We’ll start with the G major pentatonic scale with a fourth string root, using your second finger as the starting point. The lowest root note is the fifth fret on the D string, which is your anchor point. Play that note, and then play the seventh fret with your pinky. On the G string, hit the fourth fret with your index finger, and the seventh fret with your pinky. Your index finger with grab the fifth fret and your pinky will grab the eighth fret on the B string. For the high E string, it’s the fifth fret with your index finger and the seventh fret with your third finger.

If you want to add in the lower notes to this scale shape, on the A, string play the fifth fret with your second finger, seventh fret with your pinky, and then do the same for the low E since it’s the same two note pattern. Just keep in mind your root notes are the fifth fret of the D string and the eighth fret of the B string.

The next shape, the G major pentatonic with a fifth string root starting with your fourth finger, begins with the lowest root note on the tenth fret of the A string. From the root note, both the D and G strings have notes on the seventh fret with your first finger and ninth fret with your third finger. The B string has notes on the eighth and tenth frets with your second and fourth fingers. The high E string finishes the scale with notes on the seventh and tenth frets that you’ll play with your first and fourth fingers.

If you want to play the lower notes in this shape, there is one other note on the A string which is the seventh fret with your first finger, and two notes on the E string, the seventh and tenth frets with your first and fourth fingers.

The next scale up actually starts on the same root note, the tenth fret of the A string, but starts with your middle finger there instead of your pinky. That’s your lowest root note, and from there play the 12th fret with your pinky. On the D and G string, you’ve got the ninth and 12th frets to hit with your first and fourth fingers. The B and high E string also share a pattern, so you’ll play the tenth and 12th frets with your second and fourth fingers.

There are only two notes here lower than the root note, which are the tenth and 12th frets with your second and fourth fingers.

You’re probably feeling a little overwhelmed with these different shapes, so remember this is more like an extra credit lesson. Take these scale shapes one at a time, learn them when you can, and slowly get to know them really well.

You already know the shape of the last major pentatonic scale we are going to look at, but we’re going to look at it in a different way. If you started this shape on an E root note on the 12th fret, it would be an E minor pentatonic scale, but if you use the G root note on the 15th fret using your pinky instead, it becomes a major pentatonic scale shape. Play this scale the way you would have as a minor pentatonic shape, but starting with the G root note instead and you’ll have this G major pentatonic, sixth string root scale down.

The guitar is a popular musical instrument classified as a string instrument with anywhere from 4 to 18 strings, usually having 6. The sound is projected either acoustically or through electrical amplification (for an acoustic guitar or an electric guitar, respectively). It is typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the right hand while fretting (or pressing against the fret) the strings with the left hand. The guitar is a type of chordophone, traditionally constructed from wood and strung with either gut, nylon or steel strings and distinguished from other chordophones by its construction and tuning. The modern guitar was preceded by the gittern, the vihuela, the four-course Renaissance guitar, and the five-course baroque guitar, all of which contributed to the development of the modern six-string instrument.

There are three main types of modern acoustic guitar: the classical guitar (nylon-string guitar), the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar. The tone of an acoustic guitar is produced by the strings' vibration, amplified by the body of the guitar, which acts as a resonating chamber. The classical guitar is often played as a solo instrument using a comprehensive fingerpicking technique. The term fingerpicking can also refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues, bluegrass, and country guitar playing in the US.

Electric guitars, introduced in the 1930s, use an amplifier that can electronically manipulate and shape the tone. Early amplified guitars employed a hollow body, but a solid body was eventually found more suitable, as it was less prone to feedback. Electric guitars have had a continuing profound influence on popular culture.

The guitar is used in a wide variety of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as a primary instrument in genres such as blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, folk, jazz, jota, mariachi, metal, punk, reggae, rock, soul, and many forms of pop.Classical guitars; also known as Spanish guitars are typically strung with nylon strings, plucked with the fingers, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios, and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone.

In Portugal, the same instrument is often used with steel strings particularly in its role within fado music. The guitar is called viola, or violão in Brazil, where it is often used with an extra seventh string by choro musicians to provide extra bass support.

In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the small requinto to the guitarrón, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by the Spaniard Antonio de Torres Jurado (1817–1892).All three principal types of resonator guitars were invented by the Slovak-American John Dopyera (1893–1988) for the National and Dobro (Dopyera Brothers) companies. Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, but with a body that may be made of brass, nickel-silver, or steel as well as wood, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by one or more aluminum resonator cones mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the loudspeaker. The original purpose of the resonator was to produce a very loud sound; this purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive tone. Resonator guitars may have either one or three resonator cones. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood at the vertex of the cone (Nationals), or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and mounted around the rim of the (inverted) cone (Dobros). Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section—called "square neck" or "Hawaiian"—is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues.Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies; solid bodies produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into signals, which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of magnetic pickups, single- and double-coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, R & B, and rock and roll. The first successful magnetic pickup for a guitar was invented by George Beauchamp, and incorporated into the 1931 Ro-Pat-In (later Rickenbacker) "Frying Pan" lap steel; other manufacturers, notably Gibson, soon began to install pickups in archtop models. After World War II the completely solid-body electric was popularized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard), lighter (thinner) strings, and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to techniques less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals.

