In Bands, Does the Lead Guitarist Also Write Rhythm Guitar, Even if There is a Rhythm Guitarist?
What’s this week’s lead guitar question? Let’s dive straight in…
Question: Me and my friend are in a debate, so I want to see what other people think
Answer: dude thats not how songs are written. good bands will have everyone be able to write a part whether its on guitar, bass drums keyboard or vocals
It’s not the same for every band. You’d have to ask each band individually to know who writes what. A band can do it either way or the lead guitarist and rhythm guitarist can share writing credits on those parts. In some bands the rhythm guitarist doesn’t write at all, in other bands he may be very involved in the writing process.
It depends on who’s writing the song (and to what extent the compose the various parts). Songwriters don’t write out EVERY SINGLE NOTE that somebody is going to play, they usually just come up with a melody and some chords (maybe a little riff or some basic idea for the accompaniment). The individual musicians typically come up with their own parts.
Kirk Hammett does very little writing in Metallica, but James doesn’t write his solos.
Roger Waters wrote most of the Pink Floyd music, but he didn’t write David Gilmour’s guitar parts. He just wrote the song and then Gilmour came up with his own part.
Steve Harris writes all the Iron Maiden music, and he’s the bassist! He writes everything except the solos. King Diamond does the same thing, and he’s the singer!
Most of the time, the rhythm guitar player does more writing than the lead guitarist. The lead player is usually just some hired gun that can unleash some wicked solos.
What’s with all the "writing" leads and guitar parts questions these days? No original band I’ve ever played with "wrote" a lead or rhythm part. Obviously if someone writes a song using a guitar then they have come up with a chord progression and strumming pattern. But let’s say the lead singer (who doesn’t play guitar in the band) wrote the song. He will come to rehearsal and play the song for the band. If they like it each person will take the foundation of the song and build their own parts around that. So the rhythm part may become something different than the original, same goes for any other part of the song. So what I’m saying is that you don’t write rhythm and lead parts, the guitarists just take the basic chord structure and come up with their own lead, strumming pattern, etc. based on that.