Nice list of bands and songs. I saw Lorna Shore and Ghost live last July e.g., and both bands have amazing guitarists.
I assume you just started playing guitar? I agree with Deborah and Carlos, unfortunately there are no shortcuts, so that might mean learning songs you actually wouldn’t really listen to.
To add to Carlos’ comment: Only one Ghost song seems to be on Ultimate Guitar (Mary on a cross) and that one appears to use quite a lot of open chords plus barre chords…
The more disciplined you are in the beginning and the more you are willing to make some compromises, the faster you will get to learn power chords (Grade 2, module 12).
I’m with you on Wonderwall. I had never heard it and didn’t like it, so didn’t go there.
If you don’t want to follow along with the lesson songs, then you need to do extra work and figure out your own songs to play. This is a fairly steep up-hill battle early on, but really gets easier later.
Here is what I did as a tester:
Went to your playlist, found Iron Maiden, Hallowed. I know this gets pretty fast after the intro. I looked up the chords and I see they are all either something you know already, or are really straight forward for a beginner.
If you listen to the background rhythm, you can start to pick up where to play the chord on the 1st beat.
Keep the amp clean for open chords or will be too messy.
Just try to play on the 1, don’t follow the fast pace of the lead. Miss a few if you need to. maybe you pick out just two chords and play those until you can follow that well, then add a couple more. You will need to see what works for you.
At least this way, you are doing a few things that will help later:
your ear for the beat is improving
your ear for the chord is improving
you are getting used to maintaining your sequence, especially after you goof
you are learning to find ways to play something that are simpler than the original
you are learning the basic structure and can get fancier as you improve without needing to start from scratch
you don’t hate what you are listening to
I am not an instructor. I have plenty of my own play limitations and shortcomings!! I don’t think you will find this method in the approved lessons. It may be that folks call me out with this being bad in some way. I’m not sure. I just know I have not done many of the song examples and have done this myself so I enjoyed what I was listening to and learning something I may later be interested in learning correctly.
It won’t be long until you get into the lessons that will appropriate for your genre. just hang in there!
EDIT:
I forgot to mention one critical thing: You may see chords on the web I linked for a song that are not the full open chord. You still need to get the open chords memorized and be able to move fluidly to them. They are foundational to many things you will be wanting to learn and understand for any guitar, including metal.
For modules 1-6, I simply followed the ready made practice routine, including the song practice, even though I didn’t necessarily like the songs - in the end, it’s basically another way of practicing chord changes and strumming.
As for the memorising songs part, although I am more into rock and pop, I pretty much did (or rather am doing) what @sequences said above: I took a list of songs I like, I looked up the chords in Ultimate Guitar, searched for songs that only have the chords I know (maybe by using a capo) or can be simplified to using only those chords, worked out the song structure (chord sequences for the intro, verse, chorus, … - apps like chord ai or moises are pretty helpful with that), picked a couple of songs and started learning those. Works fine for me.
I tried to do something similar with 90s indie hard rock many years ago…pre Justin.
But I never learned to play open chords at speed, or developed a good strumming hand. The strumming problem was actually the bigger problem, so I would suggest you stay focused on that.
In addition to the good advice given above about focusing on power chords and muting, you might want to look into drop D tuning, which lets you play a one finger power chord on the 3 thickest strings.
In my case, trying to go my own way was ultimately unsuccessful, and I gave up the guitar for many years. It was only by following Justin’s beginner courses that put my on a sustainable path. One of the keys for me was the Songs App, which has quite a few power chord songs in the Rock and 90s categories.
@adamambroz Guitarists in rock & metal bands, I can 99.999% guarantee, can play all the open chord shapes you are saying you don’t like, and play many, many songs using simple chords.
Lemmy always used at concerts, "We are Motorhead and we play Rock ‘n’ Roll’.
Rock ‘n’ Roll = (at its most basic) three chords.
When I played in a covers band I learned and played songs that were very far away from my usual listening. And in the learning, I grew to appreciate them as ‘good songs’ even if they remained as songs I would not listen to nor say that I really liked.
Check here for songs you can enjoy playing, even if not your preferred genre.
Use the filters.
With just A, D, and E there are 40 songs.
Learning any song will make you a better player. Learning songs of different genres with different rhythms and feel will make you a better player.
Yep, many of the bands in the attached Spotify list would have grown up playing pop songs. I know Black Sabbath and Dave Mustaine were big Beatle fans. I have a vague memory of the lead singer of Emperor describing himself as a fan of A-ha.
Sometimes you just got to give the people what they want Someone hands you an acoustic after a few beers, they want a sing-along.
Someone hands you an acoustic after a few beers, they want a sing-along.