The first electric guitarist of note to use a seven-string guitar was jazz guitarist George Van Eps, who was a pioneer of this instrument.[citation needed] Solid body seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar,[citation needed] endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an eight-string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common seven-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12-string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12-string elements in standard six-string playing. In 1982 Uli Jon Roth developed the "Sky Guitar," with a vastly extended number of frets, which was the first guitar to venture into the upper registers of the violin. Roth's seven-string and 33-fret "Mighty Wing" guitar features a six-octave range.

For your solo, we’ll be using the major scale, the major pentatonic scale, and the minor pentatonic scale, but we’ll be moving the minor pentatonic scale shape from a G minor pentatonic up the fretboard to an E minor pentatonic scale shape. You may want to spend some time practicing the scale in this new position before continuing.

I’ve got a new jam track for you to play this solo with, and it’s 24 bars long. The first 16 bars are over a G major chord, then two bars of E minor, two bars of G major, two bars of E minor, and you’ll finish off bar 23 and 24 on a G major. Listen to this jam track a few times to get a feel for the music. The 24 bars are repeated four times so it’s easy to practice the solo over and over.

I’ll break this solo down one phrase at a time, so you can learn step by step. The first lick starts with a major scale, so place your third finger on the fourth fret of the G string and bend that note. Come back to the second fret, and then place your fourth finger on the fifth fret of the D string. Use the roll technique to move your pinky up to the A string, hold it for six beats, and then rest. That’s the first lick of your solo, and it’s the repeating theme that I mentioned in the last lesson.

The next phrase starts with the same bend again on the G string, and moves to the fifth fret. Move to the third fret of the B string with your second finger, hit the same note again for six beats, and rest. This second lick, paired with the first lick, makes up the first sentence of the solo.

The second sentence starts with the repeating theme, so play the first lick of the solo again. After that, the next phrase starts out the same, but will end with a quick pentatonic run. Bend the fourth fret of the G string again, but from there, hit the second fret of the D string with your first finger, then the fourth fret with your third finger. Move to the B string, grabbing the third fret with your second finger, the fifth fret with your pinky, and end with the G root note on the third fret of the high E string with your second finger. That wraps up this phrase and the second sentence of the solo.

Remember that when you’re holding a note for a few beats you should add some vibrato to give the note more expression. Feel free to pause wherever you like to practice sections of the solo together before moving on.

Up to this point in the jam track, we’ve been playing to a G major chord, and that’s why we’ve been playing G major scales. The next two measures switch to an E minor chord, so we’ll switch to an E minor pentatonic scale that way our solo fits the music we’re playing to. Remember though that we’re moving this scale shape up the fretboard to the 12th fret of the low E string.

This next lick is an E minor pentatonic scale, and we’re going to play through this scale. Pick the first note of the scale, hammer-on to the 15th fret, pick the 13th fret of the A string, hammer-on to the 15th fret, pick the 13th fret of the D string, and hammer-on to the 15th fret. Finish off this lick by picking the 12th fret of the G string and the E root note on the 14th note of the D string. That’s measure 17 and 18, the first whole phrase of this sentence.

Now we have two measures of a G chord to play over, so we’re going to come down on the 12th fret of the G string, which is the G root note. You’ll play this note for a full bar, and again for another full bar, which is measures 19 and 20.

Measures 21 and 22 are back on the E minor chord, so we’ll start playing with our E minor pentatonic scale again. We’re going to repeat the first E minor lick we played, but go an octave higher by starting on the 14th fret this time. Walk up the pentatonic scale, and when you get to the highest note, come back to the root note on the 14th fret of the high E string.

Measures 23 and 24 are played over the G major chord again, so we’ll go back to a G major scale, starting an octave higher on the 15th fret. Put your pinky on the 17th fret of the high E string, bend it up a whole step, and then play the G root note on the 15th fret with your middle finger. That’s going to finish the last sentence, and wrap up your solo.

Once you’ve learned this solo, pull up the jam track so you can play your solo over music. After that, you can experiment using different scales along with the jam track to make up your own solos. Just be sure to match up your scale with the key that’s being played on the jam track.

In this lesson, I’m going to give you some tips for building your own guitar solos. These tips will help you create solos that sound like more than just playing up and down basic scales. We’re going to cover concepts such as phrasing, repeating themes, leaving space, building your solos dynamically, and playing over simple chord changes.

If you’re joining this series for the first time, I definitely recommend going back to the first lesson and working through all the videos in the Lead Guitar Quick-Start Series because a lot of the foundational skills we’re using are covered throughout those lessons.

The first concept I want to talk about is phrasing, because it’s good to structure your solo like you’re having a conversation with someone. If I’m talking to someone, I don’t run all my sentences together in a monotonous tone because that wouldn’t make much sense and wouldn’t be very interesting. That would be the same as playing a guitar solo that just runs up and down a scale.

When you’re talking to someone, you leave pauses, have inflections in your voice, and have rest times where you wait for a moment. Sometimes you want your guitar solos to be the same way. Your solo can be more interesting if you pause here and there and build inflections in your playing.

The next idea I want to talk to you about is having a repeating theme in your solo. You won’t always have a repeating theme in your solo, but it’s nice to have a recurring theme in your solo. The theme will help tie everything in your solo together, giving it a cohesive feel. Repeating a theme will also help you with your phrasing because it leaves natural pauses in your solo. In the next lesson you’ll see a great example because there’s an obvious repeating theme in the solo I’ve written for you.

Something that’s hard for guitarists is to leave space between notes, because we’re used to practicing scales and we naturally want to play through them quickly. Be sure to sometimes leave some space in your solos to keep your audience engaged and keep them dialed in to your music. In the solo you’ll be learning, you’ll play the recurring theme, leave a space, and then play the theme again.

