Lead Guitar Lessons
Develop your lead guitar technique

Anything can be learned in time with practice, and with these clear and focussed lead guitar lessons, you'll develop naturally, in your own time.

Remember, lead guitar isn't about playing as fast as possible so the notes become a senseless blur. It's about expressing  personal emotion as though you're speaking through the guitar.

The lead guitar techniques below can be seen as the physical application of scales. So the two go hand in hand (see the scales section on the left). The idea is, instead of simply picking from one note to the next, you'll have several additional options - bend, hammer, pull, slide, tap etc.

In a nutshell: Learn each of the essential lead guitar techniques and then use this as foundation knowledge to build your ideas upon and experiment with. It's all about expanding your creative options...

Alternate Picking

Alternate picking simply involves using up and down picking strokes alternately. Not as easy as it sounds at first, so this lesson should help you gain accuracy, speed and confidence in these initial stages.

String Bending

String bending really does liven up boring, flat solos, and every lead guitarist should be confident with using bends. Learn to bend with ease and precision with this two part series with video. Part 1 introduces the physical basics, before we move on to some staple bending techniques in part 2.

Part 1: Bending Basics
Part 2: Bending Techniques

Hammer ons and pull offs

Hammer ons and pull offs are legato (non-pick) techniques. It's basically just another interesting texture to add to your soloing, just like string bending, vibratos etc. In these lessons I'll introduce the basic hammer on and pull off techniques, provide exercises to get all those fingers involved and finally look at how they work together.

Part 1: Hammer Ons
Part 2: Pull Offs
Part 3: Working them together effectively

String Vibratos

Vibratos make your notes sing! Punctuate your lead guitar phrases with this "effect" and it can inject the warmth and emotion you need to make that perfect solo expression. This lesson introduces the technique and then guides you through to mastering the physical aspects.

Part 1: Vibrato basics
Part 2: Working vibratos into solos

Finger Slides

Not to be confused with "bottle-neck" sliding used in country music, this is a finger technique which makes more use of single string lead guitar phrases. Using slides allows you to glide over more of the fretboard and bridge the gaps between the fixed scale shapes you learn over time. An important guitar technique to learn - come inside!

Finger Tapping

Get to grips with the physical side of this technique and your knowledge of scales will integrate naturally. If you follow both lessons below and take your time mastering various tapping rhythms and the physical side of it, it's actually not as difficult as it sounds!

Part 1: The Basics
Part 2: More complex patterns

Useful Lead Guitar Lesson Supplements

	Free Metronome Metronomes help you keep time with your practise drills, allowing you to speed up gradually as your confidence improves. I strongly recommend using a metronome for every lead technique you learn. Get into the habit now! Free Online Metronome >
	The Ultimate Metronome For those who want to make their lead guitar practise drills more fun and engaging. The Ultimate Metronome is a popular piece of downloadable software that offers optimum speed frequencies, speeding up as you play, plus customisable parameters including time signature, beat sample and accent sample. Get Your Ultimate Metronome Here >
	Finger Trainer A great program that provides you with over one hundred exercises and drills covering warming up, bending, alternate picking, string skipping, tapping and more. All the tools you need for lead guitar practise in one place. Get Your Finger Trainer Here >