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LeadGuitarWorkshop.ws
Free lead guitar lessons - on this website I explain my method of lead guitar improvisation. I will demonstrate the implementation of Music Theory to lead guitar solos using diagrams and audio examples.
Musical techniques and subjects covered here include Speed Scales, Triplet Rolls, Box Patterns, Digital Picking (Sequencing), Pedal-Point, Finger-Tapping, Arpeggios, Double-Stops, Hendrix-style Octaves, Neighbor Tones, and various scale types - The Church Modes, The Pentatonic Scale, The Diminished Scale, The Augmented Scale, The Harmonic Minor Scale, The Blues Scale, and The Gypsy Scale.
Guitar lead is both an art and a science. First I will discuss the science or technical side of playing lead.
There are more Audio Examples further down demonstrating the guitar techniques explained in the text (approx 3 Audio Examples per Page).
***Note: You may have to click "Play" twice on some systems.***
For a lead part to sound acceptable and not weird or discordant, the notes played should be in the same Key as whatever chord progression the rhythm guitar or rhythm section is playing. Two things have to be determined:
1) what is the Root tone (or simply "Root") of the song or progression.
2) is the song or progression minor, Major, or some other "mode" such as Dorian or Phrygian.
The Root of a song or song passage will be some tone that the song or passage keeps returning to. Usually the Root tone will be the first and last tone of a song or song passage.
Typically, the chord progression being played by the rhythm guitar or rhythm section will start and end on the Root tone, for instance, a typical progression is: Am, G, Fmaj7, G, Am. The first and last chords are "A" and they are minor chords, so the Root is "A" and it is some kind of minor progression, probably A-minor, but it could possibly be some other minor type such as A-Dorian, A-Phrygian, or A-Locrian.
Here's another example: suppose the rhythm guitar is playing this progression: G, Am, Bm, Am, G. The first and last chords are "G" and they are Major chords, so the Root tone is "G" and the chord progression is some kind of Major progression, probably G-Major, but it could possibly be some other Major type such as G-Lydian or G-Mixolydian.
By far the most common "modes" in Western music are Natural minor and Natural Major, but there are other modes. For historical reasons these are called the "Church Modes." There are 7 Church Modes; they are:
1. Ionian or Natural Major
2. Dorian
3. Phrygian
4. Lydian
5. Mixolydian
6. Aeolian or Natural minor
7. Locrian
Western music is fundamentally based upon the Natural Major scale (also called the Ionian scale) which is the familiar "do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do" scale.
If the first and last tones "do" are "C" tones, then you would be singing a
C-Major scale
If the first and last tones "do" are "F" tones, then you would be singing
an F-Major scale
If the first and last tones "do" are are "G" tones, then you would be singing
a G-Major scale
etc.
Let's number each tone as follows:
1 = do
2 = re
3 = mi
4 = fa
5 = so
6 = la
7 = ti
1 = do
Now let's transfer these tones onto the guitar fretboard.
This graphic is to be thought of as a pattern that can be slid up or down the fretboard to the appropriate position.
In this graphic and all following graphics the vertical lines are the strings, low-E string on the left, high-E string on the right, and the horizontal lines are the frets:
If you play the notes from 1 to 1, ie, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1 then you are playing a Natural Major (or Ionian) scale.
If you play the notes from 6 to 6, ie, 6,7,1,2,3,4,5,6 then you are playing a Natural minor (or Aeolian) scale.
And all the other "Church Modes" are defined in the same manner:
Play from 1 to 1, ie, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1 for the Natural Major (or Ionian) scale.
Play from 2 to 2, ie, 2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2 for the Dorian mode
Play from 3 to 3, ie, 3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3 for the Phrygian mode.
Play from 4 to 4, ie, 4,5,6,7,1,2,3,4 for the Lydian mode.
Play from 5 to 5, ie, 5,6,7,1,2,3,4,5 for the Mixolydian mode.
Play from 6 to 6, ie, 6,7,1,2,3,4,5,6 for the Natural minor (or Aeolian) scale.
Play from 7 to 7, ie, 7,1,2,3,4,5,6,7 for the Locrian mode.
If the 1's are all "C" tones, then playing from 1 to 1, ie, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1 will be a C-Major scale (it could also be called C-Ionian, but C-Major is more common). Remember, a Major scale is the familiar do-re-mi-... scale. The scale, of course, can be extended more than one octave. Any way of climbing thru the notes will work; you can go up one string, go across all six strings, or any other way as long as you keep to the given pattern of 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1.
If the 6's are all "C" tones, then playing from 6 to 6, ie, 6,7,1,2,3,4,5,6 will be a C-minor scale (it could also be called C-Aeolian, but C-minor is more common). The scale, of course, can be extended more than one octave. Any way of climbing thru the notes will work; you can go up one string, go across all six strings, or any other way as long as you keep to the given pattern of 6,7,1,2,3,4,5,6.