Building your solos dynamically is another way to make your solos interesting and keep your listeners engaged. That could mean you start your solo quietly, slowly build it up, and then by the end, it’s natural to end off with a faster lick or a higher volume.

This won’t be the case with every solo you play, but keeping dynamics in mind is a great tool to pull out, especially if you’re playing a song that is emotional or you want to end off with a crescendo. If you think about it like an action movie, there are still down times during the movie so that the action really stands out.

The next tip I have for you is to start playing over chord changes, meaning you should be changing the notes you play in your solo to fit with the chords that are happening in your song. In the next lesson, the two chords we have in the jam track for your solo are G major and E minor, so we’ll adjust our notes according to those chords. When the G major chord is playing, we’ll use G major and G major pentatonic scales. When the E minor is playing, we’ll switch to an E minor pentatonic scale to match. That’s going to be an easy example to begin with, so it’s perfect for starting to think about notes you’re going to play rather than just playing up and down one scale.

Those are a few general, useful tips for building your solo that will come in handy throughout the next lesson, and the rest of your guitar-playing career. Of course, you won’t use these tips in every solo you play, but they’re really helpful for making your solos sound more musical, and not like you’re just practicing scales.

You don’t want to come down or hammer-on the string too hard, otherwise the note will go sharp. You also don’t want to hammer-on too softly otherwise the note may come out too quietly. Try to hammer-on just right so the note comes out at the same volume as the picked note, and watch to make sure you’re hammering-on right behind the fret. Practice this first half of the legato technique to get comfortable with it.

The second half of the legato technique is pull-offs. Put your first finger on the third fret of the D string again, but put your third finger on the fifth fret at the same time. Pick the D string so the note from the fifth fret rings out, and then pull-off that note using your third finger to lightly pluck the string with your fretting hand.

Just like the hammer-ons, be careful to pull-off just right. If you pull-off too hard, the note will go out of tune, and if you pull-off too softly, the note may not play at all. Keep a good balance so the note you pick and the note you pull-off have the same volume.

Go ahead with practicing these techniques. It’s okay if it takes weeks or even months to master hammer-ons and pull-offs, because it does take a while to develop these techniques.

Now let’s combine hammer-ons and pull-offs for the full legato technique. Head back to the same two frets we were playing. First finger on the third fret of the D string, pick that note, hammer-on to the fifth fret with your third finger, and right after you hammer-on, pull-off the note. So that’s a quick pick, hammer-on, and pull-off in a row, and once you have that down, you can keep alternating hammer-ons and pull-offs without needing to pick another note.

You now know the core of the legato technique. Being able to hammer-on and pull-off well saves your picking hand some work, and sounds much smoother as you play. Next, we’ll apply the legato technique to the minor pentatonic scale. If you’re just jumping in the Lead Guitar Quick-Start series here, I’d suggest heading back to the video where we learn the minor pentatonic scale.

When using the legato technique with scales, the aim is to use hammer-ons whenever you’re ascending the scale, and use pull-offs when you’re descending the scale. Looking at the minor pentatonic scale, you pick the first note of the scale and then hammer-on to the second. Because this scale has two notes on every string, you’ll always pick the first note and hammer-on to the second note. When you compare my playing in the video, using legato sounds much smoother than picking every single note.

Trying to play the minor pentatonic scale using legato may be difficult for you because it is a tough workout for your pinky, especially if you don’t have a lot of strength built up yet. Just keep working on it and your fingers will get stronger every time you practice.

Now let’s try descending back through this scale. On the high E string, you’ll need to have both your pinky and index finger on the string. Pick the first note with your pick and then pull-off to the second note. When pulling-off, there are a couple of thoughts on how to do this. You can continue to have both fingers planted on the string as you just did, or you can pick your first note and come down on the next note with your other finger quickly afterwards. Either way is acceptable, so try both and see which works best for you.

Work on the legato technique by practicing ascending and descending through the scale, and keep in mind, you don’t have to go all the through the scale before starting again. Feel free to mix it up by going up a few notes and back down a few. You should feel like you have a new tool to add to your playing skills, so work on this with the three scales you know so far – the major scale, major pentatonic scale, and the minor pentatonic scale.

The major scale will be more difficult than the others because the major scale has more notes, and some of the strings have two notes while other strings have three. Starting with the low E string, you’ll pick the first note and hammer-on the second note. With three notes on the A string, you’ll first pick, then hammer-on the second note, and hammer-on again for the third note. Keep that going all the way up the scale. When you’re coming back down the scale, the high E string will start with a pick, followed by two pull-offs.

The guitar is an ancient and noble instrument, whose history can be traced back over 4000 years. Many theories have been advanced about the instrument's ancestry. It has often been claimed that the guitar is a development of the lute, or even of the ancient Greek kithara. Research done by Dr. Michael Kasha in the 1960's showed these claims to be without merit. He showed that the lute is a result of a separate line of development, sharing common ancestors with the guitar, but having had no influence on its evolution. The influence in the opposite direction is undeniable, however - the guitar's immediate forefathers were a major influence on the development of the fretted lute from the fretless oud which the Moors brought with them to to Spain.

The sole "evidence" for the kithara theory is the similarity between the greek word "kithara" and the Spanish word "quitarra". It is hard to imagine how the guitar could have evolved from the kithara, which was a completely different type of instrument - namely a square-framed lap harp, or "lyre".

