Lead · Intermediate
Lead Guitar 101
The soloing path. One shape — the A minor pentatonic box — is behind nearly every rock and blues solo ever played. Learn it, get a few licks under your fingers, improvise in it, and finish with an eight-bar solo of your own.
Everything here is a single note at a time, so the app can hear exactly what you play and tell you note by note. Assumes you can already fret a single note and shift your hand up the neck — but no chords required.
What you'll know at the end
- The A minor pentatonic Box 1 — up, down, and any note on demand
- Three licks: a falling phrase, a question-and-answer, and a full-box run
- The ability to improvise freely in the scale
- An eight-bar solo you can play start to finish
What this path deliberately skips
- Bends, slides, and vibrato (the expression is yours — the app grades the notes, not the bend)
- Other scale positions (a Lead 102) and the rest of the CAGED system
- Sweep picking, legato, and tapping
- Playing in time over a backing track (timing grading isn't here yet)
The Box
Learn the one shape every solo is built from — and find any note in it.
The Box, Going Up
The A minor pentatonic box — the one shape every rock and blues solo is built from. Climb it low string to high. It already sounds like lead guitar.
Up and Back
Now come back down. Up the box, then down it — one fluid gesture. Descending takes different muscle memory than climbing, and lead playing needs both.
Name That Box Note
The app names a note from the box — you find it and play it. Licks leap around the box, so you need every note on demand, not just in order.
By the end · You know the A minor pentatonic box — up, down, and any note on demand.
Licks
Turn the scale into phrases — the vocabulary a solo is made of.
The Falling Lick
Your first real phrase: a lick that falls down the box and lands on the root. Not a scale — music.
Question and Answer
A lick with a shape: a rising question, a falling answer. Phrasing is what makes a lead line sing.
The Rip
Rip all the way up the box and land on the high root. The long ascending run every soloist reaches for.
By the end · Three licks under your fingers. Real phrases, not just the scale.
Improvise & Solo
Make something up in the box, then play a full solo start to finish.
Noodle in the Box
No tab now — just improvise. Play any notes you like in the box; the app checks each one is in the A minor pentatonic scale. Make something up. There are no wrong notes here, only off-scale ones.
Eight-Bar Solo
Put it together: the box, the licks, the phrasing — one complete solo. Rise to the peak, come back down, and land on the low root. Your first real lead break.
By the end · You can improvise freely in the box and play an eight-bar solo. You're soloing.
Next: more box shapes and the rest of the neck (Lead 102), or go back and put chords under your lead in Zero to Hero.