Any Church Mode in any Key then can be played by moving the fretboard number pattern given in the graphic above; for instance:
Play from 6 to 6 with all the 6's being "A" tones for A-minor
Play from 6 to 6 with all the 6's being "Eb" tones for Eb-minor
Play from 7 to 7 with all the 7's being "E" tones for E-Locrian Mode
Play from 2 to 2 with all the 2's being "G" tones for G-Dorian Mode
Play from 1 to 1 with all the 1's being "D" tones for D-Major
Play from 1 to 1 with all the 1's being "C#" tones for C#-Major
Play from 3 to 3 with all the 3's being "B" tones for B-Phrygian
Play from 5 to 5 with all the 5's being "F" tones for F-Mixolydian
Play from 4 to 4 with all the 4's being "C" tones for C-Lydian
etc.
Keep in mind that for Western music (Rock, Pop, Country, etc) the Natural minor and Natural Major scales are by far the most common modes used; the other "Church Modes" are seldom used. Another common scale type is the Pentatonic Scale which I will get into later.
It is more practical to just memorize patterns rather than where every number is located. The way I think of scale lead patterns is shown below. In this graphic, as in all the other graphics, the vertical lines are the strings, low-E string on the left, high-E string on the right, and the horizontal lines are the frets. There are 7 different patterns. Three notes are played on each string which helps create a nice rhythm and helps with speed; these are called "Speed Scales."
Remember that if you are playing a minor scale, which will usually be the case with Rock or Heavy Metal, you will typically start with Pattern #6; if you want to play a Major scale, start with Pattern #1. Similarly, start with Pattern #2 for the Dorian Mode, start with Pattern #3 for the Phrygian Mode, start with Pattern #4 for the Lydian Mode, start with Pattern #5 for the Mixolydian Mode, and start with Pattern #7 for the Locrian Mode. Note how the patterns overlap - the last two notes on any string of one pattern are always the first two notes of the next pattern on the same string.
The above patterns can be easily remembered by the mnemonic device:
" Two up, two down, three, three, three, shift."
Let's imagine that we had a guitar with an infinite number of strings; if you started with Pattern #7 and kept on going, you would end up with the pattern shown below. Observe how all 7 of the above Church Patterns fall somewhere into this Extended Cycle if you make an additional shift up of one fret on the "B" string; "Two up, two down, three, three, three, shift":
The Root Notes or Root Tones are emphasized to help establish the Key of a song or passage; they are emphasized by being the starting point, stopping point, and places where you pause in a lead. Something that can help is knowing that tones of the same "flavor" are positioned diagonally on the fretboard:
In the above graphics, going from left to right, if the first dot is an "A", then the next dot will be the 2nd octave "A", and if there is a third dot, it will be the 3rd octave "A". The same will hold true for any other tone, all three dots will be E's, G's, D's, whatever the first dot is. As in all the other graphics, the vertical lines are the strings, low-E string on the left, high-E string on the right, and the horizontal lines are the frets.
Learning your A B C's
A trick that can help you remember where the notes are on the fretboard is to learn both Vertical Note Positions and Horizontal Note Positions:
Vertical Note Positions - going up one string, the notes follow the alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Notice that the notes B&C and also E&F don't have a fret between them.
Horizontal Note Positions - going sideways across all six strings, the notes follow the pattern: B, E, A, D, G, C, F. When this cycle of notes starts over, you shift up one fret; you also shift up one fret every time you land on the "B" string:
This picking technique is also called "Alternate Picking." I played for years using just down strokes or just upstrokes when picking notes. When I finally got around to actually taking guitar lessons, I was amazed when my teacher showed me this simple technique which multiplies your playing speed exponentially. The guitar pick is alternately stroked up and down in a rhythmic fashion and another note is struck on every upstroke and on every down stroke.
The Speed Scales provide a platform for playing three notes per string as exemplified by guitarist Randy Rhoads. This can be done using the Up/Down Picking technique described above or you can pick the first note and hammer-on the next two. You can slide up the same string to get the next group of three (this is an easy way to climb to higher positions on the fretboard) or you can move horizontally to the next string to get the next group of three notes there. Also you can play the notes in reverse order, ie, play the high tone first then the middle tone then the low tone; this gives the "fig-er-oh" phrase commonly heard.
***Note: You may have to click "Play" twice on some systems.***
Below is a set of Church Mode scale patterns called "Box Patterns." The advantage here is that once your hand is in position, there is very little movement needed vertically; your hand just glides across horizontally to the next string to hit the other notes, but the patterns are somewhat harder to memorize:
Also called "Sequencing," this technique is mathematical in nature. The idea is to number each tone of the scale as I did earlier in the very first graphic (ie, The Church Modes Number Pattern), and then instead of just playing the notes sequentially, you mix them up in interesting ways numerically to create a basic pattern called a "musical motif." Once a pattern (or "motif") is established, it is moved to various scale degree positions:
Major scale, ascending: 21, 32, 43, 54, 65, 76, 17, 21
Major scale, descending: 12, 71, 67, 56, 45, 34, 23, 12
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minor scale, ascending: 76, 17, 21, 32, 43, 54, 65, 76
minor scale, descending: 67, 56, 45, 34, 23, 12, 71, 67
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Major scale, ascending: 121, 232, 343, 454, 565, 676, 717, 121
Major scale, descending: 121, 717, 676, 565, 454, 343, 232, 121
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minor scale, ascending: 676, 717, 121, 232, 343, 454, 565, 676
minor scale, descending: 676, 565, 454, 343, 232, 121, 717, 676
Continued on Page 2.
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