Beyond Rhythm and Lead: Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm

I want to talk about the difference between rhythm and lead guitar. A lot of folks want to play rhythm or they want to play lead. I think those distinctions are not very useful. Actually, we can toss them out.

As you advance as a guitar player, you can replace them with new and better frameworks.

First, break the guitar into three different regions of sound: low sounds, sounds in the middle, high sounds.

Another idea: melody, harmony, and rhythm as the three main components of music. Much more important than rhythm versus lead guitar.

You can have a lead line that's really rhythmic. Or you can have a rhythm part that has strong melodic characteristics.

Those two ideas break up this idea of rhythm versus lead guitar. Not that useful. Better to think about the regions of the guitar and how we make sound, as well as making sure that all the things we play have a good rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic component.