I know this question will be slightly off topic but what the hay.

Do you find it better to persue your lead playing after becoming very profficiant at playing rhythm or do you pursue your rhythm style after becoming profficiant at lead playing? Wierd question I know but I would like to hear what the good folks here say.

BTW: I play a 1997 MIA Stratocaster Standard mostly now a days and own a couple other MIA Standards as well, so maybe that can help justify this "non Strat" question being asked here.


hotrod

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This is an important topic for anyone who wants to play with other people, or even to record on their own, and have others listen to it.

Personally i think you need to be proficient at rhythm before you can play lead. You need to have a good understanding of the beat, melody, and harmonies. You need to understand how chord progressions work.

good rhythm work can stand alone. it is the foundation the melody, and the harmonies are built on.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

What he said. + 1000.

Rhythm first but it has to be real rhythm, capturing the mood and feel of the song not just strumming the right chords at the right time. Then learn fills and then melody (lead). Without an understanding of the complexity of the chords of a song and it's feel and how the different parts of the chords walk and move through a song your solos will be off-putting. Wanking is the term. A good rhythm player can contribute so much to a song or to a band. I know lots of guys who concentrate on lead only who would not be welcome to jam with me or the people I know. Concentrate on rhythms, then learn to do fills and the leads you develop from there will enhance the music rather than just being a platform to show off. It has to be about working together rather than using the others for showboating.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

I learned lead first. All I wanted to do was to play lead and play guitar riffs like I heard in Led Zeppelin. I did that until my Dad's band told me that to sit in with them I had to learn chords and how to read chord charts. So I did, but I wasn't a good rhythm player at all. I didn't get into playing rhythm until my guitar teacher forced me to, but I actually found that I enjoyed it every bit as much as playing lead. I really wish I had gotten into rhythm first, because I never realized how it effects your lead playing until fairly recently. So my advise is to keep it balanced. Don't neglect learning rhythm to learn flashy licks that will impress your friends.

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Everything is in harmony!
Rhythm,lead,bass,melody... If you understand harmony and how it all works, you will not need to think about lead. Or speed or anything else for that matter. It just comes to you.

Just listen to Eric Johnson, and you'll know what I mean.

When I began playing as a child, I would play rythem for anyone who would jam with me. Its all I focused on for a couple years to be honest. I got to the point, where I was a bit intimidated with lead playing, and had no intentions of progressing in that direction.
Then, through my teen years, someone taught me the pentatonic scale. That was the start of a whole new journey in my playing. 8 or so years farting around with leads, and scales, and I am starting to to find all the runs between chord transitions, and the fun is really, just beginning!
J

This is true.

Trouble is, so many of us do it the other way around. Which is why there's not enough good rhythm players around.

I speak as one of the guilty...

Cheers - C

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I think your lead playing abillity can only match your rythym playing ability, so sound rythym playing is import even in lead playing.

Learning rhythm and particularly chord building is pretty vital to good melody. If you go at it properly you'll more than likely learn both at the same time. After all you need a basic knowledge of scales to work out chords. Anyway what are you going to do the rest of the time. Imagine someone in a band who cant play rhythm. Just does a bit of a solo then stands there onstage twiddling their thumbs while the rest of the band get on with it.

Why not split your practice time up. 20 minutes scales, 20 minutes chords, 20 minutes lead, for example

Heres the undisputed rhythm guitar master, Mr Wilco Johnson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OzOCGKxbBg&feature=related

Notice that constant right hand, even the little lead fills dont break the rhythm, you could easily think theres another guitarist onstage. Theres not. Then when he hits the solo its like hes playing rhythm in riffs. Very inimitable.

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No no and no

Learning to play rhythm well (Nile Rodgers/Steve Cropper) helps to also hear how dynamics and phrasing can be used to play lead/solos better.

The Fender CS is producing a Nile Rodgers 'Hitmaker' Strat next year. These guys are the unsung heroes in my book who have worked to make everything come together flawlessly on a record.

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I progressed with both at the same time. Playing lead puts you in the spotlight and feeds your ego, and that is fun. But I think you actually have to have more knowledge to play rhythm well. As somebody said above, playing rhythm is more than just chunking chords. It can make or break a song.

Take a song like "Amie" by the Pure Prairie League. There is a lot of nice lead work on the acoustic guitar, but it's the Telecaster working in the background that makes the song.

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i agree also,
rhythm is vital to playing lead especially because a good lead will play using scales appropriate to the chord and chord tones.
easier said than done.
but the adventure is not the destination its the journey. someone said this once, so i cant quote appropriately.

I was taught and stand by, if you are even going to even consider being a lead player, you would have to have mastered being a rhythm player first which also means, cultivating a superior sense of rhythm as part and parcel of this endeavor.

I honestly believe that superior rhythm playing is becoming a dying art. Everyone nowadays wants to do all the flashy solo stuff and are quite familiar with 'altered' scales where blasting through them as fast as they can is somewhat of an expected 'standard'. Yet, when it comes down to it, these "speed demons" usually can't construct a basic chord, couldn't identify a triad if they saw it nor are even capable of keeping a beat for any prolonged period of time. To my way of thinking, this renders one pretty much useless in a band environment unless of course, said person can find others willing to showcase him or her and their limited shtick.

FWIW, popularity is an entirely different issue which I won't even get into here.

Ironically, if you learn the notes on the fingerboard and all the key chords beyond their triads, you've learned the scales without even realizing it to where you don't blindly have to sit there, "finger regurgitating" scale patterns all over the neck. For example, take a basic C chord. Everyone knows (or should know) the triad. Playing (adding) a 6th, a 9th or whatever along with this chord and being able to do it even in just a few inversions are not only movable in terms of key but are advertising on the fingerboard the various scale patterns.

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