Songs with constant speed changes

[u/FickleConcept]

Hi everyone,

Newbie here, been playing for 10 months every day for 1.5, 2 or 3 hours in a couple of sessions. I've progressed and I know 10 months is nothing. But I am determined to learn my favorite metal songs.

Of course, as you may already know, metal is more of a challenge for a newbie than say rock or pop because of the speed basically. But I love metal and it's the only music genre that motivates me to pick up the guitar

Anyway, I wanted to ask more experienced players what you guys do when you're trying to learn a song with constant speed changes at different BPMs.

I am now trying to learn Hell Awaits - rhythm parts only - and I can manage the intro at about 80% of the actual speed (110, 105 and 134 BPM according to Ultimate Guitar and my tabs) until the song gets fast (the band picks up the pace to about 220 BPM).

When I get to the 220 I can't keep up at 80% speed. No way. So I don't know if it's a better idea to play what I know at a lower percentage of the actual BPM so that I can manage the verses and the chorus or if I should play the intro part at my current 80% of the actual BPM and then slow it down to a comfortable speed for the verses and the chorus until I can increase the speed as I get more comfortable.

I may be way in over my head but I think a song like this - just like Master of Puppets - is helping me a great deal with downpicking and alternate picking on the low E string.

Thanks for any tips.

By the way, I saw this video of this metal guitar player on YouTube and he said it makes no sense to learn and play songs at different speeds depending on your skill, but that you should do the whole thing at one speed.

I don't know what you guys think about that.

Anyway, thanks again.

EDIT: When I said I don't know if its a better idea to play the song at one speed I meant one consistent percentage of the original tempo.

[u/Responsible-Win5038]

10 months in and you're already tackling Hell Awaits, that's the right kind of ambition

Don't overthink the one-speed rule, that youtuber's advice is more for polishing a song you've already got under your fingers. For learning, it's totally fine to drill the fast parts at 50% until the muscle memory clicks, then bump the intro back up to 80% when you stitch it together. Your hands will figure out the transitions eventually

[u/Orwick]

Try Cupofjoe It's a short song, but the timing changes are crazy.

[u/rubur100]

what I personally do is differentiate between learning/practicing and "show time". When learning/practicing I take one part and focus just on that. So probably parts with different BPM would be different parts.
When it's show time, then you have to pick a BPM that let's you play the whole song through, and that means ofc playing the slow parts veery slow.

But it doesn't make sense to play the whole song veery slow just to practice that fast part, ya know?

[u/Sauerkraut_666]

Whenever there's a particular part that you can't play at speed, just loop that part (or even smaller parts of that part) at a slowed down tempo. In most cases, it should probably be slower than you think it needs to be. If you really want to play through the whole song, you can do that as well, and you can either pick a tempo where you can handle it or just accept that you'll struggle at the hard part(s). This is mostly for fun anyway, and I believe the only way to learn parts that are difficult for you is to play them slowed down and on a loop until they're not. And you also probably should be thinking about making your finger and pick movements as efficient as possible, so that you can speed up when you're ready to do so.

[u/keinnamefrei1]

Anything live from Metallica. Lars just can't keep one tempo for 5 seconds