Flashy Lead Licks That Will Blow Your Audience Away

Now that we have covered the very basics of lead scales, we can move onto something a little more challenging. Don't worry; we will not be adding anything technically hard to play. Rather, building on the last lesson with a few extra tricks.

The following techniques are not actual leads, but rather "fill ins" for you to use. The best part of it is that they can be moved anywhere on the fretboard and still sound good. They are as follows:

The first technique:

Step 1:
Start off by placing your finger on the 2nd fret of the 3rd string.

Step 2:
Then push down hard, before twisting your finger off again really quickly.

What we are actually doing here is not striking the string with the pick. Rather, we are using one finger to push down on a string, then twist it off again, making the string vibrate from your finger.

This doesn't sound too good if you only do it once. But the secret here is to do it over and over again at faster speed. Try to move your finger up and down on the fretboard to other positions also.

Using one finger to play this technique is a good start. But to really get into the potential, lets get into the second technique.

The second technique:

At this point, we are mainly using the same technique as the first. However, now we are using two fingers instead of one. This technique is illustrated in the following steps.

Step 1 Strike and open 2nd string.
Step 2 Immediately put your index finger on the 3rd fret (your index finger is represented by 2 in the diagram).
Step 3 Quickly take it off the 3rd fret and then put your 4th finger on the 5th fret (your 4th finger is represented by 3 in the diagram).

Once you have done it, do exactly the same thing again really quickly without stopping. At first this may sound a little confusing, but once you get the hang of it, you can use this technique in nearly all of your leads. Again we can move it up and down the fretboard and play it in any spot.

The secret to playing leads is to make it continuous and make it catchy. It is only a simple technique to learn, but when you play it quickly and continuously, it starts to flow. Use this technique in a spot that is in tune with your rhythm.

The third technique:

Step 1 Place one finger high up on the guitar neck as if you are playing a high pitch lead. (Any note will do for now) Step 2 From here, grab your pick. Step 3 Using the pointy end of the pick, HIT the actual string head on as shown in the diagram.

The beauty of this fill in is that it can be moved along the fretboard and still produce the same sound, but a different tune. That's why it makes such a good fill in as it can be played in any note.

Again, do this repeatedly, quickly and fast. Basically we are not striking the string around the body. We are using the pick to hit the strings repeatedly to produce a wicked lead effect that can be used in any song.

A few things to keep in mind when playing these leads are as follows:

	On an acoustic guitar, these techniques are not really played, as the strings are a little harder to twist. Also, it does not produce the best sound.
	Playing these techniques with an electric guitar sounds better. This also gives you the option to add effects onto it as well i.e. Distortion, Reverb or Repeat etc.
	There is also another technique whereby you can fade in and out the volume of your electric guitar slowly. This can be used with the techniques shown above and will be discussed in the next lesson.