Related, a lot of modern/rock guitar players learned these songs not by sheet music, but by what is colloquially known as tablature (or 'tabs') - a pared-back, fingering-based system of written musical notation which often omits timing information entirely.<p>It's like learning a complex dance as a set of bland, unguided position changes, and having to rely upon observation of the actual performance in order to replicate the rhythm, timing and other fine detail.<p>The early years/decades of the internet saw a particular boom in this style of self-learning. A state-of-affairs which means that a sizeable portion of self-taught musicians - certainly guitar and bass players - from the 90's and 00's, would navigate these, shall we call them 'rebel phrases', with a certain advantage born of unconventional learning approach. That is to say, a significant amount of playing-what-you-hear was de rigeur with the tablature-based style of learning. They never learned the traditional notation conventions in the first place, and thus had no need to break from them, in order to replicate these weird parts.<p>All that said, experienced players have long known that "official" music notation publications in this style of music (rock/metal) almost always require imbibing with a few grains of salt. To paraphase Dimebag Darrell, a renowned musician in this area: the extra magic, the X factor, it comes from the fine detail, the slurs and variations, the things that are by nature more difficult to define and achieve.