It would also be passing strange if a square-framed seven-string lap harp had given its name to the early Spanish 4-string "quitarra". Dr. Kasha turns the question around and asks where the Greeks got the name "kithara", and points out that the earliest Greek kitharas had only 4 strings when they were introduced from abroad. He surmises that the Greeks hellenified the old Persian name for a 4-stringed instrument, "chartar". The earliest stringed instruments known to archaeologists are bowl harps and tanburs. Since prehistory people have made bowl harps using tortoise shells and calabashes as resonators, with a bent stick for a neck and one or more gut or silk strings. The world's museums contain many such "harps" from the ancient Sumerian, Babylonian, and Egyptian civilisations. Around 2500 - 2000 CE more advanced harps, such as the opulently carved 11-stringed instrument with gold decoration found in Queen Shub-Ad's tomb, started to appear.A tanbur is defined as "a long-necked stringed instrument with a small egg- or pear-shaped body, with an arched or round back, usually with a soundboard of wood or hide, and a long, straight neck". The tanbur probably developed from the bowl harp as the neck was straightened out to allow the string/s to be pressed down to create more notes. Tomb paintings and stone carvings in Egypt testify to the fact that harps and tanburs (together with flutes and percussion instruments) were being played in ensemble 3500 - 4000 years ago.At around the same time that Torres started making his breakthrough fan-braced guitars in Spain, German immigrants to the USA - among them Christian Fredrich Martin - had begun making guitars with X-braced tops. Steel strings first became widely available in around 1900. Steel strings offered the promise of much louder guitars, but the increased tension was too much for the Torres-style fan-braced top. A beefed-up X-brace proved equal to the job, and quickly became the industry standard for the flat-top steel string guitar.

At the end of the 19th century Orville Gibson was building archtop guitars with oval sound holes. He married the steel-string guitar with a body constructed more like a cello, where the bridge exerts no torque on the top, only pressure straight down. This allows the top to vibrate more freely, and thus produce more volume. In the early 1920's designer Lloyd Loar joined Gibson, and refined the archtop "jazz" guitar into its now familiar form with f-holes, floating bridge and cello-type tailpiece.

The electric guitar was born when pickups were added to Hawaiian and "jazz" guitars in the late 1920's, but met with little success before 1936, when Gibson introduced the ES150 model, which Charlie Christian made famous.

With the advent of amplification it became possible to do away with the soundbox altogether. In the late 1930's and early 1940's several actors were experimenting along these lines, and controversy still exists as to whether Les Paul, Leo Fender, Paul Bigsby or O.W. Appleton constructed the very first solid-body guitar. Be that as it may, the solid-body electric guitar was here to stay.

In this lesson, I’m going to help you kick your self-expression up another notch with a technique called the vibrato. Learning vibrato will really help you develop your own sound as a lead guitar player. Look at B.B. King for example. If you hear even just one note with his vibrato, you can tell right away that it’s B.B. King.

Just like a singer has their own natural vibrato with their voice, you’ll need to find and develop your vibrato sound. I believe that the best way to do this is to listen to your favorite guitar players and take note of how they use vibrato. Pull all the best parts from your favorite players and begin to make them your own, continuing to develop your own sound. For me, my favorite players for vibrato are Eric Johnson and Ty Tabor.

There are endless techniques for vibrato, so I’m going to show you the two ways that have worked best for me. Let’s start at the sixth fret of the B string using your pinky. The first technique for vibrato is like bending the guitar string up slightly, but over and over. Just like I showed you in the bending lesson, I have a little pivot between my thumb and my wrist.

The second way I want to show you I actually learned from Eric Johnson. When he does vibrato, he releases his thumb from the back of the guitar neck and uses his entire arm to push up on the string. In the video, you can see when I use this method my whole arm is working on the vibrato.

I honestly use both of these different methods to play vibrato, just depending on how I want the vibrato to sound. Try out both ways, experiment with how you want your vibrato to sound, and find what feels comfortable for you.

Vibrato is a very expressive technique, and there are two different elements of vibrato that you can use to change the mood or vibe of your music. The first element you can change is the speed of your vibrato, keeping it fast or slow to match the mood of your music. In the video, you can see that changing the speed of my vibrato makes a big difference in the overall sound.

The second element that will help you develop your voice with guitar playing is the width of your vibrato. Your vibrato can be narrow and subtle, or very wide across the fretboard. You can choose how wide you play your vibrato depending on the moment, and depending on how you want to sound.

Vibrato is a very personal technique, and there’s no right or wrong sound to it. Experiment with this technique to figure out what works for you and how you want to develop your vibrato. Pull up any of the jam tracks to practice with, and have fun trying it out. Watch the video to see an example of my vibrato to the minor scale jam track.

In this lesson, we’re going to learn an important technique called bending, which helps you express yourself in your guitar playing. We’ll cover two types of basic bends in this lesson, starting with half-step bends and moving on to whole-step bends.

Fair warning though, your fingers are going to be sore after this, just like when you started playing guitar and learning chords. Keep practicing though, because after a few weeks your fingers will be stronger, making bends much easier.

We’ll start with the half-step bend, and let’s stick with the G minor pentatonic scale to practice in this lesson. On the G string, place your third finger on the fifth fret. For a half-bend step, you want to push the string so the note becomes the same pitch as one half-step higher, the same as moving one fret higher up the guitar neck. You can check how you’re doing by playing the note one fret higher and making sure the pitch of your bend is the same.

