Style Of Blues Vs Rock Lead Playing

I have somewhat of a strange problem. I have been focusing on lead licks and such and becoming fluent in moving between pentatonic boxes. The problem I seem to have is I am stuck in the blues sound. Now don't get me wrong, I love the blues, and I know most rock has blues influences, but it seems like all of my lead improvising and such sounds like the blues and always sounds the same, even when I want it to sound more rock sounding, and even when I try to focus on fitting into the underlying progression. I like to do a lot of repeating patterns and notes, bends and hammer ons, but have not delved into 3 notes per string much. So the question for all of the teachers, pros, etc, is how would you differentiate Blues from Rock sounding leads. My thoughts are that Blues are usually shorter sounding licks. One of my problems is that I am not a fast shredder, and not sure if I will ever be. I do practice speed but have no desire to become a shred player (I'm turning 40 this year) but I do want to be able to play more rock sounding leands. My gut tells me that I need to concetrate on longer patterns and 3 notes per string licks.

Any advice to get me to move toward more rock sounding lead.

Thanks,
Michael

Thanks,

Alternate Picking Arpeggios?

I notice that I seem to alternate pick arpeggios now even though that wasn't my intention. I am by no means a fast picker but have been concentrating on AP for scales and such and now seem to do it on arpeggios as well. But I noticed on the arpeggio lessons that the instructors don't AP these. Am I better off breaking the AP habit right now on these becaue it will hurt me down the road.

Thanks for any advice you can give.

Michael

Just Scored An Awesome Deal On A Peavy Valveking 212 Tube Amp

So I was on another forum, and there was a guy who found a Peavy Valveking 212 all tube Combo amp for $425 online. This is the 100watt all tube amp(The big boy). So he pricematched it at Guitar Center. The reviews on this amp are great and eveybody says its a great deal at the normal street price of $650, but at $425 its a steal.

I wasn't planning on buying a new amp right now, but am kind of sick of all the solid state modeling amp stuff I have(can't get the distortion I want), and was considering a smaller tube amp like the Blackheart(5W) combo which is about $350 with 1 12" speaker. So when I saw this deal, although it is way more power than I need(Don't currently Gig much and when I do I use a modeler pedal direct) it was too good of a deal to pass up(being only a few bucks more than the Blackheart). So I price matched it at Musiciansfriend for $425 with shipping includef(MF normall charges $70 extra to ship the beast)because I like their customer service if anything should go wrong. They gave me a bit of a hard time , but because the internet seller is authorized Peavy, they couldnt deny it due to their pricematch guarantee. The only down side is I couldn't play one myself before buying because I am swamped at work and didn't want to miss this deal, but I 've read every review on this thing and it sounds like a very versitaile amp, has a good clean and can get pretty dirty.

So I got a Valveking Combo 212(100w all tube with 2 12" speakers) coming. Its a beast(about 80lbs), but people say its comparable in sound to a Fender Twin Reverb but it has a knob to switch between A and A/B class and get pretty dirty if you want it to so it can play harder rock, and if you need more distortion, a tubescreamer works well.

So I 'm excited to finally move into the tube realm(Although I know there is more maintenance inviolved- I liked the simplicity of solid state.), but now I can get some real tone. I now have to somehow get it past the wife(maybe I'll keep it at my office for a few months)

If anybody else is interested, here 's the internet ad that you can pricematch somewhere(Or buy from them):

http://www.abesofmaine.com/item.do?item=PVVALVEKING212#top

In my mind this is the best deal I've ever gotten on music equipment(30% off street price)

Michael

New Guitarist Documentary Movie Coming Out

There's a new guitarist documentary movie coming out in Aug that looks interesting:

Here's a trailer:

http://www.trailerspy.com/trailer/4274/It-...et-Loud-Trailer

And here's the official site

http://www.sonyclassics.com/itmightgetloud/

I am a big fan of The Edge so I will definitely be checking it out down the road.

Understanding Vocal Keys

Luciana:
I have a question that I've asked before in other forums and have never received an answer to help me understand better, and I think it is a question that other guitar players would benefit from. I play guitar at my church with a singer who doesn't know what key she sings in, and I am in charge of putting to together the worship songs that we play. We sometimes have this problem where I will show up with a lead sheet that the other musicians and I have practiced, but then she can't sing it in that key, so we scramble to change the key.

So when we talk about higher and lower keys, it really gets confusing. So my first question is, what is the lowest key of music from the perspective of a vocalist. From a guitarist perspective the E is the lowest note on the guitar. I understand the notes keep repeating in different octaves , but sometime she'll say she wants a song in a lower key. If I understand it correctly, it has more to do with the range of a song which can cause a problem for a singer.

Now a piano starts with middle C and goes from there. Is there a key that is considered the lowest universally for musicians, not dependant on the type of instrument being played. Is there a vocal exercise to determine your natural key.

Thanks for your help,

Michael