alex1fly
Well-known member
Re: Help! I can't play lead!
I understand where you're coming from. I've been playing about 8 years, and my strengths are in chord theory, progressions, and laying down the rhythm parts. My sense of melody is crummy compared to my sense of rhythm and timing. I've been working on my lead playing, but I always feel like I'm playing the same thing over and over again.
What I've done is try to find things that my specific style of lead playing sounds good over.... that way, I feel good about myself and my playing. Once that's down, I try something new.
Try this out sometime. While you're jamming on your favorite progressions, try adding some space between the chords, and throw in some "passing tones" that sound good in connecting the chords. Pretty soon, you'll start to hear a couple of passing tones that will sound good between the chords. From there, you'll still hear the passing tones between the chords, but maybe you'll think of a 3-note melody for one of the chords. Does that make sense?
This is the approach I've been taking for almost a year now. My lead playing is still wayyyy below where I'd like it be, but I feel more able as a guitarist. Some of us are just more rhythmically minded rather than melodically minded. Play to your strengths, and SLOWLY stretch yourself.
I understand where you're coming from. I've been playing about 8 years, and my strengths are in chord theory, progressions, and laying down the rhythm parts. My sense of melody is crummy compared to my sense of rhythm and timing. I've been working on my lead playing, but I always feel like I'm playing the same thing over and over again.
What I've done is try to find things that my specific style of lead playing sounds good over.... that way, I feel good about myself and my playing. Once that's down, I try something new.
Try this out sometime. While you're jamming on your favorite progressions, try adding some space between the chords, and throw in some "passing tones" that sound good in connecting the chords. Pretty soon, you'll start to hear a couple of passing tones that will sound good between the chords. From there, you'll still hear the passing tones between the chords, but maybe you'll think of a 3-note melody for one of the chords. Does that make sense?
This is the approach I've been taking for almost a year now. My lead playing is still wayyyy below where I'd like it be, but I feel more able as a guitarist. Some of us are just more rhythmically minded rather than melodically minded. Play to your strengths, and SLOWLY stretch yourself.
Last edited:
