How can I improve my lead guitar playing?

Question

I have been playing guitar since I was 8, I am now 26. I play pretty well but have always had trouble playing really good lead guitar. How can I improve, any method suggestions or tips. I want to be able to play cliffs of dover, that is my goal.

Answer 1

Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. I always play stuff I'm learning really slow until I have it memorized, then work up to the full speed.

Answer 2

I'm 26 and I was playing Cliffs of Dover when I was about 17, never could get the solo though. Same answer as always...practice. For praticing lead guitar, I will usually put on some of my favorite tunes and try to figure out what notes work with the song. Once you have a few notes that work, try stringing them together to start a lead guitar part. If you play like this a lot, it becomes a lot easier to improvise a lead guitar part when you know how things are going to sound, without guessing. If you have trouble at first, start with something easy, like a basic blues tune, Beatles, or another song you know well.

Answer 3

Well I kinda stink at it too >.< But I recorded my own main riff on the computer, then went in and fooled around and tried some stuff until I liked it.

Or usually, a lead sounds good if it stays in the key in which you are playing!

Hope this helps!

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ttyl!

-sirK