Originally Posted by: bryanwilson01

I am not sure how to learn/practice timing with lead and fills. How do you learn where to start or where to end?

[p]You have to intentionally plan it at first. Decide how many beats or measures you are going to play a rhythm riff & then a lead fill. Find or make a lick using that amount of beats or measures. Then you gradually find patterns that work & become little mix & match building blocks. Eventually the more you practice those little patterns, the more they become second nature & you don't have to struggle with thinking about every little lick, motion or counting the rhythm. You build a repetoire of licks to play that you can call on instantly.

You can instead just think, "triplet lick in E", start it at the right time & rely on those hours of repetitious practice building muscle memory to take care of the physical motions. Meanwhile you are thinking about the next thing to play.

Learning lead licks & solos in lessons or in songs you like is a great place to look for repertoire building licks. Or you can make you own!

I have a whole series of tutorials aimed at learning this exact idea & skill. Here are the first 3 mostly aimed at beginners. And there are 3 more after that building on those skills!

E Blues Rhythm & Lead Series 1

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=170

E Blues Rhythm & Lead Series 2

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=918

G Blues Rhythm & Lead Series 3

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=1147

And there are a ton of repertoire building licks to learn & practice in time in this collection of tutorials.

https://www.guitartricks.com/collection/Bread-and-Butter-Butter-Blues-Licks

Bottom line: learn licks, practice them in time until they are second nature, have fun!

Hope this helps!