Crafting Your Leads

When thinking about taking a lead over a blues - or honestly any kind of form - you need to think beyond the note choices, chord choices, etc. and pre prepared to use all of the tools at your disposal.  Often times players get caught up in “what note to play next” or “what goes with what” and it prevents them from expressing themselves and listening - ESPECIALLY in the blues. 

Here are 5 things that I would like to see you spend time TRYING to develop independently, and then when you star crafting your leads, combine these elements thoughtfully and LISTEN.  Do what YOU think is appropriate based on what you hear in your head.  Take your time, and don’t rush it.  

• Silence Is Golden  (Listen)

Don’t be afraid to leave space - silence - in your leads. In fact, this should be your de-facto position - you’re resting position - not playing.  Think of it like this:  as improvisers, we’re trying to communicate what we think and feel and hear in our own heads / hearts / bodies right?  Do you talk constantly in a conversation with someone?  Hopefully not - because if you are - you aren’t hearing the other person at all and they are tuning you out. We all know people like this.  We all know players like this - that never stop and let it breathe.  

Let it breathe.  Listen.  Only add something valuable - even it it’s one note.  Or her notes :)

• Dynamics

All too frequently we hear players go through their entire lead - sometimes 5 minutes - at the same intensity / volume level.  Again, we’re trying to communicate here.  Do you yell constantly when speaking to a person or a crowd?  Do you whisper the whole time?  Or to you vary your delivery to make points, emphasize emotion, and keep attention?  Dynamic variations are crucial to creating interesting leads that people can follow - like a conversation or a speech. 

• Rhythmic / Attack 

The attack of your picking / strumming hand has arguably the most influence on your overall sound as a guitar player - YET AMAZINGLY - it’s common for players to go through whole solos, tunes, even shows without significantly varying their attack!

The main ways to vary your attack are the speed of your picking, the intensity of your strike (picking velocity), and the actual attack itself (pick straight on, side of pick, fingers, hybrid, etc.)  

Obviously all of these elements create dynamic (volume) and feel variations - as well as - they can be a great vehicle for building and releasing tension in addition to note choices. 

Mess with varying up your attack and don’t be afraid to almost rip the strings off with your fingers or be so delicate with a pick you almost don’t hear anything.  Play super fast on one note… play super slow on a whole scale. Experiment. Improvise. 

• Vibrato

Players have a tendency to always play the same kind of vibrato, regardless of the tune’s feel or tempo.  Or even genre.  This is understandable because vibrato is hard to develop and frankly - it’s not something people spend time developing on purpose… it seems to happen naturally over time. 

While there’s nothing wrong with that, you’ll find that really emotive improvisers constantly vary their vibrato to match the intensity / feel of the tune and achieve their desired effect.  You won’t see them shake the crap out of a note and bend it out of tune on a slow, sensitive, delicate song.   Sure - they might go bananas as a POINT in the tune to have a ridiculous peak - but then they’ll return to the valley because that’s where the song lives. 

Give the song the vibrato approach it calls for, and make it your own with your own fingerprint. 

• Call And Response 

This is a blues improvising staple.  This concept is meant to mimic two or more vocalists singing every other line, phrase, or section.  This is a great technique because if doing this alone, it makes you think conversationally - in terms of sentences, but if you’re doing it with another instrumentalist and you’re trading turns - you get to actually have a conversation!

The call is kind of the question.  Usually it happens more than once because people don’t listen the first time :)  

The response is the answer - which can also be a question of it’s own - and this can go on for as long as you wish.  Try it out! Think like your having a conversation.  

Is there punctuation??

• Building And Releasing Tension

As alluded to above, building and releasing tension is CRUCIAL to crafting a great lead.  Again - I can’t stress this enough - if you want to keep a crowd or a single person’s attention while your speaking - you can’t be monotonous.   You can’t be boring. You have to have tension and release.  You have to have suspense and resolve.  Good guys and bad guys right?  Struggle and success right?  I know I’m getting all heavy on you but that’s what makes great improvisers great:  they take you on a journey - and they have your attention.  Building and releasing tension is the music equivalent of that.  Do it in all of the ways you can, with all of the tools we discussed.  

Think about playing like regular storytelling!