How do YOU play the Master of Puppets riff?

[Hulk Krogan]

This came up in the discord today, and many of us learned we've been living a lie. So, how do you play the descending chromatic part of the Master of Puppets intro?

[Chris]

With my dong.

[zepp]

Yep. As I said on the Discord. I was fucking hoodwinked and played it wrong all these years.

[zepp]

With my dong.

All downstrokes.

[Hulk Krogan]

All downstrokes.

Beat me to it.

[Budda]

Poorly.

Granted, it has been closer to 2 decades than 1 since I was awestruck by MoP and tried to learn as much as I could (turned out to be not much...)

[scole]

I’m sure I’ve played it wrong all these years as well. Was looking for older concert video to see if it’s something maybe James has changed how he played it over time and came across this via the sale search.

[Hulk Krogan]

That's the video that made me realize I was playing it wrong.

I had the same thought you did, about them possibly changing how they played it over time. But this is from 92. You can see Het's fretting hand perfectly around 49s.

[spilla]

Wow, i feel dirty.

[Naren]

Yeah, I've always played it on the 7th fret of the A string, but it is true that 12th fret of the E string has a different timbre. It seems like a pretty common mistake that even a real expert'd make, especially if you learn it by ear. And when I first learned the song, I had never seen a live performance of the song, YouTube didn't exist, and I had no way of checking where his fingers were.

There's actually a song I wrote last year that starts around the 12th fret of the low B string, but I started thinking about how difficult it would be to play live while singing, so I came up with a version that doesn't sound quite as good in my opinion but uses all the same notes that starts on the 7th fret of the low E string. That one I can actually play without looking at my fingers, while the one I wrote the song on I will occasionally accidentally be a fret off if I don't look at my fingers when playing the riff (which happens when making huge jumps from high frets to low frets or low frets to high frets without looking).

[Tony]

Funny thing about this is when I originally learnt it from an ascii tab I learnt it the correct way. This was way back when guitar was just a thing I messed with in high school at break times as drums were my instrument.

All my guitarist friends told me how wrong I was and got me to switch.

[Iron1]

That's the video that made me realize I was playing it wrong.

I had the same thought you did, about them possibly changing how they played it over time. But this is from 92. You can see Het's fretting hand perfectly around 49s.

All I get from that is James is signing it all kinds of wrong...

[Blazon_Stone]

I flap my asscheeks like a propeller on the strings, while I acrobatically fret the notes with my ballsack

[Mike]

I smash something remotely in tune.

[Hulk Krogan]

I flap my asscheeks like a propeller on the strings, while I acrobatically fret the notes with my ballsack

Man, finger calluses are bad enough.

[Briansol]

i actually knew this. i got yelled at by a friend when i was 12

[Chris]

Non silly post: I've never cared about playing covers the "right" way. Whichever way you want to play them is correct. They're covers, they're supposed to be fun.

[Toshiro]

Probably the wrong way, but I don't care.

[Budda]

No one has said what the right way is

[Hulk Krogan]

Non silly post: I've never cared about playing covers the "right" way. Whichever way you want to play them is correct. They're covers, they're supposed to be fun.

This is generally my attitude, but I do enjoy knowing how things were played on the album. There's usually some difference in feel or timbre and it's kind of useful to know that stuff for my own playing.

No one has said what the right way is

James and Kirk play the entire riff on the low E, starting at 12.

[Budda]

Nice to know I had something right when I was 16

[zepp]

Non silly post: I've never cared about playing covers the "right" way. Whichever way you want to play them is correct. They're covers, they're supposed to be fun.

We play the intro to Holy Wars differently from one another I noticed. Sounds the same