Most fluid technique for switching between Rhythm and Lead

Playing Technique
#1

Wondering if anyone has any thoughts here about whether certain motions might be more optimal for switching between rhythm and lead playing. I’m the only guitarist in my band / play as a solo act often, so having the ability to fluidly drop out of a rhythm part into playing a smooth lead line and then jump back in on the beat is very important to me.

I’ve already been thinking it over and have some thoughts but wanted to check in and see what players more experienced than me might think - there are certain things that are only revealed when you’re at speed, right?

My thoughts:
I play Rhythm with elbow + wrist, but elbow as the primary driver. Makes sense to keep an elbow motion in the lead line then. But then eblow naturally leads to DSX, and…

This damn DSX stuff is like suddenly learning to read backwards - all the pentatonics I’m used to playing don’t work anymore. Also, the workaround of starting a phrase on an upstroke doesn’t work for me when I’m using my right hand as a metronome (which is how I prefer to play - keeping it in continuous motion with the beat of the song). Which means I’m left with Odd NPS starts going into Even for my licks. Wonder if anyone has ever made a “DSX” players pentatonic scale diagram?

#2

I think it has to be what Molly Tuttle is doing.

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#3

The late, great @adamprzezdziecki’s DSX pentatonic video is always my go to recommendation for anyone asking about pentatonic ideas from a DSX perspective:

You’ll have to get used to starting on an upstroke which is a bit of pain to begin with, but persevering with it is great for your technique and personally, my DBX always seems to flow better after practicing some DSX pentatonic licks :grinning:

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#4

It’s all in our heads! lol! If you can turn your hand so that your thumb is facing your chest, and bump your fist against your chest to the beat of a song, you’ve got what you need to start on an upstroke. @Scottulus has recently overhauled his picking technique and a big part of it revolves around starting on upstrokes, which I am pretty sure what a relatively new thing for him. He was/is a very experienced player so he’d easily have the excuse of saying it’s too hard because he’s been playing for decades starting on a downstroke. But he emerged victorious

Re: the OP, we were just talking to Bill Hall in another post and he mentioned he has a different setup for rhythm than he does for lead. Batio also does. As mentioned, Molly Tuttle also has 2 totally motions/setups. It’s definitely a great option. I’d say just make sure you design your lines/transitions to give you a beat or 2 for the switch. If this is for a live performance, NO ONE will notice that you dropped a beat of the power chordy stuff to slightly change posture for your blistering lead that you drop in. They’ll just be blown away by awesome the blistering lead was :slight_smile:

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#5

@shadowofthesun I’ll check her interview out.

@Jacklr Yes, I’ve seen him recommended! Thanks.

#6

Nice, helpful visualization. That’s one of the things I like about the CTC folks is there’s always a way of simplifying things to make them seem less complicated, i.e. the table tapping tests. Stuff that proves you can do it so you have no excuses :sob:

Do they demonstrate this in their interviews? that would be gold! Especially seeing it happen mid-song.

#7

Definitely Molly does. This is particularly frustrating to see, especially since she can also sing while she does it lol!

Her DBX is the pronated variety, and that’s actually a really similar setup to (a variety of) elbow DSX. So in theory you should be able to have a rhythm riffing setup. Let’s just say for sake of argument, it’s more supinated with palm muting the “traditional” way. You could then just lock into elbow when the DSX lead stuff comes up and it would be similar to what she’s doing.

#8

Ok that’s really cool :slight_smile:
I also just looked at the bill interview, and I’m confused, as I’m seeing him mostly do wrist stuff, change strings after upstrokes (or downstrokes, but often up.) Was it you who pointed me towards him as a DSX Elbow guy? Am I missing something?

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#9

That was the big surprise lol! He was always posting these awesome videos of shred stuff with an elbow mechanic. Then at the interview Troy found out he does way more than that lol! But there are elbow examples in that interview for sure.

#10

Hmmm I just remembered this

Lots of rhythm/lead switches. He has more motions than I recall too. The face melting one is definitely the elbow, but he’s a great moderate speed motion that has lots of index/thumb motion and probably some wrist in there too.

At any rate, tons of good examples on the different setups in the context of a song.

#11

Just curious, what kind of licks are you having troubles with exactly? Is there any one or two in particular that are giving you grief? I spend quite a bit of time on pentatonic stuff as well…

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#12

Excellent question! It’s much easier to address specific examples than a general question of lead VS rhythm lines.