A lead guitar is to a rock band like water to a fish. Without the lead guitar, the band would certainly not be classified as a real rock band—all the more important for those who are interested in playing in a rock band to take lead guitar lessons. While the best lead guitars can’t simple be ‘taught’ talent, lead guitar lessons will aid an interested guitarist in discovering their creative voice by mastering advanced playing techniques.
Before anyone takes lead guitar lessons, they should already be well familiar with the basics of playing a guitar. If you are a new player, you would do well to avoid trying to lumber through the advanced scope of a lead guitar lesson, as you simply will not have an appreciation for the nature of the lessons. Lead guitar lessons are heavily focused on developing the skills to create great improvisational solos, and to develop a second nature for pulling off difficult guitar maneuvers. To avoid any headaches, a hopeful lead guitarist should certainly make sure they know how to finger all the main chords, complete a full chromatic scale, and have a fair amount of experience playing their guitar before they tackle the lead guitar lesson curriculum.
A common starting point for many lead guitar lessons is to analyze and mimic a typical guitar solo that is recorded for study. It helps to select a solo in the same style as that which a guitarist is interested in playing eventually, but the simpler the better. Noting all the improvisational techniques used by the original soloist, a lead guitar student can improve by leaps and bounds in their own solo technique by learning how to pull of the same techniques themselves. A noteworthy technique that is typically taught in lead guitar lessons is the “bend”, or a measured warping of a note using a sliding pressure with depressed fret fingers. Many advanced soloists will also exploit other fretting maneuvers, like the so-called “hammer on” techniques which allow a guitarist to play two or more notes while using only a single pick of the string. “Pull offs” are similar to the hammer on, except it works backwards by using a single pick and letting a fret finger slide off the string so that the next fret will be heard without a second pick.
Lead guitar lessons will also involve heavy work in alternate fingerings for chords. Using barre chords will dramatically increase the options for the soloing guitar player by adding a number of alternative fretting choices for a single chord. For electric guitars that are equipped with it, work with a trembolo (or “whammy bar,” which creates a unique vibrato effect for sustained notes) will certainly be explored as a favorite weapon of choice for many famous lead guitarists. After a significant amount of lead guitar lessons, most players will have the confidence and creativity to begin performing great-sounding solos. Again, lead guitar lessons aren’t an easy ticket to sounding like Eric Clapton, but you’ll probably be a giant step closer!
