Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

How can I play lead guitar?

I already play rhythmic guitar but I want to play lead guitar now. Where would be the best place to start? I am self-taught.

11 Answers

Relevance
  • 7 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Start studying more (not playing more although that's really important too). What I'm trying to say is avoid the advice of those who start telling you which songs you should learn. Listen to the advice of the guy who says "start learning your scales and modes". The best (and easiest) place to start is to learn the major and minor pentatonic scales. Learn the different patterns for these all up the neck so you can play in any key in any position on the neck (it gets boring really fast if you play in one area of the neck). Once you get those scales down you can move on from there and start improvising over your favorite songs (or record yourself playing the rhythm track and jam over that). Lead guitar does also require a good ear and feel for the music. It's definitely not all technical. There are a lot of technical skills you can practice to enhance your leads like bends, hammer ons, pinch harmonics, sweep picking and stuff like that, but it's all useless if you don't have the scales down pat first.

  • 5 years ago

    If you only begin to play the guitar then you definitely need the most effective programs available on the market to discover ways to play this difficult tool and the best is Jamorama website, here https://tr.im/NtR5S .

    If you are going to learn the guitar for the very first time (Or perhaps you tried before and just couldn't get the "hang" of it), then Jamorama is the best class for you since every session includes a video to accompany the rules, and once you've gone via a week of classes, you are able to obtain and printing a workout sheet associated with those lessons.

    The video instructions explain to you just how to play chords – the fundamentals of enjoying guitar. You'll learn how to play significant, minor, 7th, and simple chords. If that you don't know very well what any of that means, don't allow it scare you. It's all explained in more detail in the videos.

    A good thing about this really is once you get these fundamentals down, the names and the technicality just move to the background and you don't genuinely have to think about it much more – you can just play!

  • Danny
    Lv 7
    7 years ago

    Hi, Brandon. I'm thinking you want to learn soloing, doing riffs & etc. That's basically a use of scales and accurate picking, using efficient positions on the neck and adding techniques for variety, speed, and spice, like hammer-ons, pull-offs, bends, and vibrato.

    Here's a good web site for lots of stuff: http://www.freeguitarvideos.com/lessons.html

    Playing "lead", however, is more than soloing. 'Needs a band, where you're the solo guitarist, at least on a given song. Doing so requires a good blend with the band, nearly flawless timing, knowing when to drop back and punctuate with some rhythm, when to kick it up and throw in a little riff, and getting smoothly in and out of a solo. Even a good tight start and finish for the band on a song may be on the lead player's cue. Not doing all of this can result in sounding like a guitar player who just got hired and missed lots of rehearsals.

    Source(s): Playing since '64, now retired.
  • borhan
    Lv 6
    7 years ago

    i m a self taught lead player .i guess youtube has everything that a beginner intermediate lead player need (also read blogs learn what is necessary to push further).start playing some songs & learn the technique that need to play it .yeah there are scales which will help you to create your own solo .if you are not that new to guitar then maybe its time for you to start learning the musical theory .best thing & most important thing for a lead player is enjoy playing .play different type of genre of music .the more you play the more you gather knowledge from different solos .its helps a lot .slowly you will start to get the idea how famous players actually create solo (there comes the theory parts )

  • How do you think about the answers? You can sign in to vote the answer.
  • 7 years ago

    Learning the basic scales would be the very first place to start.

    The major, minor, pentatonic major and minor, and blues scales would be the 5 I would focus on to start with. You can find diagrams of them online, work on getting the patterns down until you can run up and down the scale without looking at the fretboard.

    Then record some basic rhythm tracks and use the scales you learned to play lead guitar over them. Keep the rhythms simple at first, no more than 3 chords.

  • Anonymous
    7 years ago

    I started playing when I was 10 and my first song was Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol. If you want to learn lead rather than rhythmic chords, I would recommend these easy songs first, just so you can get used to playing single notes, not chords. Once you get comfortable, I'd recommend Avenged Sevenfold riffs and Three Days Grace songs. Try not to learn things that are hard immediately because you don't wanna stress yourself out. :) Good luck. Believe in yourself and you'll go far. Check out my lead guitar cover on Youtube! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgdcRzTDzB0

  • 5 years ago

    One of the most important aspects of singing well involves correct breathing. Now you would think that we would already do this correctly. Try a site like https://tr.im/OFUUc which has the best vocal exercises

    After all if we couldn't breathe we wouldn't be alive! But in reality many people have bad breathing habits caused by a variety of things including poor posture and our often frantic lifestyles. Learning how to control your breathing is one of the keys to improving your voice.

    Singing requires that you are able to take in enough air quickly before you are about to sing a line and then let this air out in a regular and controlled way whilst singing the notes. The mistake many novice singers do is to take a quick shallow gasp of air into the top of the lungs. This results in there being insufficient air, to get you through the line you are singing, and you will end up dropping notes. I'm sure you can relate to this experience and can remember times when you have had to quickly take in more air half way through the line or note you are singing.

  • Anonymous
    7 years ago

    Hi, I've followed many online guitar courses. Without a shadow of doubt the best online training course (for all levels: beginners/intermediates/advanced) is this one http://www.goobypls.com/r/rd.asp?gid=554. It's by far the most complete online course available on earth.

    For more information click here: http://www.goobypls.com/r/rd.asp?gid=554

    Hope it helps.

  • 7 years ago

    Definitely go with a DVD collection where you can stop and go back over and over again so you can grasp what they're trying to teach you. Youtube is obviously a great option as well. But, a collection that offers a series of tapes from begging to intermediate to advance is the way to go. Good luck.

  • 5 years ago

    on line guitar classes with plenty of material readily available for guitarists of different talent levels. It is a good decision for beginners, and new guitar pupils will soon be treated to a comprehensive and gratifying learning experience.

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.