Playing lead, writing solos n generally filling in the gaps

Well for writing songs I'd say don't try to write a song with your guitar in hand. You're more likely to churn out crap (I know this from expirience). Honestly, just think of songs you'd like to hear, and then find out how to play them. Same goes with solos. Don't hold your guitar in your hands as you try to write a solo. In fact, don't even picture your fingers on the fret board (I've found that this helps). As soon as you think of all that, start figuring it out on guitar. If you have trouble with a note, hold that note's sound in your head, then hum it, and then match your guitar with that note. As soon as you figure all that out, bust out some graph paper and start writing it down. (I write it down in power tabs)

That's pretty much all the advise I have to give. This is all crap that I do and might not work for you. I'd say the most important thing though for writing new material is be honest with yourself. If you heard the song on the radio and you were someone else, would you like that song? I could go into a tiny bit more detail but I wouldn't want to bore you. Sorry if this doesn't help...

Yep - try and hear it in your head, then try and play what you're hearing. You'll come out somewhere in between.

Solos and fills - don't overcook it. You don't want to shred it to death if a "moody Sunday evening" feel is what you need.

Best,

A :-)

Hey people,

i recently joined my 1st band and I have the responsibility of playing lead.
. . .
The problem is, Im sorta running short on ideas! We have 5 songs already that I am pouring everything Ive learnt into
. . .
Can anyone offer their thoughts or experiences of coming up with ideas for different songs. I think i need a lot of ideas as soon as possible.

One of the most important things for a lead guitarist to learn (and one of the HARDEST), is when you should NOT play. There's a couple of general rules, but generally is comes with experience.

The rules:
1. Don't step on the hook if the lead guitar doesn't play it.
2. Don't step on the vocals.
3. Don't play when silence would serve the song better.

Go listen to your favorite songs, and instead of paying attention to what's being played, listen to what's NOT being played. Listen to the pauses, and where there's one, or two, or no instruments playing. It's an eye opening experience.

I agree with Moonrider, don't overplay. Always leave 'em wanting more. 8)

A simple little technique that always works is to simply copy the vocal line. Now, this sounds easy, but it's actually quite difficult to make guitar sound like the human voice. If you can do it you will be considered a great guitarist. But the melody line is already there for you.

Play with dynamics, make the guitar whisper, then make it scream. Guitar is like talking, ever talk to someone who speaks monotone?? So use dynamics when you play.

Well Wes, I feel that I must humbly disagree with you. I personally think that a guitar mimicking vocal lines can be irritating because it's a separate instrument than vocals. I feel that I don't need to hear the same melody on 2 different instruments, but then again, I probably play a different style than you and I'm not the lead guitarist of your band so it's up to you.

Thanks for the advice all. Very good ideas.

Moonrider and Al Green, yes, I shall try to play tastefully and not shove my guitar in everyones faces.

Wes, I will try to play dynamicly too.

Im mostly stealing lines from solos I like at the moment, and jamming to try to find the right lines for each song.

Any more advice is welcome too :p

I agree with Moonrider, don't overplay. Always leave 'em wanting more. 8)

A simple little technique that always works is to simply copy the vocal line. Now, this sounds easy, but it's actually quite difficult to make guitar sound like the human voice. If you can do it you will be considered a great guitarist. But the melody line is already there for you.

Play with dynamics, make the guitar whisper, then make it scream. Guitar is like talking, ever talk to someone who speaks monotone?? So use dynamics when you play.
this is great advice

If you're using a compressor/limiter or distortion or any other effect that compresses the signal, get a volume pedal to help with the dynamics.

It's not cheating, it's necessary to overcome the signal chain!

Try to play as few notes as possible. Too many guitarists use lots of notes to cover up how little ideas they have. Don't fall into that trap.

"running out of ideas" . . . play melody games. Hum a melody then play what you hummed. Get to the point where you can hum and play at the same time.

It's hard work to do that, but that's where you need to be!

Listen to classical music for melodic ideas.

Try to play as few notes as possible. Too many guitarists use lots of notes to cover up how little ideas they have. Don't fall into that trap.

This is so true. I'm listening to SRV's "Little Wing", and even when he's shredding it up something fierce, there's always a clear melody anchor point, like at each time he's shredding *around* the notes of his melody, rather than just ripping it up really fast because it sounds cool. You can can really feel the harmonic center of what he's playing.

Jeff

It's important to learn to relax: Nervousness often leads to overplaying, and most of us are guilty of this at least part of the time. Unfortunately, fairly well developed coordination and muscle memory tends to facilitate this bad habit. It often takes a conscious effort not to play and not to let the muscle memory play your guitar on autopilot.

An old trick to learn to use and insert space in your playing is to pause and take a "musical breath" every time you take a breath. This helps create an organic rhythm in playing.

Im mostly stealing lines from solos I like at the moment, and jamming to try to find the right lines for each song.

Yep - this is the best way to build up your own solo chops.

A :-)

I was in this same situation last year when I joined the band I'm in now. Which is I have to say an enviable position to be in. We play covers and I had to learn 35 songs in a month in a half. Learning the solos verbatim was out of the question so I played the pentatonics to fill in. Sounded o.k. Here I am a year later and now if we are playing a cover with a "signature" solo I learn the signature parts and fill in the rest.

Recently I purchased a 8-track digital recorder. Now what I do is I record the chord sequence of the songs I'm going to solo over and loop it and I just play what I feel. Some of it sounds good and some...not so good. So I take the good parts and try to string them together into something coherent and now TO ME the "signature solo" is MY solo.

I still run out of ideas...but my vocabulary is improving.

Hope this helps.

Tommy guns, Yeah that does sound like a similar position to me - only Im on a smaller scale to that. My vocabulary is improving too. Just playing a lot and trying to make sure I play clean and tastefully.