By now, perhaps you are coming along well with the exercises. But you may wonder how on earth do you apply technique to soloing? This is a difficult question and is similar to the equally difficult question, "How do you play lead"? There are no strict answers to these types of questions. Some people prefer to learn a handful of riffs, and then their playing becomes dominated by their riffs. I prefer to view solos like vocal sections. Whether it is a solo, or a melody, I feel that something is always being communicated, and what better way to communicate than treating your guitar like a voice. So when I write solos, they usually are inspired by a melody and are dominated by the melody. A solo may have several main parts, and technique comes into the picture when I try to connect the parts meaningfully.

The exercises that follow show riffs from a few songs I recorded (some in dire need of a re-recording!). In the included audio files, you will notice that you don't hear the riff until several seconds after you start playing the file. I did this so that you can hear the musical context of the riff (i.e. what led up to it).

As I have said before, I have a strong affinity for using wide intervals in my playing. I find them to be amongst the most harmonically interesting sounding lead lines. Especially when played nice and smoothly with legato.

As I said above, licks of this sort really shine when executed with smooth, fluid legato style. They also shine when played at a relaxed speed so that you can really appreciate the harmonic movement. Don't pay too close attention to the timing I indicate in the tab. The tempo is correct, but being the horrible transcriber I am (pretty sad that I can't transcribe my own music, huh?), it was tough for me to capture the feel of the lick. It is fairly close though. Of course, this lesson section is not about note-for-note playing of licks - it is about ideas. So walk away from this one with an appreciation of smooth legato and intervals!