An unwritten rule when bending strings is to use your available fingers behind the finger you are bending with to help push that string. If you’re holding a note down with your third finger, you can also use your first and second fingers to help bend the string.

Let’s take a closer look at the physical technique of bending. You’ll see that my wrist pivots a little, and my forearm moves a bit with the movement. In the video it looks like I’m slightly twisting my wrist and arm, a movement you’ll want to mimic in your own bends. Be sure to practice bending until it feels more natural, and keep double checking your pitch.

Moving from half-step bends to whole-step bends will feel tougher on your fingers. Put your pinky down on the sixth fret of the B string, and since you’re bending this note a whole-step, it should sound like the note two frets up. Since your pinky is holding the note, you can use your other fingers to help push the B string into a whole-step bend. You’ll notice my thumb has come around to the fretboard, gaining leverage and helping hit the right pitch.

Bending might be more difficult if your fingers aren’t strong enough, but with practice your fingers will become stronger. Now that we’ve seen how bending works, let’s try it out with a few basic licks.

For the first lick, we’ll stick with the minor pentatonic scale and a half-step bend. Start on the G string, put your third finger on the fifth fret, and use your first and second finger to help with the half-step bend. Come back down from the bend and place your first finger on the third fret. Finish this lick on the D string with your third finger on the fifth fret.

Now let’s try a whole-step bend, put your pinky on the B string on the sixth fret and using the rest of your fingers to help with the bend. Hit the third fret with your index finger, move to the G string with your third finger on the fifth fret, and then place your first finger on the third fret. End off this bit with the root note by placing your third finger on the fifth fret of the D string.

Start experimenting with scales you already know, and keep in mind you need to bend up to notes that are in the scale, ensuring the notes will sound good. Here’s some tips for bending with the minor pentatonic scale. On the high E string, if you’re playing the highest note on the sixth fret, you can use a whole-step bend. The note on the sixth fret of the B string can also bend a whole-step. The highest note on the G string, at the fifth fret, can bend a half-step.

Playing the note on the fifth fret of the D string, you can bend a whole-step. Whenever I bend notes from the lowest three strings, I’ll push the strings downwards as there is more room that way. The A string can bend a half-step from the fifth fret, and the low E string can bend a whole-step from the sixth fret.

Pull up the jam track we used for the minor pentatonic scale in the last lesson to work on your bends. Get your fingers in shape, feel free to experiment, and see what sounds good when you play. Listen to my example in the video to see some basic ways to incorporate your bends into a solo.

Penta stands for five, meaning the pentatonic scale is a five-note scale. This scale shape will feel more even as you play it because there are two notes on every string. As we jump into this new scale, remember the universal guitar playing tips I’ve given you in other lessons.

On the low E string, you’ll start with the G root note, which is your second finger on the third fret. Next place your fourth finger down on the fifth fret. You should be pretty comfortable with this since it’s no different from the beginning of the last major scale you learned.

Moving to the A string, put your first finger down on the second fret, and then skip to hitting the fifth fret with your fourth finger. Take some time here to get the first four notes of the scale down, and remember to play the scale both up and down.

Next up is the D string, which is the same pattern you learned with the notes on the A string. First finger on the second fret, and then fourth finger on the fifth fret. Remember that watching out for repeating patterns in your scales will help you learn the scale shapes.

With the G string, start with your first finger on the second fret, and now use your third finger on the fourth fret. Now add these two notes to the rest of the scale to get comfortable with all the notes so far. Remember that you don’t have to get this down during the video – you can take a few days or weeks to get comfortable.

It’s easy to finish up the scale from here, because it ends with another repeating pattern. The B and the high E string are going to follow the same pattern. Play your second finger on the third fret, fourth finger on the fifth fret on the B string, and then repeat those notes on the high E.

As you start to play this scale shape over again, you’ll notice that you need to use your pinky finger a lot. Chances are your pinky finger is not very strong yet, but you have to strengthen it at some point, so now is a great chance to work on it.

What’s awesome about the pentatonic scale is it always sounds good when played over the corresponding major chord. You can hear this in the video when I play this G major pentatonic scale and the major G chord together, it sounds great.

As you become a stronger lead guitar player, you’ll need to learn some muting techniques. Being able to avoid the ringing noise of other strings you didn’t mean to play will help separate you from the average lead guitar player. As I play an example in the video, you can hear the ringing from open strings and it doesn’t sound very clean. There are two ways of muting the strings you’re not playing, and the first we’ll look at today is using your fretting hand.

In the first lesson we talked about good finger posture and coming down on the strings with the tips of your fingers, but this won’t always be the case as a lead guitar player. If the tip of my finger is straight down on the E string, then I will lightly brush up against the A string too. Now if I accidentally strum the A string with my picking hand, the A string will be muted and won’t sound out.

The guitar is a popular musical instrument classified as a string instrument with anywhere from 4 to 18 strings, usually having 6. The sound is projected either acoustically or through electrical amplification (for an acoustic guitar or an electric guitar, respectively). It is typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the right hand while fretting (or pressing against the fret) the strings with the left hand. The guitar is a type of chordophone, traditionally constructed from wood and strung with either gut, nylon or steel strings and distinguished from other chordophones by its construction and tuning. The modern guitar was preceded by the gittern, the vihuela, the four-course Renaissance guitar, and the five-course baroque guitar, all of which contributed to the development of the modern six-string instrument.

