If you are a complete beginner then yeah, I’d stop speed mechanics and go for the first book: Metal Rhythm guitar Volume 1. That book assumes 0 knowledge of guitar but can still be a bit tricky for an absolute beginner. I’d recommend going through Justin’s course at least up to power chords before diving into even that book.
Order of operations for just Troy’s method though is as follows:
- Metal Rhythm guitar Volume 1 & 2 - These books just teach rhythm guitar. Each chapter teaches a couple of concepts and gives you progressively more difficult exercises. Chapters culminate in a song that incorporates everything a chapter teaches you. There are 12 songs total, one for each chapter, 6 in each book.
Side Note: If you are interested in what the songs sound like, I’ve actually recorded and posted all 6 songs for Rhythm Vol. 1 and the first song for rhythm volume 2 right here in the forum: AlexisDuprey - Troy Stetina's Metal Rhythm Guitar Vol.1 - Songs 1-6 and Luck Day - Troy Stetina
- Metal Lead guitar Primer and Volumes1 & 2 - Troy sometimes recommends starting to learn lead with his primer book around the same time you start Rhythm volume 2. After finishing rhythm 2 and primer you’d do Lead 1 & 2. Similarly to Rhythm, each chapter gives you concepts that culminate into a solo. 12 solos total for volumes 1 & 2 split between the books. The solos in 2 get crazy fast. This then leads you to the more advanced books.
- More advanced supplements - This where Speed mechanics and his very large music theory book “Fretboard Mastery” come in. They are both really advanced books and go deep into speed and understanding the fretboard and what you can do with it.
Final piece of advice I have is that if you start Troy’s methods and have any issues understanding a concept, just search Justin’s lessons for the concept. I’ve found that if I don’t understand a concept from one teacher, just watching a video from the other explaining the same concept but from a different angle helps with getting the bigger picture.
Anyway, that’s a lot of information, lol. These methods take a long time, I posted the first song in Troy’s method July of last year and song 7 about a year later so take your time to really get the concepts right. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I’m a big fan of both Troy and Justin.