Metal Rhythm Guitar Workouts Vol. 2 by Richard Shaw
Take your heavy rhythm playing to the next level with Metal Rhythm Guitar Workouts Vol. 2 by Richard Shaw. This intense and highly focused course is designed for guitarists who want to develop tighter rhythm playing, sharper picking control, stronger timing, and a deeper understanding of modern metal riff construction. Across a wide range of exercises and musical ideas, this course explores everything from exotic scales and odd time signatures to aggressive tremolo-picked passages and atmospheric black metal-inspired chord work.
Whether you’re aiming to improve your precision, expand your riff vocabulary, or push your endurance as a rhythm guitarist, this course delivers practical and musical workouts that can be applied directly to your own writing and playing.
Pedal Tone Legato Riff
This lesson combines aggressive pedal tone riffing with flowing legato phrasing to create a modern metal sound that feels both technical and musical. By integrating hammer-ons and pull-offs around a repeated low-string pedal note, players learn how to create movement and tension while maintaining rhythmic consistency.
Developing this style of riffing improves left-hand coordination and builds stamina while helping players sound smoother and more fluid at faster tempos. It’s also a fantastic way to learn how modern progressive and technical metal guitarists create dynamic rhythmic phrases without relying entirely on alternate picking.
16th Note Group of Three Riff
This workout focuses on rhythmic displacement using groups of three played over a steady 16th-note pulse. The result is a syncopated and driving riffing style often used in progressive metal and djent-inspired music.
Learning this concept helps guitarists develop stronger rhythmic awareness and timing precision. It also trains the picking hand to remain locked to the groove even when accents shift across the beat. This style of rhythmic phrasing can instantly make riffs sound more advanced and unpredictable while remaining highly musical.
Phrygian Dominant & Diminished Riff
Dark and exotic sounding riffs are a huge part of modern metal, and this lesson explores the powerful combination of the Phrygian Dominant scale with diminished ideas. These sounds create tension, drama, and an unmistakably sinister atmosphere.
By studying this approach, players gain a better understanding of exotic scale application and how diminished intervals can be used to intensify riff writing. This lesson also improves fretboard visualisation and alternate picking accuracy across fast scalar passages.
Byzantine Scale with Tremolo Picking
The Byzantine scale delivers an unmistakable Eastern-inspired sound that has become a staple of extreme metal genres. Combined with relentless tremolo picking, this lesson captures the aggressive energy heard in black metal, death metal, and melodic extreme metal styles.
Working on tremolo picking improves endurance, pick control, and consistency at high speeds. The scale itself also introduces players to more unusual interval structures, helping expand songwriting possibilities far beyond standard minor scales.
Natural Harmonic Riff
This lesson explores the use of natural harmonics within heavy rhythm playing to create texture, atmosphere, and contrast. By integrating harmonics into distorted riffs, players can produce eerie and cinematic sounds that stand out in modern metal arrangements.
Learning to control harmonics cleanly develops picking accuracy and muting technique while encouraging greater dynamic control. It’s also an excellent way to make riffs sound more unique and expressive.
Tremolo & Chromatic Mediant Idea
Chromatic mediant movements create dramatic harmonic shifts often used in cinematic metal and progressive music. This lesson combines those harmonic concepts with aggressive tremolo-picked patterns to create dark, expansive sounding riffs.
Players benefit by learning how to move beyond predictable chord movements and create more sophisticated harmonic ideas in their rhythm playing. The tremolo-picked approach also sharpens right-hand stamina and accuracy.
Black Metal Minor Chords
This lesson dives into the atmospheric chord work associated with black metal rhythm guitar. Using dark minor chord voicings and sustained harmonic textures, players learn how to build immersive and emotional rhythm parts.
Studying these chord shapes improves fretboard knowledge and chord vocabulary while helping players understand how harmony can dramatically affect mood and intensity within metal songwriting.
Combining Diminished & Byzantine Ideas
Here, exotic Byzantine sounds collide with tense diminished phrasing to create truly aggressive and unpredictable riff ideas. This lesson demonstrates how combining scales and intervallic concepts can generate riffs that sound both technical and memorable.
Players will improve their scale fluency, picking precision, and compositional creativity while learning how to blend contrasting sounds into cohesive rhythm guitar parts.
G Minor Byzantine Riff
Focusing specifically on the key of G minor, this lesson develops a crushing riff built around Byzantine-inspired phrasing and rhythmic variation. The result is a heavy and dramatic metal riff that sounds both modern and exotic.
This workout strengthens timing, alternate picking control, and fretboard familiarity while showing players how to turn unusual scale ideas into practical songwriting tools.
Prog Metal 7/8 Riff (Clean)
Odd time signatures are a huge part of progressive metal, and this lesson introduces players to a clean-toned 7/8 riff designed to improve rhythmic understanding and counting accuracy.
Learning to play confidently in 7/8 helps players break out of standard rhythmic habits and develop greater versatility as musicians. The clean tone also exposes timing inconsistencies more clearly, encouraging tighter and more controlled playing.
Prog Metal 7/8 Riff (Distorted)
Building on the previous lesson, this distorted version of the 7/8 riff adds aggression, palm muting, and dynamic accents to create a fully realised progressive metal groove.
This lesson develops tight muting technique, rhythmic discipline, and the ability to maintain precision under gain-heavy conditions. It’s a fantastic exercise for players wanting to improve overall tightness and groove in modern metal settings.
Richard Shaw’s Influence and Playing Style
Richard Shaw has built a reputation as one of the UK’s most technically versatile modern metal guitarists. Known for combining extreme precision with advanced theoretical concepts, his playing draws influence from progressive metal, black metal, neoclassical guitar, and modern technical riffing styles. Throughout this course, Richard demonstrates how advanced rhythm concepts can remain musical, memorable, and practical for real-world songwriting and performance.
His teaching style focuses on breaking complex ideas into manageable exercises, helping players not only improve technique but also understand the musical reasoning behind the riffs.
Techniques Used In This Course
About The Tutor
Tutor Profile
Rich Shaw
Richard is most well known as the guitarist and co-songwriter for UK metal band, Cradle of Filth, from 2014 until 2022. In his time with the band, he co-wrote and performed on the albums ‘Hammer of the Witches’ (2015), ‘Cryptoriana - The Seductiveness of Decay’ (2017), and ‘Existence is Futile’...