The Trooper Guitar Lesson – Iron Maiden


With this video guitar lesson series we will take an in-depth look at Iron Maiden's classic "The Trooper" off their Piece of Mind album.

This Trooper guitar lesson is actually going to cover all of the riffs and solos note-for-note across 4 separate video lessons.

In the first video I will simply demonstrate how to play that legendary opening guitar riff along with one part of the harmony guitar section afterwards.

The biggest challenge in this opening riff will definitely be the quick shifts required to play it up to speed. There is a pattern in the riff that is basically just repeated 3 times so that part of it is simple to understand.

The first thing I think you should focus on would be the pattern first. Then it will just be a process of playing the pattern after every shift. Easier said than done I know, but anything worth doing always requires a little bit of work. 🙂

From there we arrive at the cool little harmony guitar section. This type of harmony guitar stuff is definitely an Iron Maiden signature. What I demonstrate in the lesson is just one of the harmony lines.

In the second video lesson I will tackle all of the remaining harmony guitar parts as well as all the remaining riffs in the song. The main rhythm during the verse is classic Iron Maiden with a fast galloping rhythm. The important part about getting this gallop rhythm up to speed is to use the proper picking technique. I will demonstrate that picking technique in the video lesson so hopefully you can get it up to speed quickly. It is also important to stay as relaxed as possible during this section since that fast rhythm is used for quite a while. A great picking workout!!

In the third video lesson I will show you how to play Adrian Smith's guitar solo. This solo is full of soaring bends, quick blues scale descending licks, rapid blues licks, a classic legato lick that has been ripped off a million times and much more. I will break the entire thing down phrase-by-phrase.

In the fourth video lesson we will finish up our study of the epic "The Trooper" with a note-for-note lesson of Dave Murray's killer guitar solo. This solo is chock full of fast trills, blues licks and a series of bends that seems to take over the entire fretboard all at once. Truly a great study for all rock and metal guitar players.

I hope you guys enjoy this in-depth look at this metal classic! 🙂

Carl...

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The Trooper Guitar Lesson Pt.1 - Intro

The Trooper Guitar Lesson Pt.2 - Chords/Riffs

The Trooper Guitar Lesson Pt.3 - First Solo (Adrian Smith)

The Trooper Guitar Lesson Pt.4 - Second Solo (Dave Murray)

2 Comments

  1. Patrik Stanic on December 28, 2018 at 10:16 am

    Hey Carl, I faced some struggle in my playing, so I wanted to ask you. Basically I played a relatively hard solo almost perfect for days, but as today I just seemed to be struggling quite hard with it, so I wanted to know if you sometimes have those bad days when you just feel that you can’t accomplish something great on guitar that day? Thanks in advance, you’re the reason I didn’t give up on guitar and became a confident player!! Greets!

    • Carl Brown on December 28, 2018 at 5:29 pm

      That definitely happens to all of us. It could be just your brain isn’t up to the task for a multitude of reasons. It is completely normal!

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