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Metallica - Welcome Home (Intro & Rhythm) - Guitar Lesson

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Key E minor
Metallica - Welcome Home (Intro & Rhythm) guitar lesson video
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Metallica Thrash Metal E minor
Capo Advisor 0 E minor · Original key

About Welcome Home (Intro & Rhythm)

Few riffs in Thrash Metal hit as hard as the opening of "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" from Metallica. The intro starts deceptively clean and quiet, with a fingerpicked or softly picked single-note melody in E minor that demands control over your pick attack and muting. Getting that hushed, slightly eerie tone right is the first real challenge, and it rewards patience far more than aggression. As the rhythm section builds, the guitar part thickens into power chords and palm-muted chugging, so you need to shift gears smoothly without losing the groove. At 120 BPM the tempo is very manageable, but the transitions between the delicate intro figures and the heavier rhythm passages are where most players slip up. Use the Practice Toolbar to isolate those transition bars and loop them slowed down until the shift from clean picking to palm-muted rhythm becomes second nature. E Standard tuning means no retuning required, so you can focus entirely on dynamics and feel.

  • The intro relies on softly picked single-note lines in E minor, where controlling pick attack and volume is more important than speed.
  • Palm-muted power chord rhythms in the heavier sections require a tight, consistent right-hand technique to lock in with the kick drum.
  • E Standard tuning is used throughout, so no retuning is needed, making this a practical piece to keep ready in a normal practice session.

How to Play Welcome Home (Intro & Rhythm)

Tuning: E Standard · Key: E minor · Tempo: 120 BPM

Use the section loop to isolate a passage, drop the speed below 100%, and set the metronome to 120 BPM to build it up to tempo.

Gibson Les Paul Standard
Guitar

Gibson Les Paul Standard

Kirk Hammett's vintage 1959 'Greeny' Les Paul Standard delivers warmer, more dynamic PAF-style tones that contrast his EMG-equipped ESP guitars, adding organic sustain to his lead work. This guitar's traditional construction gives his solos a thicker, less compressed character than his signature models.

Gibson Les Paul Custom
Guitar

Gibson Les Paul Custom

While not Hammett's primary choice, the Les Paul Custom shares the Les Paul's warm PAF pickup character and thick body resonance, offering heavier players an alternative to Strat-style designs for achieving Metallica's crushing rhythm tones.

Gibson Explorer
Guitar

Gibson Explorer

James Hetfield's early Gibson Explorer established his signature angular shape and thick body tone, delivering the aggressive midrange attack essential to Metallica's crushing rhythm style before his ESP signature models became his primary tool.

Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier
Amp

Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier

Kirk Hammett's Dual Rectifier heads provide the high-gain, midrange-forward aggression that lets his solos cut through Hetfield's scooped rhythm tone, creating definition and clarity in Metallica's dense wall of distortion.

EMG 81
Pickup

EMG 81

Hetfield's bridge EMG 81 delivers the hot, compressed output with tight low-end that defines Metallica's palm-muted riffs, the ceramic magnet and active preamp cutting through heavy arrangements with focused, aggressive attack.

EMG 60
Pickup

EMG 60

Both guitarists use the neck EMG 60 for warmer, more articulate rhythm tones and smoother lead voicings, balancing the 81's aggression with clearer note definition across Metallica's dense arrangements.

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