In this video
Andy's off interviewing a band this week, so I'm back with you for another live session and we're getting properly into lead guitar. My plan was to look at some solos worth learning, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to share the songs and ideas that actually moved my playing forward when I was trying to become a lead guitar player. You can't jump straight to the end product with lead, so I've tried to pick things that genuinely helped me climb the ladder.
We start with repetition and variation, using Clapton's Layla as the perfect example of how a simple, repeated line with a little variation either side sounds ten times more musical than a million notes per second. From there I get into Ain't Talkin' Bout Love by Van Halen, which is a brilliant lesson in mixing rhythm and lead around a basic Am shape — the octave jumps, the open strings and that little F major 7 bar all come from a chord you probably already know.
Gareth in the chat throws me Change in the Mountain, which becomes a nice little detour into ear training. I don't know the song, but I know the descending bassline it's built on, and working it out live is a good example of how a bit of musical knowledge gets you further than staring at tab. That leads into arpeggiating through chords, string skipping and the idea that lead guitar isn't as far from rhythm guitar as you might think.
Then it's California Dreamin' — not a guitar solo originally, but the one that changed how I thought about soloing. There's a chromatic passing note leading into the root of the C#m chord that's worth getting your ear around, plus some pre-bends that show off what a fretless instrument like the guitar can really do.
I finish with Plug In Baby by Muse from Origin of Symmetry. The main riff runs through a scale in a three-notes-ahead pattern with a hammer-on and a D major arpeggio baked in, so if you're bored of running scales up and down, this is a fun way to get the same mileage with something that actually sounds like music.
Hope you enjoy it, Fraser.