The other day me and friends where debating which metal genre is the hardest to play, IMO Progressive is Technicaly the most difficult while Doom metal is ussually easy to play, so i would like to know your opinion, and correct me if i'm wrong!!

It is difficult to say what is hardest or easiest to play.
Although doom is slow most of the time it isn't easy to play cause it requires a lot of feeling. Just playing it slow doesn't make it doom. And although people always seme to think that fast drumming is hard it is actually harder to drum extremely slow (like one beat every 6 seconds) and keep in time with the rest of the musicians.

Hmmm.. I would think that some form of progressive technical death metal would be quite difficult, maybe that justs me? ^^ Can't really think of a genre would be easiest, maybe some kind of power metal, or straightforward death metal.

Each metal sub genre has a perfect balance of both really...

Sure, progressive metal is hard to play because of all the noodlings and crazy tine signatures and grandiose song structures, but the speed at which sweeps are played in thrash and death metal and all the insane drum patterns played at breakneck speed and all the lemon drops and stamina to growl and demand that presense onstage as a frontman would probably make death/thrash/tech death harder as a band over any progressive metal band...

I say these days, all sub genres of metal have accessible bands that play the style easily and that leads you in to the bands that play the genre with greater skill...

Just of the top of my head I'd go with thrash. its just bare bones metal at its finest

Wahts diference bewteen this tread and
Those
The easiest genre to get into
The most difficult genre to get into

Written by Bad English on 12.11.2008 at 13:52

Wahts diference bewteen this tread and
Those
The easiest genre to get into
The most difficult genre to get into

I guess it's because the threads you mention there deal with the idea getting into them as far as listening is concerned...this thread deals with PLAYING the genres on a musical instrument like guitar or drums...

Written by -DC-002- on 12.11.2008 at 09:37

Just of the top of my head I'd go with thrash. its just bare bones metal at its finest

I'm not sure if you meant Thrash is the easiest to play. if thats the case I extremely agree with you. In my experience, thrash is the easiest to play. I feel it usually extends to the aggressive emotions and speed through momentum, not talent. I enjoy "speed" through accuracy, not only momentum. Speed is the byproduct of accuracy. Sure doesn't hurt to rock out to it though.

There are a few things to consider as stated in earlier posts. Emotion does matter a lot where skill alone only goes so far. Also, does this count for writing new music or just a session guitarist being able to playing it? Simply playing metal takes skill, but writing it takes skill, talent, emotion and so much more.

As for the hardest/ easiest metal to play, each style can come natural to different people. I feel that its quite relative to the person playing. Influences and inspirations give an enormous push to someone's quick improvements in playing a certain style. Without influences, its near impossible to pioneer on anything or let alone reach any advanced level of talent. I personally find progressive death metal the funnest and most challenging genre. Of course technical death metal can be pretty spiratic for me and I have yet to acquire a taste for it, but that too appears to be very difficult. Adding a true "progressive" label onto any genre would by default up the difficulty. Thrash or heavy metal would be the simplest for me due to the fact that it was the first genre I played to when I first was learning the guitar. After a year of playing the guitar, I could learn an entire slayer song in one sit down. I did give up guitar a long time ago to focus more on vocals, but it still shows that thrash is pretty easy.

A way to sum it up is to show which musical elements each genre holds. Is it chock full of power chords, double bass and in 4/4? I'd say its damn simple. When you mature from that style, you start realizing genres that work with weaving guitar melodies, intricate, well thought out solos and riffs that ask for string skipping. Drums that incorporate subdivisions, rudiments and off time drumming patterns... all at that same time. Not the mention hearing a bass actually running the neck. I really do respect a band that has a bassist performing tapping arpeggios. Irregular time signatures and sudden changes of tempo also play a great factor in difficulty. I say if it makes you think past fast double bass and chopping power chords, thats when it gets interesting and more difficult.

Written by Carrion Misery on 12.11.2008 at 20:47

Written by -DC-002- on 12.11.2008 at 09:37

Just of the top of my head I'd go with thrash. its just bare bones metal at its finest

I'm not sure if you meant Thrash is the easiest to play. if thats the case I extremely agree with you. In my experience, thrash is the easiest to play. I feel it usually extends to the aggressive emotions and speed through momentum, not talent. I enjoy "speed" through accuracy, not only momentum. Speed is the byproduct of accuracy. Sure doesn't hurt to rock out to it though.

There are a few things to consider as stated in earlier posts. Emotion does matter a lot where skill alone only goes so far. Also, does this count for writing new music or just a session guitarist being able to playing it? Simply playing metal takes skill, but writing it takes skill, talent, emotion and so much more.

