i know this has probably been discussed countless amounts of times, but lately i have been trying to write my own music. im ok with riffs and what not, but when i comes to leads, i suck.

how do you write leads? i know thats kind of a stupid question, but all the solos i write have no structure and sound random. what do i need to do to give my solos direction and a general structure?

anyways, i hope you can help me out, any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks alot
User01

First of all what kind of shit do you write? If it's like Slayer then it tends to be okay to sound random. Otherwise let's just use like Maiden for example. Have down natural minor and minor pentatonic scales down for now, and learn how to phrase them into the songs accordingly. Don't be trying to play as many notes as you can, you have to make the licks and bends and such, fit into the backround rhythm and such.

Learn to harmonize. The first basic shit you can do is just play around with the notes in whatever key your rythm guitar is in playing them an octave higher or something, you should be able to do that without practicing anything, just loop any simple riffs and get the feel of playing over stuff.

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Well, I would just start improvising and building up a style and so on, and getting an intuitive feel for leadwork. That's how I've done it... I think... In act, it was only about a week or two ago I started bothering on leadwork.

A good point for leadwork, at least for me is Cynic. If you look at their tabs, you'll notice the leads tend to be quite messy-looking, and the rhythms tend to revolve around the leads, at least in Veil Of Maya. But they are also very organic and sound complete, like the guitars are singing.

Style is important. Mine personally consists of lots of tapping, but not your triplet-semiquaver-pull-off rubbish. Then lots of scale work, using pitch axis to create different melodic angles. I often refer to the wholetone scale a lot, especially to throw accidentals into a melodic minor line.

Anyway, it's not coming over night. And remember to right over your riffs well, instead of just throwing a line down for the hell of it. It's no wonder metal gets tons of crits about it's solos and their arrangement these days.

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Learn a couple scalar patterns and try to work em into your riffs. I'll take a Em riff and tool with the Em natural scale and eventually find a pattern or grouping of notes that sound well with it. It's all about experimentation.

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Probably the easy way to get the hang of it, is just get like any basic riff in e minor, then noodle around on the pentatonic position on the 12th fret. From there, you can get your phrasing and melodies down, then you can move around the neck afterwards.

Leads should ideally be like songs within the song they are in. Don't confuse improvising with writing a lead, because they're two totally different things.
Writing a lead implies that you will have to memorize the lead to play it later. So, simply put (and the way that I do it), figure out what you want to hear that sounds good by "playing" the song in your head away from the guitar and trying to imagine a lead over it you'd like to hear yourself play. Then write it out (part by part if you have to) and learn it later. Having something to record the rhythm tracks under it for play back later anytime will help you greatly. You really don't need to know any scales or melodic sequences for writing leads (although it certainly does help), all you need to do is figure out what you want to hear over the rest of the band.

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