Halloween’s just around the corner, and in the spirit of the spoopy spooky season, Echopraxia’s Austin Woodward is taking us on a journey of ghoulish proportions. The Nashville-based guitarist hails from a background in gypsy jazz and Russian classical music, despite playing mostly progressive metal, and his style can be characterized by the combination of technical metal sounds with some pretty insane orchestral elements. And in anticipation of the new Echopraxia EP Pumpkin Palace (slated to drop this Halloween), Austin is bringing us his top 5 tips for spookier playing and composing! Are you scared yet?
In the tutorial, Austin talks about a few of his favorite ways to achieve a spookier sound in your playing. While the concepts he’s talking about are being demonstrated on a guitar, the ideas themselves are universal and can be applied to pretty much any melodic instrument out there. From utilizing the classic harmonic minor scale to more in-depth topics like chromatic transitioning in melody lines, Austin breaks down some concepts that we often take for granted in the realm of dramatic and haunting music. If you’re a fan of movies like John Carpenter’s Halloween or Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, you’re gonna love this.
If you like what you’re hearing, you can pre-order Pumpkin Palace (along with a ton of other sweet merch) over on Austin’s Bandcamp page. And to keep up with Echopraxia, be sure to follow their Facebook for the latest spooks and spoops. Happy Thalloween!