There are three main types of modern acoustic guitar: the classical guitar (nylon-string guitar), the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar. The tone of an acoustic guitar is produced by the strings' vibration, amplified by the body of the guitar, which acts as a resonating chamber. The classical guitar is often played as a solo instrument using a comprehensive fingerpicking technique. The term fingerpicking can also refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues, bluegrass, and country guitar playing in the US.

Electric guitars, introduced in the 1930s, use an amplifier that can electronically manipulate and shape the tone. Early amplified guitars employed a hollow body, but a solid body was eventually found more suitable, as it was less prone to feedback. Electric guitars have had a continuing profound influence on popular culture.

The guitar is used in a wide variety of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as a primary instrument in genres such as blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, folk, jazz, jota, mariachi, metal, punk, reggae, rock, soul, and many forms of pop.Classical guitars; also known as Spanish guitars are typically strung with nylon strings, plucked with the fingers, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios, and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone.

In Portugal, the same instrument is often used with steel strings particularly in its role within fado music. The guitar is called viola, or violão in Brazil, where it is often used with an extra seventh string by choro musicians to provide extra bass support.

In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the small requinto to the guitarrón, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by the Spaniard Antonio de Torres Jurado (1817–1892).All three principal types of resonator guitars were invented by the Slovak-American John Dopyera (1893–1988) for the National and Dobro (Dopyera Brothers) companies. Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, but with a body that may be made of brass, nickel-silver, or steel as well as wood, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by one or more aluminum resonator cones mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the loudspeaker. The original purpose of the resonator was to produce a very loud sound; this purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive tone. Resonator guitars may have either one or three resonator cones. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood at the vertex of the cone (Nationals), or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and mounted around the rim of the (inverted) cone (Dobros). Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section—called "square neck" or "Hawaiian"—is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues.Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies; solid bodies produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into signals, which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of magnetic pickups, single- and double-coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, R & B, and rock and roll. The first successful magnetic pickup for a guitar was invented by George Beauchamp, and incorporated into the 1931 Ro-Pat-In (later Rickenbacker) "Frying Pan" lap steel; other manufacturers, notably Gibson, soon began to install pickups in archtop models. After World War II the completely solid-body electric was popularized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard), lighter (thinner) strings, and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to techniques less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals.

The first electric guitarist of note to use a seven-string guitar was jazz guitarist George Van Eps, who was a pioneer of this instrument.[citation needed] Solid body seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar,[citation needed] endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an eight-string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common seven-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12-string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12-string elements in standard six-string playing. In 1982 Uli Jon Roth developed the "Sky Guitar," with a vastly extended number of frets, which was the first guitar to venture into the upper registers of the violin. Roth's seven-string and 33-fret "Mighty Wing" guitar features a six-octave range.

You’ll see that the scale diagram has many dots on it, and some dots are filled in while the rest are not. The dots that are filled in are the root notes for the scale you’re playing. Since the scale we are learning now is the G major scale, these root notes are all G notes. The circles that are not filled in are simply the rest of the notes in the scale.

Inside the circle you’ll see a number, which represents which finger you should play the note with. That brings us back to the designated finger concept, which I mentioned in the first video. This technique means that you will have one finger designated to each fret. With the G major scale, your first finger will play any notes on the second fret, your second finger will play notes on the third fret, and so on.

The major scale has seven notes, but looking at the scale diagram, you’re probably wondering why there are more than seven notes in this scale shape. Essentially, once you’ve played the first seven notes in the scale, you’re going to repeat those notes in a higher octave.

Okay, let’s jump into this scale shape. The first note you’ll play is the lowest note of the scale, the G root note. Play this note with your second finger on the low E string on the third fret. The second note is on the fifth fret, and you’ll play this with your fourth finger.

Now we’ll move to the second string, where your first finger will be on the second fret, then second finger on the third fret, and your fourth finger on the fifth fret. Those are the three notes on the A string. After trying out the first two strings of this scale, you’re already seeing how the designated finger concept kicks in.

Take a moment here to practice the notes on these two strings to get really comfortable with them, and like I did in the video, practice going both up and down the scale.

Now let’s add in the notes from the third string. We’ve got the first finger on the second fret, third finger on the fourth fret, and fourth finger on the fifth fret. Adding in these three notes on the D string completes the seven notes of the first octave, and brings us to the next G root note. First try working on these three notes, and then add them into the rest of the scale.

Moving to the next octave, let’s look at the notes on the fourth string. The G string is easy because the pattern is the same as the D string you just learned. It’s the first finger on the second fret, third finger on the fourth fret, and fourth finger on the fifth fret again. Noticing similarities and patterns like this in scales will make memorizing the scales easier for you as you learn.

Moving on to the fifth string, the B string only has two notes. Second finger on the third fret and fourth finger on the fifth fret. As usual, get comfortable with those two notes and then practice them with the rest of the scale.

We’ll finish the scale with the last string. On the high E string there are three notes. First finger on the second fret, second finger on the third fret, and fourth finger on the fifth fret.

Now that you’ve seen the entire major scale, work on memorizing the scale shape and getting comfortable with the notes. Don’t worry about learning it as quickly as this video because you can take your time to practice the scale as much as you need to.

Something else I want you to realize is this scale is movable. If I take the G major scale shape and move it to another set of root notes, it becomes another scale. For example, if I move up two frets, it becomes an A major scale using the same shape as the G major. Going forward, it will be helpful for you to memorize where the root notes of scales are.

