How To Play Creative Lead Guitar Licks Fast Using Short & Simple Mini-Licks
What’s the #1 lead guitar playing trap that guitarists fall into?
Answer: Wasting tons of notes while trying to play as fast as possible.
You play better sounding guitar licks (without needing to sacrifice all your speed) by focusing on getting most expressive value out of your note choices. The more you train this over time, the more melodic and amazing your lead playing sounds.
Make Every Note An
Amazing Note Using Focused Phrase Training
When you are able to play just ONE note amazing, you are able to play an entire solo full of amazing notes. Training yourself to get the most expression you can from one note is a building block to lead guitar mastery.
1.
Get started playing amazing solos by focusing on
just a single note like this:
2.
Choose any note on the fretboard.
3.
Pick a backing track to play over and improvise
using only that ONE note for 5 minutes!
4. Squeeze out as much expression as possible from the note to make it sound awesome by using a variety of guitar techniques. For example: Use different kinds of vibrato and bending (such as pre-bends that fall down to the note) or slides or tremolo picking.
Next, create a very short mini-lick using only TWO notes.
Use the same general process from above, except this time focus on thinking of 25-50 different rhythmic variations. Try to create a memorable phrase, except with just these two notes.
Note: This may sound impossible, but many songs have created memorable ideas with just a couple of notes.
Practicing using this style of training makes it easier to create cool lead guitar phrases when you have much more notes, because you know how to express yourself in a very limited musical situation.
Make Your Guitar Licks More Interesting By Not Wasting Notes
One of the biggest problems guitarists run into while thinking of lead guitar licks is feeling overwhelmed by too many potential note choices.
You improve your ability to squeeze the most expression from every note while thinking of interesting new licks when you start with a few notes and slowly add new ones. This practice method removes the problem of “feeling overwhelmed”, so thinking of new phrases feels fun and easy.
Use the process in the previous section to solo over a backing track with just one note. After a minute, add one more. The continue like this until you have added the entire scale.
While improvising with this process, take the time to create
short, mini-licks by thinking of
small melodies early on.
For example, when you are soloing with two notes, create a
rhythm that will repeat from time to time.
This gives you a short phrase that is easy to remember.
Now, think of two more licks and play all three in a row.
By doing this, you give yourself time to think of new phrases in advance while playing the old ones. Being able to think in advance helps you solo more creatively without having to constantly stop and think about “what’s next?”.
Create Lead Guitar Licks Fast From A Pre-Made Mini-Lick
Training yourself to create lead guitar licks note-by-note
isn’t the only way to improve.
Another great approach is to begin with a pre-made lick and make many variations of it. This trains you to focus on squeezing as much expression as you can from a single phrase (versus a single note).
Create a short, 3 note mini-licks using a variety of note
rhythms.
Then do the following:
·
Improvise using this lick as the basis for a
phrase and create 20 variations.
· Improvise using this lick as the basis for a phrase for 5 minutes over a backing track.
This trains your to play with killer lead guitar phrasing to help you become very expressive with your instrument.