Petty - Learning Lead Guitar (Getting rid of the rock star and finding the lead guitarist in you)

It is obvious why you are here. You want to learn the magic secrets to that highly attractive dream of being a great lead guitarist.

That is going to be a problem

Because until you are willing to let that dream go, you are not going to learn anything.

You are not going to learn anything until you drop the attitude. Yeah, we all know how good you are and we are tired of hearing about it.

Treat your guitar learning well as if you were taking care of a plant that needs water and care daily. Ok, maybe not the best analogy, but you know what I mean: Approach Learning Leads as if you were learning classical music, lab work, or maybe even a job.

Dont sit there and glory in how fast you play, or imagine an audience applauding while you wave backGood Night New York!

This is about learning how to play lead guitar solos and not how to out-play any one or make a big production of speed, volume and theatrics.

This is about playing good solos that sound balanced and well executed.

Get it out of your head that you are going to be onstage impressing 50,000 teenagers.

You can learn more if you keep listening.

Dont just listen to you, but listen to everyone else. What line is the bass repeating?

Is the drummer steady? What percentage of sound is your solo covering? Are you planning to lower your volume after the solo? Do you need to stay the same volume throughout?

If you are listening, you can instinctively work in certain choices.

I have 4 notes to you that I want you to listen to

[Yes, H was once a note]

Start with Bach and then listen to Charlie Parker.

Listen to Mozart Beethoven, Ravel, Stravinsky and Bartok.

Listen to Dixie Land, Swing, Bebop and Cool Jazz.

That would be Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins,

Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon and Cannonball Aderly.

And dont forget Sonny Stitt, Paul Desmond, Art Pepper and Phil Woods.

Can you imagine how many kinds of amazing soloists there are out there?

There are an endless number of websites. Videos galore are available on you tube.

You can get plenty of advice; listen to it. It may not all be good. Take it in stride.

One advantage to having a teacher is that you can learn many short cuts.

The other good thing is that you develop a sense of organizing and learning. this requires that you also develop a sense of responsibility.

In other words, you have to keep up every week with assignments.

There are tons of method books that you can learn from, with or without a teacher.

Method books present material in an organized fashion and you can gauge your progress as you go.

Do you see other guitarists play often? Then you have a chance to ask them what their approach is. You cant really say, how do you do that?, because often they dont know how they do it themselves.