Learn to play the guitar riff to Metallica's classic Master Of Puppets

Eddie Munson playing Master Of Puppets on a BC Rich Warlock in the Upside Down in the final episode of Stranger Things season 4 is going to be hard to top for 2022's most metal moment. And if there is anyone out there who hadn't heard the track before and wants to learn it, we've got good and bad news. 

The bad news is Metallica's riff machine James Hetfield plays it all downpicked, and that is not easy. The good news is learning it will develop your right hand rhythm chops massively, and if you want to use upstrokes, that's fine too! 

Whichever way you want to play it, Total Guitar's video riff lesson below is here to help.

The making of Metallica's Master Of Puppets

Rob Laing
Guitars Editor, MusicRadar

I'm the Guitars Editor for MusicRadar, handling news, reviews, features, tuition, advice for the strings side of the site and everything in between. Before MusicRadar I worked on guitar magazines for 15 years, including Editor of Total Guitar in the UK. When I'm not rejigging pedalboards I'm usually thinking about rejigging pedalboards.