Help when playing lead
I hope I ask my question correctly for suggestions. I may have to amend after some responses.
I play a blues in A solo, that would sound great when playing along with a rhythm player. It’s in 4/4 time and of course a melody note is not played on every beat or off beat. In order to complete my lead measures do I need to count in order to finish the 12 bars when the rhythm player finishes as well as play correct notes with each rhythm player bars. This is hard for me. Thanks in advance. Terryd913 |
Edited by member.
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You may need to count at first, but after a session or two the twelve-bar blues becomes ingrained, and you'll know right when the transition is coming up.
Best way to learn would probably be to practice the rhythm part first in a simple key such as E. You might even want to play the rhythm with a looper so that you can then play lead with yourself. |
Blues and soloing in general is very much about playing phrases/melodies rather than a collection of “correct” notes (if I understand your question). Blues, with commonly 3 four bar phrases, is a great vehicle to get into this - eg. make up one little tune or riff with your available “correct” notes, repeat it 4 bars later (count if you don’t simply hear it yet) and play a similar line to round it all off in the last four bars.
You don’t need to fill up all the bars with soloing - leave a decent space after each of your melodic lines. Often less is better. Hope I was on the right track for you there. |
I would suggest that this will become clearer when you sit down and play it with another player (rhythm). The way I would approach it would be to let the rhythm player start and then join in with my lead. However, staring with the lead and letting the rhythm player find his spot would work also. For most of the players I’ve played with, we play by ear, rather than from sheets or rigid counting.
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I have a few straightforward suggestions that should help.
1) Listen to a lot of the greats like Albert King, Freddy King, BB King, Elmore James, and Robert Johnson. These guys played in a way that is easier to follow and understand for beginners than more modern and flashy players like Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimi Hendrix. 2) Play a lot of rhythm. Tons of it. Play rhythm until the changes become second nature and you can easily hear the chord changes at any time, regardless of whether you even have an instrument in your hands, regardless of whether you have anyone else playing along with you. You need to ingrain the changes. You need to be able to hear and anticipate everything. 3) Start simple. Play super simple two or three note lines that lead into the chord changes and then a simple turnaround at the end. If you are looking for YouTube videos, perhaps do a search for lead lines and do another for blues turnarounds. I guarantee they mention Robert Johnson when they talk about turnarounds. |
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Adyrondak
I have 12 bar blues internalized quite well. Still, you might have given me a clue(s). Maybe it won’t be as hard as I think if I play with someone playing rhythm or play to a recording. The other is I may be overly concerned about hitting melody notes on the right count. As long as I play those notes in the right measure what difference does it make if I played on a down count or an up count. Does that make sense?
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One thing that helped me was playing with a metronome. I couldn't tap my foot with the beat while playing simultaenously at first and having the metronome with visuals accents really helped. Then I slowly started incorporating tapping my foot measure by measure until I could do it. Start at 60bpm, play leads in whole, quarter, eights and eventually sixteenths notes. When you can do all of it, then go up 5-10bpm faster. Take your time and don't rush. Pick a song, band-mate or backing track that plays around the BPM you're comfortable with and practice you're whole, quarter, eights and sixteenths runs. I guess you can practice your phrasing this way too |
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Melody notes that come on downbeats, especially ones that are also on the 1st beat of a measure/chord change, tend to have a solid character. However, hitting EVERYTHING on a downbeat can end up sounding too simplistic. We all like a little surprise and upbeats can do that. Good lead players will mix it up and throw in a curveball once in awhile. More important than hitting an upbeat or a downbeat is rhythmic confidence. You should strive to make most of your notes land solidly, whether down or up. When I have helped folks with this, I see some play a 15 note phrase where only 2 or 3 notes are landing on any rhythmic boundary. I first get them to reduce it to 3 notes and MASTER the placement. Only at that point do I get them to add more notes. |
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