Looking to tackle some Symphony X

Lokiee

New Metal Member
Aug 26, 2005
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New member here, had a few questions and looking for a few suggestions.
I sopose I should start with my experiance:

I've been playing guitar off and on for about 8-9 years (first one at 14, just turned 23) I haven't really taken it very serious untill the last few years though.
I mostly just play my favorite Iced Earth songs and practice techniques. I find anything easier boring and anything more difficult impossible.

I live in a remote small town near Fairbanks, Alaska called North Pole, so I'm pretty much self taught and have some serious bad habits....maybe hehe no one to tell me if I do or don't except myself. I've tried some lessons from people around here but music like Symphon X dosn't really exsist here so not only do they have no idea of what I'm wanting to learn and play, I usually end up showing them things and get no where with it.

The closest I have come to playing with anyone else is playing along with Iced Earth songs, I'm very picky about what I play and who I play with and around here my choices are pretty much bluegrass/country or pop metal. (dosn't get much worse than that).

Anyways, I'm wanting to try and tackle some Symphony X stuff and I'm not really sure where to start. What would be one of the least technical songs to start with? Or should I just work on some of the more simple riffs to start?

I use powertab to practice since it has backing and a metranome for songs people have tabbed, but I have trouble keeping in synch for really fast riffs such as the intro to "Out of The Ashes". I start to lose concentration while trying to hear myself and the metranome then it's pretty much over. Sometimes I can nail it, even at top speed but that's not very often. It seems like the more I try the worse I get.

My sweeps pretty much consists of 2 and 3 string arpeggios and a few longer minor ones, other than that I can't seem to get my fingers to move fast enough for anything else, especially when rolling my finger over more than 2 strings like arpeggios used in the intro to "Smoke and Mirrors". I'm never really sure on what fingerings I should use and haven't been able to find a good resource on them yet. Are there any?

I could probably go on forever with questions and explinations of my problems but I think I'll leave it at that for now since those are the areas I have most trouble in. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 
Reduce the tempo on powertab! The easiest way to learn stuff. Put it down to 40bpm, then get it DOWN, as in, not even a slight problem playing. Then increase it to 50bpm, get it down. etc.

When you get nearer desired bpm, then start going up in intervals of 5bpm. That's how I learnt the bass to Out Of The Ashes.
 
Get guitar pro. Its way better than powertab and there are literally thousands of top quality gpro files on mysongbook.com

As for what you should learn i dont really know. Candlelight fantasia is pretty cool.....like the acoustic bit and the 1st solo thing.......they are really easy. Some of the Odyssey is good to play :p. I sometimes play the guitar pro tab and just jam along with it.
 
Try "In The Dragon's Den", it's quite fast, but I consider the solo being most playable of all I tried until now! I love to play the lead section before the solo!
By the way, I do it with powertabs.
 
-The Eyes of Medusa-
is an awesome song with a great rhythm section and a playable solo, one of my favourite ones actually. It'll open up your mind regarding non standard rhythm playing plus,
it's some heavy shit :headbang:
 
The first song i heard from SX was smoke and mirrors, and therefore it was the first song i learned by them, i didn't learn the solo because for the most part id rather play my own stuff, i don't really play other peoples music very often.. but id have to say, a fun and not-to-difficult SX solo is the turning,, probly my fav solo too..