Keep the following advice in mind while working through our lead guitar lessons:
Discover Your Lead Guitar Style
Most guitar players try desperately to impress people when they play a solo. Perhaps you’re guilty of this yourself. That’s all right because we all fall victim to this at one point or another. Sometimes this will impress people and can help drive you to develop great technique, but in all honesty, you can spot a guitar player trying to impress people a mile away. Most time the only people these types of players impress are themselves and maybe other guitar players.
When the majority of people listen to music they aren’t listening to see if the guitar player can wail or not. Most people aren’t guitar players. They’re listening to make an emotional connection. It doesn’t matter whether it’s sadness, happiness, anger, frustration, or any other emotion. That’s what you should strive for in your soloing: conveying the emotion of a song.
Do Your Own Thing
Learning to play solos of your favorite guitar players from our lead guitar lessons can be a great learning tool. It’s great to borrow a lick or two from them every once in a while for your solos, but whatever you do don’t just copy them. There are already way too many copycat guitarists running around. If you just copy your heroes you’ll just be another face in the crowd.
You have your lead guitar style lurking, waiting to come out. This section’s sole purpose is to help you discover your style and clarify it. We’ll show you some licks from some of the great guitar players. Our purpose here is not to show you how to emulate them but to give you some ideas of things you can come up with on your own. You should view the notes that make up a lick as words and the entire lick as a sentence. While what you play (say) may not be original, how you play it (say it) can be distinctly your own.
It’s All In The Phrasing
Phrasing refers to not what is played but how it’s played. Again, think about playing lead guitar as talking. Maybe you’re trying to make a point or convey how you feel about something. Oftentimes you will hear a good solo and it almost sounds like singing just without words.
Good phrasing is something you develop with time and lots and lots of practice and playing with others. Phrasing is what separates the great guitar players from the average. When you get caught in the trap of impressing people or emulating your heroes phrasing goes out the door.