The Progressive Guitar Method is a series of books designed to take the guitar student from a beginner level through to a professional standard of playing. All books use carefully graded, lesson-by-lesson methods which assume no prior knowledge on your behalf. Within the series all styles and techniques of guitar playing are covered, including reading music, playing chords and rhythms, lead guitar and fingerpicking patterns.
Progressive Guitar Method: Lead Guitar assumes you have a basic knowledge of playing the guitar. All the preliminary information you require to learn lead guitar can be found in the book Progressive Guitar Method: Book 1 . It is recommended that you learn all the information in this book, as it contains information that all guitarists should know.
Progressive Guitar Method: Lead Guitar will show you:
- The 12 Bar Blues progression, using riffs and variations incorporating quarter, eighth and sixteenth notes and triplets, along with ties, rests, shuffle and syncopated timing.
- Scales and patterns over the entire fretboard so that you can improvise against major, minor and Blues chord progressions in any key. You will be able to play along ("jam") with other musicians.
- Licks and techniques used by all lead guitarists such as hammer-ons, slides, bending, vibrato, pick tremolo, double notes, slurring and right hand tapping.
This book also has special sections on jamming progressions, music notation, scales and notes on the entire fretboard. The best and fastest way to learn is to use this book in conjunction with:
- Buying sheet music and song books of your favorite recording artists and learning to play their songs. It is recommended that lead guitarists buy tab versions of sheet music as these are far more accurate for guitarists than the usual piano versions.
- Practicing and playing with other musicians. You will be surprised how good a basic drums/bass/guitar combination can sound even when playing easy music.
- Learning by listening to your favorite recordings and trying to play the solos of other lead guitarists. To do this, always tune your guitar to concert pitch (see the Electronic Tuner section).
Also in the early stages it is helpful to have the guidance of an experienced teacher. This will also help you keep to a schedule and obtain weekly goals. To help you develop a good sense of timing it is recommended that you always practice with a metronome or drum machine.
