Iced Earth - How to Play "Tragedy and Triumph" 

+6672rock He's got some stuff in which he does it even faster! There's a few live performances of pure evil where he does it up to 250bpm. Even more astonishing is that he has a few songs in which he plays even faster than that and with pure downpicking. The last part of Last December is one of them. It's really insane. Galloping by the way is very easy once you have practiced it a lot. It's a very efficient movement. You play three notes in a single circular motion, so that saves a lot of energy and therefore requires much less stamina than you think. I'm by no means a good guitarist but I can easily keep up with a fast Iced Earth song if it's gallops only and I have been playing for only 2 years. It's the downpicking stuff that's the hardest to do. Check out some live versions of Last December and The Hunter for instance

Agreed mate, his rhythm is phenomenal.

Lets not go overboard, it's not THAT hard.

His picking is like a Machine Gun..I don't think there is anything else like it

"Iron Maiden on Steroids" is a very good definition for iced earth

I think as a straight rhythm player, Jon is better than Dimebag but as an overall guitarist Dimebag is superior. Johns picking is just so on point and precise.

Agree, but they are also singing

Who is number one

Mohd Mulysa I agree, Jon Schaefer is by far the best rhythm guitar player in my opinion. His playing sounds amazing at any pace he goes.

Jon Schaffer is a true legend.

Both Are Awesome James Hetfield Is My #1 & Jon Schaffer Is My # 2 In My Top 5 List Of Favourite Rhythm Guitarists Ever 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻

Ok, but James is also singing.....

@@Bstonz85 in that case you need To listen stormrider, Jon sings that song and the rythm is very Hard and tight.

+Lost Freakquency he takes what maiden started and kept it going

Maiden didn't invent galloping. Heart recorded Baracuda in 1977. Maiden recorded their demo in late December of 1978.

Guys, the gallop is too much of a simple concept for it to be able to determine who invented it. Big chance that a thousand years ago some medieval dude played a 8th 16th16th gallop pattern in his lute or something, or an african trible played it on bongo's or something along those lines. Might've been used in classical music as well. Only thing we can say for sure is that Iron Maiden popularized it as a heavy metal rhythm and made it an integral part of their sound and Jon gave it his own twist (and arguable made it an EVEN more integral sound of his band) by speeding it up, placing some 8th notes in between (Path I Choose, for instance) and by going for that tight mechanical kind-of style. What's also really nice about Jon's playing is that he's great with dynamics. The groove of his riffs is mostly determined by the way he hits certain notes harder and at different angles than others. Sometimes he accents the first note of a gallop a little more and sometimes the last one, while the middle note is usually a lot softer. The first note is also usually played a tiny bit higher up the string towards the neck. And the 8th notes be plays in between are also sometimes deliberately accented or not. This is what makes him so great and makes him sound so unique. For instance the first galloping speedriff from Dante's Inferno was changed in the 2011 version. He uses the exact same notes but the accents are placed differently. Comparing the rhythm of the part right at the after of the line "ABANDON! All hope who enter here" between 1995 and the 2011 version carefully and you'll start to hear what I mean :).