I’ve made a jam track so you can work on this major scale with some real music behind you. Pull up the jam track I’ve given you and start using the track like metronome to get comfortable with your scale shape. Once you’re comfortable, you can start to emphasize the root notes of the scale by starting, ending, or even pausing on the root notes when playing. After you’ve got the scale shape and root notes down, you can start to improvise and make up your your own melodies and solos using the G major scale.
The guitar is a popular musical instrument classified as a string instrument with anywhere from 4 to 18 strings, usually having 6. The sound is projected either acoustically or through electrical amplification (for an acoustic guitar or an electric guitar, respectively). It is typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the right hand while fretting (or pressing against the fret) the strings with the left hand. The guitar is a type of chordophone, traditionally constructed from wood and strung with either gut, nylon or steel strings and distinguished from other chordophones by its construction and tuning. The modern guitar was preceded by the gittern, the vihuela, the four-course Renaissance guitar, and the five-course baroque guitar, all of which contributed to the development of the modern six-string instrument.

There are three main types of modern acoustic guitar: the classical guitar (nylon-string guitar), the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar. The tone of an acoustic guitar is produced by the strings' vibration, amplified by the body of the guitar, which acts as a resonating chamber. The classical guitar is often played as a solo instrument using a comprehensive fingerpicking technique. The term fingerpicking can also refer to a specific tradition of folk, blues, bluegrass, and country guitar playing in the US.

Electric guitars, introduced in the 1930s, use an amplifier that can electronically manipulate and shape the tone. Early amplified guitars employed a hollow body, but a solid body was eventually found more suitable, as it was less prone to feedback. Electric guitars have had a continuing profound influence on popular culture.

The guitar is used in a wide variety of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as a primary instrument in genres such as blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, folk, jazz, jota, mariachi, metal, punk, reggae, rock, soul, and many forms of pop.Classical guitars; also known as Spanish guitars are typically strung with nylon strings, plucked with the fingers, played in a seated position and are used to play a diversity of musical styles including classical music. The classical guitar's wide, flat neck allows the musician to play scales, arpeggios, and certain chord forms more easily and with less adjacent string interference than on other styles of guitar. Flamenco guitars are very similar in construction, but are associated with a more percussive tone.

In Portugal, the same instrument is often used with steel strings particularly in its role within fado music. The guitar is called viola, or violão in Brazil, where it is often used with an extra seventh string by choro musicians to provide extra bass support.

In Mexico, the popular mariachi band includes a range of guitars, from the small requinto to the guitarrón, a guitar larger than a cello, which is tuned in the bass register. In Colombia, the traditional quartet includes a range of instruments too, from the small bandola (sometimes known as the Deleuze-Guattari, for use when traveling or in confined rooms or spaces), to the slightly larger tiple, to the full sized classical guitar. The requinto also appears in other Latin-American countries as a complementary member of the guitar family, with its smaller size and scale, permitting more projection for the playing of single-lined melodies. Modern dimensions of the classical instrument were established by the Spaniard Antonio de Torres Jurado (1817–1892).All three principal types of resonator guitars were invented by the Slovak-American John Dopyera (1893–1988) for the National and Dobro (Dopyera Brothers) companies. Similar to the flat top guitar in appearance, but with a body that may be made of brass, nickel-silver, or steel as well as wood, the sound of the resonator guitar is produced by one or more aluminum resonator cones mounted in the middle of the top. The physical principle of the guitar is therefore similar to the loudspeaker. The original purpose of the resonator was to produce a very loud sound; this purpose has been largely superseded by electrical amplification, but the resonator guitar is still played because of its distinctive tone. Resonator guitars may have either one or three resonator cones. The method of transmitting sound resonance to the cone is either a "biscuit" bridge, made of a small piece of hardwood at the vertex of the cone (Nationals), or a "spider" bridge, made of metal and mounted around the rim of the (inverted) cone (Dobros). Three-cone resonators always use a specialized metal bridge. The type of resonator guitar with a neck with a square cross-section—called "square neck" or "Hawaiian"—is usually played face up, on the lap of the seated player, and often with a metal or glass slide. The round neck resonator guitars are normally played in the same fashion as other guitars, although slides are also often used, especially in blues.Electric guitars can have solid, semi-hollow, or hollow bodies; solid bodies produce little sound without amplification. Electromagnetic pickups convert the vibration of the steel strings into signals, which are fed to an amplifier through a cable or radio transmitter. The sound is frequently modified by other electronic devices or the natural distortion of valves (vacuum tubes) in the amplifier. There are two main types of magnetic pickups, single- and double-coil (or humbucker), each of which can be passive or active. The electric guitar is used extensively in jazz, blues, R & B, and rock and roll. The first successful magnetic pickup for a guitar was invented by George Beauchamp, and incorporated into the 1931 Ro-Pat-In (later Rickenbacker) "Frying Pan" lap steel; other manufacturers, notably Gibson, soon began to install pickups in archtop models. After World War II the completely solid-body electric was popularized by Gibson in collaboration with Les Paul, and independently by Leo Fender of Fender Music. The lower fretboard action (the height of the strings from the fingerboard), lighter (thinner) strings, and its electrical amplification lend the electric guitar to techniques less frequently used on acoustic guitars. These include tapping, extensive use of legato through pull-offs and hammer-ons (also known as slurs), pinch harmonics, volume swells, and use of a tremolo arm or effects pedals.

