instant right-hand aggression. Use the Practice Toolbar to isolate the trickiest picking passages and loop them slowed down until the fretting hand can keep up without tension. This is a strong workout in Thrash Metal picking mechanics and left-hand accuracy across the entire neck.

• The song is played in Eb Standard tuning, dropping every string by a half step to add low-end weight to the heavy riffing.
• The opening riff combines rapid alternate picking with string skipping, making clean note separation the primary technical hurdle to overcome.
• A contrasting clean-guitar interlude sits mid-song, so players need to practise the sudden dynamic shift back into full-speed heavy picking.