3 Tips To Help You Become A Creative Lead Guitarist

3 Tips To Help You Become A Creative Lead Guitarist

By Tom Hess

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could play amazingly creative and expressive guitar licks and solos at will?

No doubt about it!

Most guitarists wish they had the ability to do this, but give up before they ever do.

Don't worry:

It’s not as hard as you might think as long as you do these three things:

Lead Guitar Tip One - Focus On How Notes Feel As You Play Them

You open the door to playing lead guitar expressively and creatively when you learn how certain notes feel while played over certain chords.

For instance:

How does it feel when you play a note that it is a major 9th over the root of a minor chord being played below it? What about playing it over a major chord?

What is the feeling when you hear a #11 over a major 7 chord?

The more you learn about how notes feel over different chords, the easier it is to play licks that sound good without even thinking about it!

Lead Guitar Tip Two – Get As Much As You Can From Every Note

Don't make the common mistake of playing more and more notes in your licks rather than making each note sound better as a whole.

Try focusing on playing at least ONE amazing note first.

Once you can play a truly amazing note, you can play an entire guitar solo of killer notes.

Practice this by using many different guitar techniques in various ways to phrase a single note differently. For example: vibrato, bends or slides.

Lead Guitar Tip Three – Learn How To Master Musical Tension

Emotionally expressive guitar solos often possess an amazing balance of tension and release that keeps you captivated.

Anyone listening becomes totally engaged.

You want your guitar licks to feel like this, right?

Learn 4 ways to improve any guitar lick and sound more expressive using this guitar lick improvement guide.