Testament guitarist Alex Skolnick talked about the impact jazz and world music had on his performance as a metal guitarist, telling Face Culture:
“Timing – you have to develop a really strong sense of timing in world music and jazz.
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“I might take some ideas, some scales from world music that I can apply. I can just take this similar idea but with distorted guitar and then adjust it and try to come up with more of a metal-sounding drum pattern.
“And the same thing with jazz. Playing jazz guitar, you really learn how to see things differently. You see things more linear up and down the neck, not just across the neck, you become much more aware of certain shapes and systems and triads, 7th chords, extended chords, extended harmonies…
“Just being able to tap into that – if I come up with a riff and it really sounds like a metal riff – I think just having this other side enables me to try a lot of variations very quickly.
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“I say, ‘What if I do a flat 5 triad in between the chords,’ or ‘What if I take the melodic minor mode and try to do that.’ But I’m not trying to make it sound like jazz, I might just say, ‘Here is a great riff, this is purely a metal riff, and now it needs some single notes.’
“So for the single notes there are so many shapes in mind that I can try. I think it has enabled me to come up with some interesting stuff.”