How To Play Lead Guitar In 3 Easy Steps

So, you want to learn how to play lead guitar? If you do, then keep reading. This article is for any guitarist of any style who wants to learn how to play blazing, hot solos. With a little practice, you can learn how to play just like the pros, no matter how well you play now.

Discover The Fretboard

It’s highly important that you begin to get familiar with the names of the notes on the frets of a guitar. Making the transition from chords to single notes takes time, but it’s well worth while for those who want to take the spotlight and make some noise. In addition to single-note picking, you’ll need to learn how to use techniques like the hammer-on, the pull-off and other various string exercises to create those incredible sounds.

Secrets To The Solo

A scale is a series of notes, following one after another. A large part of guitar soloing is using what are called pentatonic scales. Pentatonic scales are easy to solo in because most of the notes sound fine no matter where you play them. To become a confident and experienced, you must discover which scales to play, where to find them on the fretboard and how to play them, backwards and forwards.

Speed

Finger dexterity and picking speed is not relevant by itself. One misconception about speed is that in order to learn to play fast, you have to practice past. While knowing your scales and being able to play them quickly is a good thing, it’s not necessary to use this speed for long periods of time. You can learn how to quickly and systematically increase your picking speed and finger dexterity, without pushing yourself and possibly causing tension injuries.

What’s Your Style

You can learn how to tear it up, just like some of the hottest stars in music history. Whether you want to play in Metallica’s style, blues licks like Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughn or jazz songs like George Benson and Larry Carlton, they all have something in common.

If you’ve seen good guitarists, you probably wonder how they learned to play so well. You too can learn to improve your phrasing, develop your own style, increase your finger speed, and play over the entire fretboard in any key. Each style of music and each culture around the world have influenced music. From Hendrix and Santana, to Vai and Satriani, you can learn to play in all sorts of music styles.

Take The Lead Position

Face it, the lead guitarist in a band is always the center of attention, typically playing solos, improvised or written passages played with the accompaniment of the rest of the band. This is where every note counts, as opposed to rhythm guitar, where a chord gets churned out by a single brush of the hand.

Playing the lead position can be so much fun when you really get to shred, once you master impressive lead guitar skills like hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, whole bends, half bends, ghost bends, runs, motifs, vibrato, legato and more. You can usually be more creative than you can with rhythm guitar and it’s more enjoyable in general.

Before you get too far along with guitar lessons, you’ll realize that the way to become a great rhythm guitarist, is to learn how to play lead guitar as well. With a little practice and little patience, you can start learning how to play screaming, soul stirring solos today.