As for the hardest/ easiest metal to play, each style can come natural to different people. I feel that its quite relative to the person playing. Influences and inspirations give an enormous push to someone's quick improvements in playing a certain style. Without influences, its near impossible to pioneer on anything or let alone reach any advanced level of talent. I personally find progressive death metal the funnest and most challenging genre. Of course technical death metal can be pretty spiratic for me and I have yet to acquire a taste for it, but that too appears to be very difficult. Adding a true "progressive" label onto any genre would by default up the difficulty. Thrash or heavy metal would be the simplest for me due to the fact that it was the first genre I played to when I first was learning the guitar. After a year of playing the guitar, I could learn an entire slayer song in one sit down. I did give up guitar a long time ago to focus more on vocals, but it still shows that thrash is pretty easy.

A way to sum it up is to show which musical elements each genre holds. Is it chock full of power chords, double bass and in 4/4? I'd say its damn simple. When you mature from that style, you start realizing genres that work with weaving guitar melodies, intricate, well thought out solos and riffs that ask for string skipping. Drums that incorporate subdivisions, rudiments and off time drumming patterns... all at that same time. Not the mention hearing a bass actually running the neck. I really do respect a band that has a bassist performing tapping arpeggios. Irregular time signatures and sudden changes of tempo also play a great factor in difficulty. I say if it makes you think past fast double bass and chopping power chords, thats when it gets interesting and more difficult.

I disagree with you about heavy metal bieng easy, bands like iced earth, iron maiden are not easy to play, Steve Harris one of the best bassist around

Next to Metallica and Slayer, Iron Maiden is one of the first bands many musicians first learn to play/ cover. Next to favorite band/ innovators, simplicity is a big factor for this. Iced Earth isn't purely heavy metal for most of the part, but they certainly aren't that advanced. Steve Harris is a legendary bassist, but it doesn't mean his bass lines are difficult to learn. And by no means does this make Steve Harris a terrible musician. We're just talking about level of difficulty. One needs to learn the basics before moving onto the more challenging, difficult music. The basics are heavy metal and thrash. After all, either of those are the core of all metal genres.

I think its quiet evident which is more difficult:

Cynic Progressive Death Metal http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=337569132
Iron Maiden Heavy Metalhttp://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.Discography&artistid=14030008

I dig both and I would think its wrong to put someone down for liking simple music they can absorb easier. As I feel its wrong for someone to put me down for enjoying more advanced music that takes more than one listen to catch.

Written by Author on 12.11.2008 at 15:46

Written by Bad English on 12.11.2008 at 13:52

Wahts diference bewteen this tread and
Those
The easiest genre to get into
The most difficult genre to get into

I guess it's because the threads you mention there deal with the idea getting into them as far as listening is concerned...this thread deals with PLAYING the genres on a musical instrument like guitar or drums...

Then why its not in mussician forum?
http://www.metalstorm.ee/forum/board.php?board_id=26
Or it shood be in this one?
Im comfused

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 11.11.2008 at 19:11

And although people always seme to think that fast drumming is hard it is actually harder to drum extremely slow (like one beat every 6 seconds) and keep in time with the rest of the musicians.

That and playing a 6+ minute track with extremely slow drumming is hard to stay focused. For example 'Warriors Of The World United' by Manowar (yeah I know, not doom), has one continuous basic beat with only one crash hit for a fill (fairly slow paced), I've tried playing it but I usually completely zone out or start day dreaming. That and I find it harder to count out timing for the fills when the beats are further apart, which is why doom would probably be hard. But for example the song 'Pirate Song' by Running Wild is at a pretty high speed but it was one of the first songs on drums I was able to learn by ear.

So physically difficult - Black or death metal
Mentally difficult - prog or doom. (for drums anyways)

Written by Bad English on 13.11.2008 at 11:09

Written by Author on 12.11.2008 at 15:46

Written by Bad English on 12.11.2008 at 13:52

Wahts diference bewteen this tread and
Those
The easiest genre to get into
The most difficult genre to get into

I guess it's because the threads you mention there deal with the idea getting into them as far as listening is concerned...this thread deals with PLAYING the genres on a musical instrument like guitar or drums...

Then why its not in mussician forum?
http://www.metalstorm.ee/forum/board.php?board_id=26
Or it shood be in this one?
Im comfused

No need to be confused because you are right...it should be in the musicians forum...

I think it would be anything played by Angra
IMO the most difficult genres are the melodic ones.

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 11.11.2008 at 19:11

Although doom is slow most of the time it isn't easy to play cause it requires a lot of feeling. Just playing it slow doesn't make it doom.

Tottaly agree

Doom not only its slow metal, It has to provoke to the listener an atmosphere of pain. Such as first Katatonia Albums

Doom is very slow, so it might be pretty hard to play, but nothing really comes close to a fusion between technical death metal and progressive metal. fast + technical + sometimes random = instrumental insanity.

easiest? hm... either black metal(for it's simplicity, at least in "raw" black metal) or classic 80s stuff. i'm thinking right now of Darkthrone-Transilvanian Hunger(it encompasses all that i think of when i think about black metal) and Judas Priest-Breaking The Law. guitarwise i can't really say which one is easier, cause TH only has like 2 riffs, but the drumming is pretty insane. so i guess classic traditional metal is instrumentally the easiest to play..imo.

