Born in Berkeley California in 1968, Alex Skolnick was a key player in the Bay Area thrash metal scene alongside bands like Exodus and Metallica. Alex originally joined a band named Legacy, but they soon after changed the name to Testament, reserving as their 1984 debut album title. Alex’s lead guitar playing style was always seen as more cerebral than his thrash contemporaries.
His note choices, use of scales and , harmonics and classy vibrato was a perfect recipe for his legend status. Our first example looks at how Alex might navigate the neck using legato. The concept here is to take one octave of a seven-note scale and play it across two strings.
Play four notes on the lower string and three on the higher one. For the four-note fragment, use your first finger to shift between the first two notes, then use the remaining digits to hammer-on within the scale position before moving up a string for the three-note fragment. This is a repeatable shape, so once you can play the notes in this octave, you can transfer them across the strings.
This allows the hand to ascend the fretboard smoothly and quickly. Keep your fingers relaxed and as close to the strings as possible, in order to build up speed and maintain control. Examples 2 and 3 deal with alternate picking, a technique at which Alex is extremely adept.
Alternate picking in metal often requires a lighter touch than you’d expect from such an aggressive form. For clean articulation and good string-to-string motion, use .