Lead Guitar
Standard Tuning Super Scale

This article is for any guitarist of any sort who wants to figure out how to play lead guitar. It's a super simple approach to getting up and running and always having a decent note under your fingers. Also, it opens up the whole neck and then you're free to expand further and add your own style.

The plan goes like this:

Learn the blues scale template
Learn 3 places to put this template
Fill in the extra notes
Learn how to position the pattern
Bending for acoustic guitarists

1. Blues Scale Template

This is our template pattern from which we'll build. If this is not yet familiar, spend some time getting into blues and becoming comfortable with this basic scale. It's really the easiest way to start playing lead, no matter where you're headed.

2. Up the Neck

Now we're moving this pattern up the neck into two more slots. Firstly, up 5 frets:

And now, up another 2 frets:

At this stage we've got more usable notes, but these new positions don't quite work like the first one does. Just dropping a pattern down somewhere up the neck doesn't tell us how to use it. We need some more notes to fill out the patterns and give them some meaning.

3. Filling in the Gaps

For the starting blues scale pattern, add these extra notes and spend some time noodling about:

Next, the second pattern:

Finally, the third pattern:

So now we have 3 positions on the neck, with simple patterns based on the blues scale. Essentially it is just one big super major scale, nothing tricky there. In positions 2 and 3, it is especially important to use the extra notes. It just takes a bit of trial and error to find phrases that work out. I particularly like the 1 fret steps for building melodies. The first position often works just using the blues scale, but the extra notes help add some sense of melody and move away from the old cliches.

4. Positioning the Pattern

This approach tends to work better at first if you make a deliberate decision to play in one of the three positions at a time. You tend to remember each pattern as a separate thing, instead of blurring them all together which can be confusing.

How do we know where to position this super-scale on the neck ? One approach is trial and error I guess, which is fine if you pre-rehearsing a lead break for a song. And after a while this works out fairly well if you're prepared to hit a few clunkers.

A simple starting point is to try and take one of the obvious minor chords in the song. For example, the common chord progression: C, Am, F, G. In this case, A minor is a good starting point.

Now, find the A on the bottom bass string, which is the 5th fret. (Learning the notes along the bass string is a good idea at this point if you're a bit hazy). Place the first of the three positions at the 5th fret and you're away. Our second pattern is at the 10th fret and the third pattern is at the 12th fret (or in the open position, 0th fret). Go and record yourself playing this progression and then practice these solo patterns over the top.

What if there are no minor chords ? Well, here's a trick to try. Take the most obvious major chord, and then find its note on the bass string. Then start the super-scale 3 frets down from there.

Or, as we often want to play a solo up the neck just jump straight into the 2nd of our 3 patterns. Start this pattern 2 frets above the bass note we found. It might not always work and you need to listen for bad notes and try other things if it's wrong. If it all goes pear shaped, just stick to the blues scale template notes in any of the 3 positions and start looking for the extra notes to get a sense of position.

What if we find the position of the first pattern, and it happens to be the 9th fret ? The other 2 patterns will go way up the neck and be too awkward. In this case you can move patterns 2 and 3 down the neck 12 frets, like this:

Finally, these patterns extend to all 6 strings which is easy enough to figure out should you feel like it. This whole approach to lead guitar isn't meant to be a rigorous technical thing. Quite the opposite, it is just a way of find your feet and having a place to build from without hitting clunkers.

An old classic example is the lead break in Stairway to Heaven. The chord progression here goes roughly: Am, G, F, G Am etc... Where to place our super scale here ? Well, the A minor suggests the 5th fret for position 1, since A is the 5th fret on the bass string. And it works out nicely. Position 2 takes us to the 10th fret, position 3 to the 12th. Note high up on the neck all F's and G's we're hitting on the top string. This fits in with the chord progression. It's not always that simple, but you soon get a feel for it. I have no idea what Jimmy Page actually played but I'm pretty sure he wasn't thinking about scales at the time though.

Keep an ear out for key changes. It's a nice effect when you slide the pattern into a new position to match a key change, particularly if you use those "extra" notes to bring out the melody.

5. Acoustic Guitarists and Lead Guitar

Even the most reclusive solo guitarist will at some stage be thrown into a lead guitar situation. For acoustic guitarists there are some challenges, particularly in choosing which notes to bend, if at all. It's quite difficult to bend a full tone and you might go out of tune anyway, so another idea is to learn which notes can be half-bent just one fret.

This picture shows the good notes for single fret bends in the super-scale, because they pitch up to a note that is also in the scale: