Rock Lead
Licks, runs, double-stops and how to shape them into a solo.
5 lessons
Rock lead guitar is less about speed than about having a few strong ideas and knowing how to shape them. This chapter gives you those ideas, all in A minor pentatonic box 1 at the 5th fret, and then shows you how to turn them into a solo.
You'll start with repeating licks: short triplet loops that sound busy and exciting while your hand barely moves. Then come pentatonic runs with strict alternate picking, straight down the box, in groups of three and in sixteenths, so you can connect one lick to the next. You'll add double-stops, including slides and a bend held against a fretted note, for a thicker, classic rock sound. After that you'll learn how to build a guitar solo: call and answer, space, rising tension with repeated bends, and a strong landing with wide vibrato.
The lick library closes the chapter with a unison bend, a slide from box 1 to box 2 and a sixteenth-note descent. Hear each pentatonic lick in the browser, learn it at the start tempo and climb the tempo ladder to the target.