The first electric guitarist of note to use a seven-string guitar was jazz guitarist George Van Eps, who was a pioneer of this instrument.[citation needed] Solid body seven-strings were popularized in the 1980s and 1990s in part due to the release of the Ibanez Universe guitar,[citation needed] endorsed by Steve Vai. Other artists go a step further, by using an eight-string guitar with two extra low strings. Although the most common seven-string has a low B string, Roger McGuinn (of The Byrds and Rickenbacker) uses an octave G string paired with the regular G string as on a 12-string guitar, allowing him to incorporate chiming 12-string elements in standard six-string playing. In 1982 Uli Jon Roth developed the "Sky Guitar," with a vastly extended number of frets, which was the first guitar to venture into the upper registers of the violin. Roth's seven-string and 33-fret "Mighty Wing" guitar features a six-octave range.

In this lesson about basic guitar picking techniques, we’re going to start with some universal picking tips, downstrokes, and upstrokes. Once you have those mastered, we’ll put them together and try alternate picking.

As a newer guitar or lead guitar player, I recommend starting with a medium, regular shaped pick. Get a feel for that pick first, and then decide if you want to go with a different pick based on your personal preference. I like a thicker pick myself, but experiment to find what works best for you.

The first universal tip I want to give you is to relax. I see many new guitar players tense up because they are focusing so hard on their picking. If you notice yourself tensing up, take a moment to shake it out. Staying relaxed will help you avoid injury and keep your picking efficient.

The next tip to keep in mind is avoid locking your wrist while you pick, otherwise you’ll be picking from your elbow. Playing from your elbow can possibly lead to injury and cause inefficient playing. Be sure to keep your wrist loose and relaxed.

Often, I see new guitar players use big sweeping motions from the elbow when picking, but by focusing on picking from your wrist, you’ll be able to keep your motions nice and small. Pick the string just enough to make a sound. By using efficient motions, your pick will always be right there, ready to play another note.

When gripping your pick, it’s subjective to personal preference. Start by placing your thumb on the pick, and come down on the pick with your finger. Depending on what’s comfortable for you, your fingers may end up being curved in or more straight, but it doesn’t matter as long as your pick grip is comfortable for you.

Picking angle is another area where technique is subjective. Most guitar players angle the pick downward, some use a flat or parallel angle, and I’ve seen some who angle the pick upwards. Play around with different angles to find what works best for you.

Now let’s start practicing the downstroke. Start with the high E string and push down just enough to make the string sound. Keep practicing your downstroke, and don’t forget to practice your downstroke on every string. Each string will feel a bit different, and it may take days, weeks, or even months to feel really comfortable here.

I should also mention here that while practicing your downstrokes, you should figure out where you want to hit the strings. I keep my hand pretty close to the bridge, and I end up hitting the strings right around the middle pickup of my guitar.

As part of your guitar lessons, you’ll need to practice upstrokes. Keeping your wrist loose and remembering to keep your movements small and efficient, pull up on the string just enough to make a sound. Upstrokes will probably take more practice than downstrokes for you to get comfortable with them, and that’s okay. Just be sure to practice on each of the strings.

Once you’re comfortable with both downstrokes and upstrokes, it’s time to combine the two into a technique called alternate picking. That means you’ll follow an ‘up down up down up down’ pattern of picking all the way through. This is where those small efficient motions really become important. Again, practice alternate picking on all six strings because each string feels different.

Practicing these skills with a metronome will help your progress and your overall sense of time. If you don’t have a metronome, there are lots of websites with free apps, or you can use an app on your phone like I do. Don’t start out setting your metronome too fast though. Instead of speed, your first goal should be to make your picking clean and even. A good speed to start with is 70 beats per minutes.

This kind of practice can be tough, but is well worth it. Exercises like these will take you from an average guitar player to a guitar player that people notice because of your skill and timing. I still practice my picking all the time to keep my skills sharp.

This series is perfect for anyone new to playing lead guitar, and great for those already playing lead guitar but are unsure what to practice next.

I’ll show you techniques specific to each hand, and teach you the most important scales. Then we’ll go through specific techniques like legato, hammer-ons, pull-offs, bends, and vibrato. I’ll share tips to make your solos sound awesome, and we’ll even go through your first solo, tying everything in the Lead Guitar Series together.

As a bonus, I’ll be including real music for you to practice with as we go. That will be much better than just practicing with a metronome!

In this lesson we’ll focus on your fretting hand, and the first tip I have for you is to simply relax. If you feel any tension along your shoulders, arms, or hands, shake it out and get comfortable before starting to play again.

Now let’s look at hand posture for playing lead guitar. Pretend you’re holding a baseball in your hand – that’s the easiest way to have good hand posture. Now move your hand to the guitar, put your thumb on the back of the neck, and then place your fingers on the fretboard.

Good basic finger posture is to come down on the strings with the very tip of your finger, the same way you would when you’re making a chord, and be sure to place your fingers right behind the fret so there’s no extra buzzing noise when playing. Keep your thumb along the back of the neck as a starting point, at least until we get into other techniques.

For the scales you learn in this series, we’ll be using the designated finger concept. This means you’ll have a finger dedicated to notes played on a particular fret. If you were playing a G major scale, you would get any notes along the second fret with your first finger, any notes along with third fret with your second finger, and so on.

The last tip is another simple one: keep your fingernails short. When my fingernails grow longer, it’s harder to hold the notes with the tips of my fingers, plus my nails dig into the fretboard.

Keep these basic tips in mind to help you out as we move through the remaining lessons. Now I have to remind you, you probably won’t sound like an all-star lead guitarist as soon you start these lessons. The important thing is to practice consistently, using the real music I supply in each lesson.