Archive for the ‘Lead Guitar’ Category

Learning Major Scales in Open Position is a valuable exercise for all guitarists. Rhythm guitarists can use these guitar scale patterns for single note runs, adding notes to chord voicings and creating new chords. Lead guitarists can use the open strings in guitar licks and improvisation. Knowing open position scale patterns will enable you smoothly switch between rhythm and lead guitar. This guitar lesson shows the ... View Lesson

Yesterday I released a new guitar eBook to my newsletter list. It is called 47 Licks You Must Know. Catchy title, right? I wrote this book to show licks, phrases and ideas common to many great guitar players and solos. I think it will benefit beginning and advanced guitarists alike. If you ... View Lesson

Exotic Guitar Scales are great for adding spice to your lead guitar playing. I wouldn't suggest learning any of the 12 scales shown in this lesson before learning the minor pentatonic scale, the natural minor or the major scale (see 4 Scales You Should Know) but they might be part of the sound and guitar style you are searching for. Each of these 5 ... View Lesson

In the following Dorian Mode Jam Track we use G major chords over a repeating A bass note. This keeps reinforcing that 'A' is the root note for our soloing. View Lesson

The chromatic scale is one of the easiest scales to understand and also one of the most incorrectly played by guitarists. Let's look at this, the "mother of all scales", and explore some useful chromatic scale patterns for the guitar. The chromatic scale is made up entirely of half-step or semi-tone intervals (the distance of one fret). Therefore, the chromatic scale includes every note within an ... View Lesson

Inside each individual major scale there are three different minor pentatonic scales. In the tradition of the "Secret" Pentatonics lesson let's continue looking for pentatonics in undiscovered places. Maybe our familiar, five-note friend has been 'hiding' under our noses, just waiting to be revealed in other familiar scale patterns? In fact, this is the case! I present (drum roll, please!): Hidden Pentatonics. We will start ... View Lesson

Some lead guitar licks you hear over and over again. These licks are clichés and they are valuable to have under your fingers. Just like their verbal cliché cousins, tried-and-true sayings (such as "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush") these licks can quickly get over used but they get over used because they work. The following 10 Early Rock licks work ... View Lesson

This video lesson features a mashup I made combining the video tablature lesson format featured here at GuitarTeacher.com and the most watched guitar video in YouTube history! Korean guitarist 'funtwo' performes the arrangement of "Canon Rock" by Taiwanese guitarist JerryC, a rocking take off of classical standard "Pachelbel's Canon in D". I added the in-video guitar tab and animated guitar neck on top using ... View Lesson

Knowing the sound of a scale starts by playing it ascending and descending (see my post on Four Scales You Should Know). But an infinite amount of music can be found within scales by changing the order of the notes and creating patterns. Today's exercise moves through the Major Scale in '3rd intervals', skipping every other note in the scale. This exercise ... View Lesson

The Minor Pentatonic scale is one of the most widely used scales in improvisation in every musical style so it makes sense to know it well all over the guitar neck. When it comes to moving beyond the first pattern learned (see my lesson on 4 Scales You Should Know) the next step is usually to introduce five overlapping patterns, each staying strictly in ... View Lesson