Hello There

It's been some time since my last lesson, on this one I wanted to demonstrate how to go about playing guitar when you are in a 3 piece band. A 3 piece band consists most likely of drums bass and guitar, and lately that has been the configuration of by band MenO for most shows.

Guitar parts have to be busier, more effects help as well, and of course the bass and the drums have to do their part specially when playing lead, if the drum and bass don't fill the gaps, you will feel that the rhythm section is totally gone.

This lesson is precisely about that, first I start off playing the rhythm guitar, but I play some lead lines in between, it is almost like I am playing both, this tune doesn't have any vocals so it would be OK to make it as busy as you want as long as it is musical.

When the solo starts, the rhythm section is handled by the bass and drums only, rhythm guitarist is now lead guitarist and rhythm guitar is gone, it doesn't feel completely empty because the bass has bottom end and there is enough effects on the drums and the guitar, so that it still sounds like a band.

Lets talk about the effects used. In this lesson I went kind of heavy with the distortion, delay and reverb dialed up a bit, for the same reason, I want the guitar to sound huge since I am the only guitar and effects help fill the gaps, however this needs to be done with taste too much distortion, and effects can make the guitar sound muddy.

I used my POD XT pro for this on the Solo 100 preset, but I slightly modified it, added a Tube Screamer Stomp, and dialed the delay to about 250 miliseconds  20% mix, at about 25% feedback.

There is also reverb but that comes from a plugin on the computer recording software.

With all this said, lets dive into the lesson, I'd like to make a note that even though my lead lines might be on the advanced category, or as Kris Dahl has labeled them "Insane" category, the entire thing is done over the very common I IV V progression, so you can just take some of my parts and mix them with your own, try to come up with your own way of filling in the gap left by the absent rhythm guitar player.

Enjoy!!

Jose