IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE THAT METALLICA’S original bassist, Cliff Burton, would be 47 today had he not died at just over half that age in a tour-bus accident in September 1986. Fortunately we’ll always have the classic lines he threw down on Metallica’s breakthrough album, Master of Puppets [1986, Elektra]. Example 1 is the disc’s opening track, the thrash-metal classic “Battery.” It lays down the gauntlet with a yearsahead- of-its-time breakneck metal riff that Burton not only copped with his superhuman fingers, but enhanced and slightly reharmonized along the way.
Let’s look at the physical technique first. The good news is you never have to leave the E string. The bad news is, your plucking hand needs to be in serious shape to play this line without a pick, as Burton did. My recommendation: Start by striking the first note with your index finger, then get your gallop on by playing the two 16th-notes and following eighth-note with a three-finger rake: ring finger, middle finger, index finger. Repeat the gallop and return to regular plucking-hand fingering for the last three eighth-notes of bar 1. If you can do that at 194 beats per minute, you can play the whole example. Like anything, slower tempos are recommended for practice, especially as you build the Cliff-level endurance necessary for the complete five-plus-minute assault. (Can it be done with just two fingers? Sure, but the three-finger gallop gives it a sonic texture that’s closer to the original intention. Plus, galloping is way more metal.)
Harmonically, Cliff tips off his awareness of the greater musical picture with just four notes of the line. The guitars and bass are essentially in single-note/power-chord unison the whole time except for the last three eighth-notes of bar 2 and the first eighth of bar 3, where the guitars play E minor 3rds as follows: E-G, E-G, D#-F#, EG. Burton takes this opportunity to emphasize each interval’s minor 3rd, G-G-F#-G, in the lowest register possible, propelling the riff in a subtle but effective way. That stuff didn’t happen by accident; Cliff was a classically trained pianist, and his knowledge of theory—combined with his fearsome bass technique and windmill-headbanging— helped shape Metallica into the multi-platinum monster it eventually became.
In a 2006 interview with a Swedish newspaper about the 20th anniversary of Burton’s death, Metallica frontman James Hetfield credited Cliff with expanding the band’s harmonic horizons. “We never would have written guitar harmonies or instrumentals or songs with very intricate melodies and orchestrations without Cliff. We wouldn’t be where we are today.” And with fingerstyle maniac Robert Trujillo currently nailing down Metallica’s bass chair, you can now see it’s not only possible to pull off “Battery” with just your fingers, the band actually prefers it.
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Now, for extra metal credit, do it while windmilling!