The Importance of Beat in Playing Lead

Until a couple of days ago, it was impossible for me to play very fast. I could pick fast, I could fret fast, but couldn't do the both of them together. It would fall apart. The two parts would get out of sync. Take for example, the Fear Of The Dark riff-



The 107 bpm was unmanageable for me. I could do it maybe when I was 'in the zone', but not regularly. It was like one hand would move faster than the other and it would all get messed up.

The solution IS to use a metronome, but I've never been such a metronome person. I use it to practice scales, but not songs. So, to better synchronize my left and right hand while playing fast, I figured I could headbang. No, seriously. It's just like tapping a foot. On the beat, you move your head forward. Just like those bass player types.

When you play rhythm guitar, it's mostly the right hand which has to use the beat and provide the rhythm. On the other hand, when playing lead, the left hand fingers move just as rapidly (sometimes must faster) than the right hand. So, synchronizing the two movements is a lot more important in lead playing. The only way to do this is to use an external beat.

With a beat, what happens is, your playing gets broken down into tiny fragments, each of which lies between two beats. Any mistake that you make will be limited to one fragment. The very next beat, you get synchronized again. This is in stead of playing the whole lead as one piece or a set of large pieces. If you make one mistake, that mistake will carry over to the rest of the lead.

I've been practicing headbanging to keep time for the last 2 days, and it works great. I can totally play the Fear Of The Dark riff at 107 bpm and beyond. 107 bpm translates to 428 notes per minute. I have never been able to do that before. I've tried the same technique in other places, like the triplets in the Fade To Black solo, also giving the same results.

So, that's how I learned how important a steady beat is in fast lead playing.