Written by Valentin B on 12.01.2009 at 22:33

easiest? hm... either black metal(for it's simplicity, at least in "raw" black metal) or classic 80s stuff.

Black Metal on drums can be very hard to play physically (as stated earlier), but once you've got the stamina and precision down most of the drumming itself almost comes naturally.

Some prog even if its slow is really difficult to play, like 'Porcelain Heart' by Opeth. Its almost like trying to take off your underwear without removing your pants.

Written by Powerslavex on 11.11.2008 at 18:53

The other day me and friends where debating which metal genre is the hardest to play, IMO Progressive is Technicaly the most difficult while Doom metal is ussually easy to play, so i would like to know your opinion, and correct me if i'm wrong!!

I agree with you that Progressive is the hardest one to play, but the easiest one I think it would be Thrash.

Well, first of all it depends on the instrument. I am not a great musician, so I might find hard any kind of metal, but we're not talking about me XD
Guitar-wise, probably doom is one of the easiest, while technical death might be kind of a challenge for every instrument.

Progressive metal would certainly have a high level of difficulty because of the reason already said (It's very technical), I imagine Power metal would also be quite difficult, more to get the timing right. But prog I agree would be the hardest to play.
As for the easiest, Doom I would agree although it depends on the band you are playing because i have heard some more technical Doom metal bands in my time. Some heavy metal would be quite easy I would imagine, although some bands do get technical there also.

Well easiest would be some hardcore stuff and nu metal.cuz these genres have no hard part to play.And the songs are easy to remember in these genre cuz guitars have only 3 or 4 different riffs in whole song.

The bands like Necrophagist and Spawn of Possession are most extreme to play and i think i don't need to give a reason to claim this.They're fast,brutal,technical and also progressive...

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 11.11.2008 at 19:11

And although people always seme to think that fast drumming is hard it is actually harder to drum extremely slow (like one beat every 6 seconds) and keep in time with the rest of the musicians.

bassically No. fast drumming needs exercize and also rhythm. slow drumming need more rhythm. it is not difficult.

also to be on topic, the difficult in music IMO generally is to write it, not to play it. playing music needs talent and exercize (50-50) when writing good music needs mainly talent...

The subject seems to be rather subjective. For me, the easiest genre was Progressive Metal. Sure, I grew up with my dad playing Sabbath, Zeppelin, Mountain, Cream, Dust, and Rainbow, but it was Dream Theater and a little later Queensryche, Fates Warning, Tool and Rush that really hooked me. To this day, raw tr00 kvlt Black Metal just annoys me. It was the intricacy Prog that engulfed me, and still does today (yes, yes, I know I am a DT fan boy, so sue me!).

It was bands like Sonata Arctica that allowed many of my rather conservative Christian college mates to enter into the world of Metal, and now they're banging to Megadeth, Fear Factory and Demon Hunter. Still for other friends of mine, the pop Metal of the day was their first step. In high school Korn, Coal Chamber and Limp Bizkit attracted them at first...until I gave them some At The Gates. Likewise, many of my college associates were into Zao, Underoath, Killswitch Engage, etc. and have expanded their horizons to Place of Skulls and Antestor.

It's hard to tell because every genre demands some special skills,but for me the most demanding genre is thrash metal,but it's probably hard to be objective in this topic because what is for some people difficoult for other is easy.

Well thrash metal is complex but not hard to play.I think it is tehnical death metal.the easiest would be probably AC/DC

Hmm, I guess some kind of "Progressive Technical Math Metal" would be the hardest to play.
Easiest, I have no idea. But I guess many of us started playing Heavy Metal songs in the beginning?

Doom is very slow, so it might be pretty hard to play, but nothing really comes close to a fusion between technical death metal and progressive metal. fast + technical + sometimes random = instrumental insanity.
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I honestly think Hardcore/Metalcore stuff to be very simple, I once thought it was very complex while listening to JFAC, but then I realized that it was actually pretty simple to constantly do breakdowns then "free jazz" it the rest of the song, (JFAC actually has a little more talent imo)....

As for hardest, I honestly think either Technical Death Metal or Power Metal, the endurance these guitarists have to endure is ridiculous.

Depends really, there's some metalcore that is pretty technical, but to me, the hardest to play would be some mathcore stuff, Meshuggah, and real zaney progressive like Behold... the Arctopus, Orthrelm, Dysrhythmia, Blotted Science, Collapsar... etc.

EDIT:
Sleep Terror also.

Anyone who says drumming fast isn't hard should talk to Todd Hanson (17 bps PER HAND!) As far as hardest genre....probably some sort of speedcore-deathgrind. Easyist would probably be just regular heavy metal.