I’ve been playing guitar for the past 30 years and I’m a pretty good rhythm player…but I become completely flustered when it comes to any lead playing or solos. I understand chords, the basics of music theory, and finger picking, but my mastery of the fretboard isn’t so hot.
Where should I start in the Justin Guitar world?
I’m a bit overwhelmed by all the possible directions, but my goal is to have a much better understanding of scale application, lead playing, and improvisation.
Much obliged for your guidance and I look forward to woodsheddin’ with y’all.
Welcome to the forum Robert
Start with the Rut Buster videos. They are lessons helping
Lee with the some problem you discribed.
Justin lists the lesson he wants Lee to practice to get better at lead guitar. Some of the lesson mentioned in the videos you may need to use the search on the website because the website has gone though an update and some lessons have been moved
Hi Robert, Welcome to the community.
Some of the things you may want are scattered in the various Grade Modules, probably starting in Grade 3. It is easy to go to a Grade (under the Courses heading), scan the Module content and explore things. There is also a Skills section under the Courses heading that probably has topics of interest. There is some intersection between items in the Grade Modules and the Skills sections. It doesn’t seem to matter from which direction you approach it.
Hi Robert,
Welcome. This site has a search function…in the top right corner…type the word ‘scale’ or the word “solo”…and you’re way closer to what you’re looking for
Have fun,
Greetings,Rogier
I was just about to create a topic along the same lines as this one but saw this and thought I would add my request for lead guitar help here.
I have been playing for 4 and a half years now, learning through Justinguitar and other resources. I consider myself at ‘advancing beginner’ level but joining a newly formed music group 10 months ago has really helped advance my playing.
This group soon evolved into a band with myself playing rhythm guitar and we have performed live a few times now.
So… to my problem. The band have asked me if I could learn the lead line to ‘What’s up’ by 4 non blondes (We are doing it in the key of G rather than the original key of A to suit our singers vocal range better) I have hardly played any lead guitar thus far in my journey, but despite this I am learning the lead line quite well but I have quickly discovered that trying to play the lead line in time to the rhythm, making sure that the notes are played over the right chords and that I finish my solo at the right time is even more difficult than learning the lead line itself. Justin has done lessons on improvising, on playing blues lead, again improvising but thus far I haven’t been able find a lesson on playing set rock lead guitar solo’s over chords. The closest I have found on the site is the set beginner blues solo in module 13. I would appreciate any help with this. Thanks in advance.
@laser_171825
Malcolm, composed solos that are more based in melodic ideas and short motifs rather than licks and scale runs, need to be approached differently to playing your own spontaneous improvisations.
Melody = notes + rhythm.
A good melodic lead solo = notes + rhythm + expressive techniques.
What you describe is trouble with the rhythm part.
If you are unable to catch it by feel, by inate timing and overwhelming familiarity with the part then you are going to have to deconstruct it, reverse engineer it, then build it up again.
Are you familiar with note duration, quarters, eighths, sixteenths? Are you able to count them along to music and ad you play? Do you know when the lead solo begins? On the 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or between the beats? Do you know the duration of the notes and when there are rests?
Hi @Richard_close2u and thank you for your advice on this.
Yes, I am familiar with note duration and I can play the rhythm part of this song all of the way through and keep good time.
Having listened to the song many times it would appear that the lead line comes in on beat 4 of the second cycle of the chord progression of the intro and continues into the start of the first verse when the vocals come in. The lead line repeats later in the song but without the first 4 notes. Yes, I can ‘feel’ the lead line and apply the rests but I need some kind of a guide. I can’t just play it by ‘feel’ as I only need to be a fraction out on each note and by the time I get to the end of my lead line I could be finishing way before or after I should be, (In engineering we call this accumulative error).
I have been sent an audio track of the song in the key of G, complete with vocals, and the lead line which I can play along to, which should be a great help and I am hoping that if I play along to this enough times I will eventually be able to play the lead line without it being present on a track, otherwise it looks like I am going to have to really dissect it as you suggest.
