What do you suggest?

[Danacus]

I have been playing rhythm guitar for about 9 years now, without playing many leads at all. I am getting bored and would like to start playing faster lead type stuff. How would you guys recommend I start?

Thanks in advance to any useful posts.

Dana

[Sunbane]

Practice your alternate picking. Slowly. You can do it with scales and/or patterns. This is the basis for most metal leadwork. Make up runs that cross strings. Slowly. Avoid sweep picking for the time being.

Note what I wrote up there again. Take it slow. You are learning technique, not speed. Once you have the technique down, you can start increasing the speed. You don't want to develop sloppiness in your technique, or you will sound like ass. When you start playing faster, you will probably start noticing missed notes or slop at some point. Then you need to turn the tempo back down again, and make sure you are playing each note cleanly. It will take time to see the results, but they will come.

Many people suggest training alternate picking with a metronome, starting at a slow pace. I have never done that. I think it's probably a good method for reaching results quickly - it's just that it bores me to tears.

Practice bending and vibrato. Try to reach the same note with each bend. Again, slow. You will want to develop a strong, steady and slow vibrato. Fast vibratos generally don't sound very thrilling. Try to use a swivelling motion in your wrist to perform the bends/vibrato. This gives you more power and momentum. If you find it painful or difficult to bend with just one finger - then use two on the same string.

Try to be as lighthanded as you can. Eventually you will want your fingers to fly, and this isn't possible if you've practiced in the "grip of death". Plus, it may cause strain injuries down the road.

Pick up stuff from other guitarists. This is a great way of learning new techniques - be it from someone you know, or from an instructional video.

Try to practice for at least half an hour a day.

[drockilles]

Another good way to practice is to learn your scales, then just record a simple chord vamp and improvise over it. If you have the resources, record your improvising along with the rhythm track. You'll get an ear for what scales work over different progressions, and it will help you develop your phrasing. Listening back to what you played will give you a brutally honest insight of what you need to work on. And as Sunbane stated, start developing that vibrato and those bends early.

[SouthPlatteDemon]

Practice your alternate picking. Slowly. You can do it with scales and/or patterns. This is the basis for most metal leadwork. Make up runs that cross strings. Slowly. Avoid sweep picking for the time being.

Note what I wrote up there again. Take it slow. You are learning technique, not speed. Once you have the technique down, you can start increasing the speed. You don't want to develop sloppiness in your technique, or you will sound like ass. When you start playing faster, you will probably start noticing missed notes or slop at some point. Then you need to turn the tempo back down again, and make sure you are playing each note cleanly. It will take time to see the results, but they will come.

Many people suggest training alternate picking with a metronome, starting at a slow pace. I have never done that. I think it's probably a good method for reaching results quickly - it's just that it bores me to tears.

Practice bending and vibrato. Try to reach the same note with each bend. Again, slow. You will want to develop a strong, steady and slow vibrato. Fast vibratos generally don't sound very thrilling. Try to use a swivelling motion in your wrist to perform the bends/vibrato. This gives you more power and momentum. If you find it painful or difficult to bend with just one finger - then use two on the same string.

Try to be as lighthanded as you can. Eventually you will want your fingers to fly, and this isn't possible if you've practiced in the "grip of death". Plus, it may cause strain injuries down the road.

Pick up stuff from other guitarists. This is a great way of learning new techniques - be it from someone you know, or from an instructional video.

Try to practice for at least half an hour a day.

Althought not the original poster, this was very helpful to me as well.

Thanks for posting this!

[dg]

One of the better books to check out is Troy Stetina's Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar. It's excellent.

http://www.amazon.com/Speed-Mechanics-Lead-Guitar-Stetina/dp/0793509629

[seafoamer]

use your ear to try and cop some of your favorite solo licks.

[Sunbane]

Althought not the original poster, this was very helpful to me as well.

Thanks for posting this!

You're welcome! For the most part, those are things I've learned the hard way. I'm happy they are useful to someone.

[Danacus]

Cool. Thanks for the replies. Any other book or video suggestions?

[dg]

John Petrucci's Rock Discipline DVD is good. Paul Gilbert & Frank Gambale also put out some great videos. The point seafoamer made is also very good. Lots of people get really into just using tab, practicing scales & working on their chops, but their ear lags way behind. It's a good idea to set aside some of your practice time to do exactly what he said, and to keep everything in a musical context.

[jim777]

Petrucci's "Rock Discipline" is great, but I think his "Wild Stringdom" book and CD are better. That combo will help you become a much better player fairly quickly. I also very highly recommend Jack Zucker's "Sheets of Sound" book to anyone at any level who wants to improve their overall playing.

[Soap]

I have been playing rhythm guitar for about 9 years now, without playing many leads at all. I am getting bored and would like to start playing faster lead type stuff. How would you guys recommend I start?

Thanks in advance to any useful posts.

Dana

Take up another interest or hobby, burn all your guitars and then take an axe and completely chop them into junk pieces, and never ever have a thought to take up playing guitar again. ALSO, use the search button its very useful and user friendly.

With that said, download some artist/s guitar videos and etc...
Very useful way to learn and gather insight, just learn at your own pace.
No! I'm not gonna suggest any specfic videos. One, its already been done and secondly, thats why we have the benefits of "google". Type in guitar video/s and you'll be busy for days.
Download the videos with a torrent manager.
Also, have you heard of youtube? Its a good place to check lots of stuff out BEFORE downloading them. You know, "see if you like it first" scenario.
Also, learn all the pentatonic positions.

I said way too much already, gotta go.
Next time we speak, I'll have to kill you, seriously.
Did I say use the "search" button? Yep, I did.

[jjw]

learn you pents/major scale modes and arps.Dont rush it,take your time and learn to walk before you can run.Its very important for you to get bends and vibrato nailed at varying speeds and widths to add dynamics to your playing.I wouldnt advice copying people note for note(unless your in a tribute band)and mimicing someones licks and tricks as you will never be them-and i dont want to hear another them,i would rather hear something fresh and new.So write your own licks out-create your own scales-mess around with tunings and above all have fun

[Twisteramps]

One thing about trying to learn others solos and licks is that, especially in the beginning stages, you won't be able to duplicate them exactly. BUT, it may lead you in a different direction and open your eyes to something new. One thing I used to do would be to learn a solo or lick best I could, then practice it and not listen to the original again for a long time. I would mutate it naturally, and it would add to my 'bank' of things that I knew.

Pete

[skorb]

I learned to solo by playing along to songs with slower, melodic leads and phrases, and just started with those until I got them down and then kept looking for the next more difficult or faster solo parts.

don't bite off too much at once, learn a slower solo in a song you like first and then ratchet it up. no need to try to "shred" right away. learn the fretboard also, by getting a good book of guitar scales to practice on.

[UFORocks]

I wanna start by saying that there is a lot of great advice here, there are a lot of great guitar players here, and I make no claim to be 1/2 as good as 1/2 the guys here.

With that said...

The best thing that ever happened to me, in regards to learning lead, was finally pushing "scales" out of my mind. I've wasted more time memorizing and playing scales than I care to admit. Im NOT saying that scales themselves are a waste of time, just that I wasted much of my own time on them because I was under the false assumption that I had to know them all to be a lead guitarist.

An easy way to break into lead playing is to start a chord progression and then play the arpeggio(sp) over it. Its not all that inventive, but it's easy, and its a great way to get familiar with the notes on the fret board, and how those notes interact with each chord.

Also, this video is really helped me http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...Marty+Friedman

Hope this helps you

Later,

Steve