Lead Guitar Notes to Change Moods

Learning to play exploratory lead guitar involves knowing which lead guitar notes will take your audience in a new direction. Ever notice in your favorite songs how the melody is going along in one direction then the mood suddenly changes with just a few notes played as the lead solo opens up?

It's not magic how that happens. Careful study of and experimentation with scales and key changes is how the guitar masters learned how to bridge sections of songs together. This allowed guitar greats like Eddie Van Halen (think of the guitar solo in Michael Jackson's "Beat It" for a great change of direction) to seemlessly yet dramatically help us jump from bridge to lead back to chorus in that song.

Learning lead guitar notes is not just a study in memorizing tablature in magazines or books, but of getting intimately familiar with the underlying scales and keys. It is also not a case of learning the note names. What playing great lead takes is bridging the gap between the letters and numbers on the paper and how they sound when played over different chord progressions. My recommendation is record yourself playing your favorite chord riffs, then get really familiar with scales which will fit those chords. Throw in a few melodic licks and experiment over and over until you play more by ear and feel and less by memorization. You can find great individual chord progressions and licks lessons here.

It takes time, but your own direction and lead guitar notes will come.