Lead Guitar Improvisation?
I just love answering these lead guitar questions. Here’s another:
Question: I am mostly a rhytm guitarist. I dont like to brag, i HONESTLY dont. But i am and have been told i am a extremely talented composer and improviser of rhythm guitar lines. I dont just wank around chords, i add frills and fills, embellishments, playing in weird poses (crabcote behind the head fretting chords as awkwardly as possible) all that fancy show off stuff. And i have a shit ton of fun with. Now that thats established, lets go to my lead story.
I have learned my scales. Learned my fretboard notes. Tapping. Sweeping. Arpeggios. Slides bends hammer ons pull offs vibrato and EVERYTHING ELSE.
Now improv: im terrible. I can think of great lines, and screw it up on the fretboard. I can get fluid lines out, but they all sound the same or dead. Mostly dead. I dont want to blame it on tone, but i have no reverb, no looper, distortion channel sounds clean when playing lead, in a bad way. I refuse to learn others solos as i have a tradition of not copying work or learning anothers song (like fretwanking "jukeboxes") i typically solo on a single string and ocasionally skip over, sweep arpeggios, tap some shit, alternate pick up an down scales.
I want to play metal lead.
I play jazz, country, funk, acoustic, and metal rhythm. The only one i sort of have trouble on is metal.
Theres 1 chord and 1 only aside traids that are good on distortion. I work good with wide variety.
Enough rambling
Tl;dr
Struggling on metal lead guitar. Pro tips?
I have learned my scales. Learned my fretboard notes. Tapping. Sweeping. Arpeggios. Slides bends hammer ons pull offs vibrato and EVERYTHING ELSE.
Now improv: im terrible. I can think of great lines, and screw it up on the fretboard. I can get fluid lines out, but they all sound the same or dead. Mostly dead. I dont want to blame it on tone, but i have no reverb, no looper, distortion channel sounds clean when playing lead, in a bad way. I refuse to learn others solos as i have a tradition of not copying work or learning anothers song (like fretwanking "jukeboxes") i typically solo on a single string and ocasionally skip over, sweep arpeggios, tap some shit, alternate pick up an down scales.
I want to play metal lead.
I play jazz, country, funk, acoustic, and metal rhythm. The only one i sort of have trouble on is metal.
Theres 1 chord and 1 only aside traids that are good on distortion. I work good with wide variety.
Enough rambling
Tl;dr
Struggling on metal lead guitar. Pro tips?
Answer: I’m afraid that one of the things you fear doing may be preventing you from being better. You say "I refuse to learn others solos as i have a tradition of not copying work or learning anothers song". You never want to steal a precise riff but when it comes to soloing, it’s a really good idea to study the techniques and patterns that your favorite solo artists have mastered. You will find they are similar but, different enough that they are unique. So you need to learn and in fact master those similarities, once you have done that, then you can create something new out of what worked for them in the past. If I were you, I would study guys like Yngwie Malmsteen, Michael Angelo Batio, Steve Vai, Johnny DeMarco, Robert Marcello, along with and any of your personal favorites. That will give you a wide variety of styles of play and patterns and techniques. Out of all that knowledge will spawn your own unique style and patterns for soloing. But, you have to have somewhere to start. So, you study the best of the best and draw what you can from each of them and then combine it all together and create your won stuff by hitch hiking on some of their ideas. While you are doing your study, slow down the music and learn precise patterns slowly when you hear one note that sounds strange, change it to one that sounds right to you. It takes lots of practice and lots of patience added to your creativity to make you great. You can do it! How bad do you want it and how much effort are you willing to put into learning it? Good Luck to you!
