How To Play Creative Lydian Guitar Licks That Sound Amazing

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Here are a few more tips to help you transform your lead guitar playing: 
 

Lead Guitar Soloing Tip #1. Use Rubato

Rubato is a little-known (and simple) lead guitar technique that makes your guitar solos almost as unique to you as your fingerprints.

(Using any guitar scale – not just using Lydian.)

It has nothing to do with playing lead guitar fast.

It has nothing to do with knowing some obscure guitar scale or music theory.

It’s a way to stretch time in your guitar licks (and solos) & “milk” emotional drama from the rhythm of your notes.

What you do is suddenly speed up or slow down, without playing in strict time (or using strict divisions of the beat). 

(That’s why I love using it when soloing in Lydian keys. But it works just as well in any other mode.)

And although it is simple, it’s very hard to do Rubato the same way as someone else.

That’s why, when you get good at Rubato, you may hear others say: “this totally sounds like you” the moment they hear your solos (no matter what guitar scale you use - Lydian or not).


Lead Guitar Soloing Tip #2: Master Your lead Guitar Vibrato. Here is How: 

Vibrato is the heart & soul of great lead guitar playing.

You can breathe life into all your guitar licks simply by improving your vibrato and…

…using it more expressively in your lead guitar solos.

Here are my best lead guitar vibrato tips to make your guitar licks sound better:

1. Use the “thumb-over-the-neck” position for lead guitar vibrato as you’d use for guitar string bends. This gives you maximum control when adding vibrato to your guitar licks.

2. Don’t shake the string from side to side. Instead, bend the string up and down. This is the secret to getting control over your vibrato and getting a real rock lead guitar sound.

The last thing you want is a fast & narrow out-of-control vibrato!

Here are guidelines to remember:

- when you do vibrato fast, it should also be wide (otherwise, the note sounds like a mosquito).

- when you do vibrato slow, it should eb narrow (slow and wide vibrato sounds like slow string bends – not like “vibrato”).

3. Don’t do vibrato with your fingers. Instead, do the motion with the entire arm. The vibrato motion is almost the same as the motion for lead guitar string bends. Only when you do vibrato, you move the string fast. And ideally, your vibrato should also be in time with the beat of the music. 

4. Delay your vibrato

Most lead guitar players do vibrato instantly. That means: they play a note and add vibrato to it right away.

And you can certainly make your lead scale guitar licks sound good by doing this.

The only problem?

There Is more than one way to add vibrato in your guitar licks. And the more of them you know – the better you can express yourself as a lead guitar player.

My 2 favorite vibrato variations are:

- delayed vibrato (where you play a note, let it sustain for a second and then add vibrato).

- delayed vibrato with rearticulation (where you play a note, let it sustain for a second, hit the note again and then add vibrato).

Vibrato with re-articulation is very effective in guitar licks that use string bends. (And it sounds especially good in Lydian guitar licks.)

That’s because you can add maximum emotion to the string bend by re-articulating the note, before adding lead guitar vibrato to it.
 

Lead Guitar Soloing Tip #3: Clean Up Sloppy String Noise. Here Is How:

If you want to play guitar licks with great phrasing, you’ve got to clean up excess string noise from your guitar playing.

There are 2 types of sloppy guitar string noise:

Unwanted guitar string noise from lower (in pitch) strings.

Unwanted guitar string noise from the higher (in pitch) strings.

When you play lead guitar phrasing techniques, the most likely form of string noise will come from the lower strings.

How do you mute it?

Use your picking hand’s thumb. This means:

Rest the thumb on the lower strings and keep it touching the strings at all times.

When you change strings, your thumb should slide up and down the strings – keeping them covered.

Now that you know how to play better guitar licks, it’s time to master all the ins and outs of playing guitar really well.

I'm talking about  transforming the rest of your lead guitar technique, learning how music works, developing your ear, lead guitar phrasing, rhythm playing and more. 

When this happens, you will finally transform your guitar skills to the level you always wished you could reach. 

I can help you get there faster (and without practicing 8 hours per day) in my Breakthrough Guitar Lessons.

They are not some one-size-fits-all cookie-cutter course.

Instead: I create personalized guitar lessons specifically for you to help you transform your guitar playing.

Here is how it works:

First, you’ll fill out a long evaluation from – telling me everything about your musical skill level, guitar playing background, previous lesson experience (if any) and of course…

… your short & long-term musical goals.

From there, I go to work for you. 

I study your evaluation from in detail and I create a lesson plan for reaching your goals, based on what you tell me about yourself.

Next, I design a lesson strategy for you for the next 3-6 months and put together your actual lesson materials. 

Your lesson materials are your actual exercises, drills and etudes that develop your skills and help you reach your goals. 

All you need to do is practice what I tell you. 

And the beauty is:

You don’t need to practice 8 hours per day to become a great guitar player. 

Most of my guitar students practice 30-60 minutes per day. Obviously the more you practice, the better. But even if you practice just 30 minutes per day, you can make a surprising amount of progress.

In between the lessons, I give you a ton of support to help you absorb and practice your lessons.

You can get help and support from me, by: 

• Attending weekly office hours (where you can ask me questions and get help from me live on video). I go live on Zoom every week and make myself available to you and my other students, to answer your questions. 
   
• Attending live classes that I do every month. In these classes, I take the hardest guitar playing topics and break them down to make them easy to understand and master. Plus, it’s another opportunity for you to ask me questions. 
   
• Sending me feedback about each lesson. This way I know exactly how you are progressing and can answer your questions when you are stuck on something.
   
• Sending me recordings of your playing for feedback. This tells me how well you are progressing and shows me what you need the most help on. 
   
• Asking me questions when you get stuck. (You can email me anytime day or night.)
   
• Updating your guitar practice journal on my student forum, so I can see exactly how you are practicing from day to day.
   
• Asking for additional help on the forum from my other top students (many of them are professional guitar teachers whom I trained to teach guitar).

The more items from this list you do, the faster you improve. (That means you need fewer lessons to reach your goals.)

The fewer of these things you do, the slower you improve. (That means you need fewer lessons to reach your goals.)

From all of these things, I can track your progress and adjust your lesson strategy as needed. 

(Note, by the way, that the amount of time you practice is only one tiny piece of the equation).

Not to mention: 

Your goals may very well change over time (this would be totally normal). If and when this happens, I revise your lesson strategy yet again.

That’s why it’s impossible for me to predict an “end” point before we even start working together and I get to know you.

Here are the results you can expect when you apply what I teach you in your guitar playing: