How to Play Lead Guitar

Tired of crunching out rhythm guitar chords in the background? Learning a few more things will get you competent on lead guitar. Making the transition from chords to single notes takes time, but is well worth while for those who want to take the spotlight and make some noise.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Electric guitar
• Amplifier
• Cord
• Guitar picks
• Paper and a pen or pencil

1. Get used to single-note picking. On lead guitar, every note counts, as opposed to rhythm, where a chord gets churned out by a single brush of the hand. Practice picking through scales.
2. Learn the blues scale. This basic series of notes is the foundation of a lot of guitar solos.
3. Go beyond the blues scale. Learn the pentatonic scales. These five-note progressions interlock on the fretboard to map out the various musical "modes," like "aeolian" (major) and "ionian" (minor).
4. Draw a fretboard diagram. Study the way the notes fit together and make sure you know where they are on the fretboard. This will help with more complex lead guitar riffs.
5. Work on advanced techniques. In addition to single-note picking, lead guitar players use hammer-on and various string exercises to create a "flurry" of notes. Also, learn how to 'bend' notes. When you push a string up or down, the note gets higher. This is a favorite tool for playing lead guitar.
6. Learn tablature. This form of musical notation isn't sheet music. It shows you where each finger should be on the fretboard, and you don't need music theory to read it. Tablature will give you the key to any famous solo by mapping it out completely.

Tips & Warnings

• If you aren't familiar with advanced technique, get a book that shows you the way a guitarist's fingers move when playing lead guitar. It can be difficult to understand without seeing.
• If you need examples of tablature, popular guitar magazines usually include a few "tab" solos on their back pages, and they usually put the titles on the cover.
• Don't break your strings. Know the give of your particular guitar and don't 'bend' notes so far that the strings snap off. The chances of injury are slim, but still possible.