I’m trying to learn some lead myself, certainly not an expert, but I’ll give you my take.
This seems like a red flag, to me. If you are a fraction out on each note, you should “feel” that you are out of time after one or two bars. You are not playing in time. You need to play in time when playing lead lines just like when you strum the rhythm. Your guide should be the rhythm played by the rest of the band. You should realize it if you get off the beat.
I suspect that you don’t know the lead part well enough to be able to worry about staying in time. I have had the same experience. My solution is learn the solo , using a metronome, starting out slow and gradually increasing the tempo until I can play it at the correct tempo of the song. It can be hard to stay in time with the metronome, but you just gotta practice until you get it. If you get to that point, then it’s mostly a matter of when to start the solo. If you stay in time, you will end at the right place.
I guess that the problem here is that although I consider myself edging towards
an intermediate level rhythm guitarist ,I am very much a beginner with lead guitar.
With rhythm you are usually playing chords in 4 beat bars, a bar of G, a bar of A etc or sometimes you might split a bar with 2 chords, but essentially you can lock into a metronome or a drum beat to keep good time. I remember struggling with timing for quite some time at the beginning, but I have improved since and I can now keep pretty good time when playing rhythm guitar.
Lead lines/ solo’s however don’t follow the same rules. Yes, you have to keep in time but you’re not playing a steady rhythm. Take the lead line for ‘What’s up’ that I am trying to learn. It starts on beat 4 of the second bar of the intro but it continues over the start of the verse. The notes are played at different intervals, and there are pauses. To play to a metronome you would have to learn at which beat of every bar every single note that you are playing falls on. I have come to the conclusion that learning a set lead line / solo like this is much more difficult than improvising, and, in my opinion is an area that perhaps isn’t covered enough by Justin and other online guitar teachers.
This is why you’re having trouble. Lead lines follow the exact same rule as rhythm playing.
It starts on beat 2 of bar 4 the count is 1 2 and a 3 and 4 and you play on the and a beat 2 on the ands beat 3 4 and.
Rest Rest up down Rest up Rest up.
Listen to the original it’s in the Key of A no capo not G. If must play it in G learn to from the original then transpose it.
Linda Perry has a very distinct strumming pattern to this song and is very easy to follow when playing the lead.
Just listened to the original the beat is 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a
Yes, you do. Either consciously or internally by feel.
Yeah, it’s a lot harder.
I mean, to improvise, you can hit any note (within a specific scale) at any time you want. When you play a composed piece you have to hit the correct note at the exact right time, perhaps 100 times, without making a mistake. It’s way more difficult. Of course, to improvise well, to make something that sounds musical is harder, but I think you’re talking about the mechanics of improvising compared to playing a composed piece.
I have alluded to a similar phenomenon when discussing melody / lyrics as opposed to rhythm guitar / chords.
Your lead guitar part is playing melody. It is free from some of the constraints of rhythm / chords.
The melody of a song is rarely a good indicator of when chord changes happen. In the vast, vast majority of songs, chords change on beat 1 or beat 3. This is essential because the chords (whether a lone guitar or multiple instruments together) are there making up the rhythm section to provide a solid harmonic structure, a secure pulse, a reliable foundation upon which the singer can build and grow and develop their story in melody.
Knowing how to play the chord changes in time is not usually an automatic platform to be able to play the melody in time. It stands on its own and must be learned in its own right.
By analogy, the ‘band’ playing the rhythm are the solid bed of ice at an ice rink and the singer is the figure skater who can glide forwards, backwards, pirouette, leap up, spin and perform all sorts of graceful movements.
Melodies can come in early, or come in late, or start before a bar or cross the boundaries of bars, moving between and in the musical cracks of time.
See if this helps.
Lead guitar part shown as percussive hits placed in bars all split into sixteenths.
